Master Document and Master template

English
#1

I am still having trouble understanding and using the subject features. I am producing a book. In the book are multiple chapters. I have developed a template for a chapter that I want to use as the template for all other parts of the book and saved the style sheet as a master template. When I try to apply the master template to a different chapter by “Loading Styles from Template” I get different results when applying the styles to different parts of the text. Some things work and some do not. When I import the template, I have the “overwrite” option checked.

The second question: The front matter in a book requires different formatting. I have applied special styles to those pages. Should these styles be a part of the master template or exist by themselves within a master document?

The setup for a document is straight forward, the setup for a book is not so straight forward. If you could explain the steps for the creation of various documents with differing style requirements within a master document it would be helpful.

#2

Have a look at:

Master documents in Writer

English documentation

Depending on the size of the book (approx. up to 1000 pages), you could also create it directly in a single document.

#3

There is first a matter of vocabulary.

You “developed a template for a chapter”: do you mean you have created an .ott file (technically a Writer template file)? Or have you designed an ordinary .odt document you intend to use as a base for all your chapters, i.e. containing some skeletal text and styles?

How do you “apply” this template? Usually, with a registered .ott, you only need to File>New>Templates so that your new document is linked to the template. Any modification done on template styles are forwarded if you accept it when opening next your document. There no longer any procedure with Load Styles from Template.

You also talk about a “master”. Is this an .odm file? If your book counts less than ~1000 pages with no images or tables, there is no point nor benefit to go for master+sub-documents. Keep your life simple. Stuff your front matter, chapters and the rest into a single file. Put all nbeeded styles in the same template. With semantic styling method, styles names hint a their significance (not their visual appearance). Consequently, you should have no conflict between the styles for the front matter, TOC, chapters et al..

Last, if applying styles don’t give consistent results, you have direct formatting in your chapters. When creating an elaborate book, adopting a methodical styling approach is crucial. Direct formatting is a speedway to nightmare. Use styles and exclusively styles. The main problem is Word conditioned the majority of us and, alas, completely lacks rock-solid method of styling because it has no character, page, frame and list styles, thus forcing direct formatting use. Drop Word habits and learn the Writer-way to layout and formatting.

PS: edit your question to mention OS name, LO version and save format.

#4

Using Win11, LO 24.2.4.2 Save format .odt

I don’t use any direct formatting, only styles. The particular volume I am working on will be less than 1000 pages. We can discuss the larger volumes when I get to them. Based on my understanding of your recommendation, I will proceed with a single document and apply the styles as required. I shall cut and paste (unformatted) other documents already completed into the one document. and apply a common set of styles throughout. I will want to re-use this template for other Volumes. What do I save it as? I will eliminate all .odm files associated with the volumes in favour of your approach. Any other suggestions?

#5

The way to reuse your “template” is to store your skeletal contents and the styles (modified built-ins and custom user styles) into an .ott file (this is technically a Writer template). Register this template with Writer (LO) by going to File>Templates>Manage Templates (you also have a Save as Template entry in this menu). Once this is registered, creating new documents based on it is very easy: File>New>Templates.

Associating existing document with your .ott requires you install the Template Changer extension. Description in the extensions site says it is compatible with 5.0, but it still works with 24.2.x. With it you can “rebase” your documents on your template so that they will also automatically update when you modify your template.

There are some very inconspicuous forms of direct formatting. You can never swear you have none. I am still caught by nasty occurrences though I consider myself as an expert in styling.

#6

There is the question of endnotes. In the first instance, I don’t believe there is a way to copy and paste a documents contents along with the endnotes - your comment? I have endnotes at the end of specific segments (like a section). How do I add the endnotes to a section?

#7

Pasting “standard” keeps ancillary data from the copy operation. Paste Unformatted drops it. It’s up to you to decide if paste unformatted (and the tedious consequence yo copy notes one by one) is “safer” than a normal paste.

#8

For each chapter I have a photo, caption, and chapter title on a right page. How would you style this particular page?

#9

You can create a new page template derived from “Right page”.
Then change the margins to 0.00 cm, for example, and ignore the subsequent message.
Give the new page the name “Chapter”, for example.
At the end of a chapter, make a manual page break and enter the page style “Chapter” in the dialog. Do the same on the page that has the page style “Chapter” and select “Left page” as the page style, for example. Now you can insert your image on the blank page for Chapter.
Make sure that the image has the aspect ratio for your page. If necessary, edit your image in an image editing program beforehand. To insert the image, place the cursor on the page with “Chapter”. Select Format > Page style in the menu.
In the Page style dialog, click on the Background tab and on the Image button. At the bottom left of the dialog, click on “Add / Import”. Select the desired image in the file manager and click on Open. The Name dialog appears, you can leave the name as it is or change it and click OK. Under Options|Style in the dialog, select “Stretched” from the list and then OK. Your image should now be placed on the page.
If you insert full-page images in the background, you need a separate Page style for each chapter (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.)

If you insert and label images directly, a single chaper Page style is sufficient.

English documentation

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