Complex page styles for book layout

users
#1

Hi guys,

I am trying to set up a template for a book, but I am struggling to find a
way to set up the page styles to make them conform to the publisher's style
sheet. Here is what they are asking for:

Preface or Acknowledgements or Dedication begins on page v. Contents begins
on page v if there is no preface, etc., otherwise on the next right-hand
page
Main text (Chapter 1) begins on page 1
All left-hand pages have even numbers
All right-hand pages have odd numbers
In an authored work, begin each new chapter on a new page (right- or left-
hand).
...
Please make sure that neither a running head nor a page number is printed on
the first page of the Preface, Contents, Appendix, Notes, References, Index,
or on the opening page of a new chapter or article.
Place the page numbers at the outer margin, to the left or right.

The main body of the text is ok: you just us the Left page / Right page
styles and everything works fine. I created a new style 'Prefatory' to deal
with the different page numbering system in the preface and made 'Prefatory
left' and 'Prefatory right' to make them alternative between headings. Then
the problems start:

I can make a style 'First Page' for the first page of each chapter which
does not have a header. However, you have to specify a 'Next style' in
Modify... > Organiser > Next Style and in my case this style is Left Page
when the First Page is a right page and right page when it is the other way
around. LibreOffice appears to enforce this next style and you can't
override it manually. In other words, if I have a nice left page / right
page thing going, and I change one left page into 'First Page', the next
style will automatically change to left page and my page numbering goes
horribly wrong. It is also impossible to have chapters of just one page
because it is impossible to have two First Pages following each other. Is
there a way to overrride this?

In other words, I need to find a way to create a stylesheet that:

has two different page numbering systems, one with Roman and one with Arabic
numerals, with different styles for left and right pages
allows the first page of each chapter to have no header at all
allows that first page to occur on a left and a right page
allows for one-page chapters

Ideally, I'd like to accomplish all this in a reasonably elegant way,
without splitting up all my styles into substyles. Anybody knows how that
would work?

Thanks

Rik

#2

Please see chapters 6 and 7 of the Writer Guide, which have some
examples that should steer you in the right direction. One of the
secrets is to choose the appropriate "next page" style to be applied
automaticly for each page style.

You can get those chapters here:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/

--Jean

#3

Hi :slight_smile:

Are you producing a book or something really long with a professional finish?
Have you considered using Desk Top Publishing programs such as Scribus? There
are several LaTex programs but apparently LaTex is tricky to use. There might
be other OpenSource programs that are more suitable for DTP.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

Tom, for what he wants, LibreOffice can do a fine job. I use it to
publish books similar to what he's describing all the time.

Please don't put people off our product unless it truly can't do the job
required. You're doing them a disservice by suggesting it can't.

--Jean

#5

I'll expand upon my previous answer. Don't use Left Page/Right Page if
the only difference is that margins are mirrored and the info in headers
and/or footers is different. Use a mirrored page style instead. Then the
lefts and rights will take care of themselves when they follow a first
page style. You can set the First Page style to be "left and right" (it
defaults to right only).

--Jean

#6

________________________________
From: Jean Hollis Weber <jeanweber@gmail.com>
To: users@libreoffice.org
Sent: Fri, 13 May, 2011 9:53:27
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Complex page styles for book layout

On Thu, 2011-05-12 at 20:53 -0700, rdb wrote:

Hi guys,

I am trying to set up a template for a book, but I am struggling to find a
way to set up the page styles to make them conform to the publisher's style
sheet. Here is what they are asking for:

<snip> ... </snip>

has two different page numbering systems, one with Roman and one with Arabic
numerals, with different styles for left and right pages
allows the first page of each chapter to have no header at all
allows that first page to occur on a left and a right page
allows for one-page chapters

Ideally, I'd like to accomplish all this in a reasonably elegant way,
without splitting up all my styles into substyles. Anybody knows how that
would work?

I'll expand upon my previous answer. Don't use Left Page/Right Page if
the only difference is that margins are mirrored and the info in headers
and/or footers is different. Use a mirrored page style instead. Then the
lefts and rights will take care of themselves when they follow a first
page style. You can set the First Page style to be "left and right" (it
defaults to right only).

Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Sorry! My bad. I didn't realise LibreOffice could do all the stuff that was
required. At work they are trying to use Word in a very inelegant way to
produce a newsletter. With only 16pages and only a small handful of pictures
the machines grinds to a very wobbly almost halt. They have been talking about
buying a DTP to do the work (even tho there are better OpenSource
alternatives). So, if the problem is likely to be their inelegance and if LO
might be able to do the job better than they manage in Word then it would be
great for me to explore the option.
Apols, thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#7

The requirements for a newsletter are usually different from those for a
book, as a newsletter typically has more complex layout. Depending on
what they want to do, they might in fact be better off with MS
Publisher. LibO can almost surely do what they want, and is not greatly
different from Word (which can also do what they want), but whether the
people involved can learn how to use LO any better than they use Word is
another matter.

For newsletters, usually what you want is a combination of sections
(with columns) and frames in Writer. They are not difficult once you
grasp the basic concepts, but a lot of people just never get to that
stage. There is a lot of relevant info in Chapter 4, Formatting Pages,
of the Writer Guide, but turning that info into action isn't easy at
first. A tutorial on doing newsletters is on my "to do if I had the
time" list.

And for some newsletters, Impress or Draw may work better, or so I'm
told. I've never used them for that purpose, so I can't say from
experience.

--Jean

#8

You might also find Chapter 4, Design Your Book Using Writer's Styles,
in my book "Self-publishing using OpenOffice 3 Writer" useful. It takes
you through the steps in setting up the styles you need. A free PDF is
available here: http://www.taming-openoffice-org.com/newsite/?page_id=36
(look for the "Downloadable eBook" link). Although it was written for
OOo, the steps are the same for LibO.

--Jean

#9

Here are links to two manuscript templates. They may help you with your own page format.

http://templates.services.openoffice.org/en/node/3077

http://templates.services.openoffice.org/en/node/5009

For what it is worth, I know of one author that has used OpenOffice.org for over 10 years to write 3 to 4 books a year. He started with StarOffice and later moved to Linux and OpenOffice since he found it easier to setup a non-QWERTY keyboard that works better for him. It was his stating this in one of his author's notes that got me to try OOo during its 1.x days. I would bet that he will be looking at LibreOffice as a replacement soon.

So if one of the top fantasy authors can use OOo/LibrO to write 3 or 4 novels a year, it should work for most people.
As for doing Newsletters and Magazine layouts, I know that it can be done with LibreOffice, but I rarely do this any more, so I keep forgetting how to do this.

#10

Have you considered using Desk Top Publishing programs such as Scribus?

How much time have you spent looking at the manuscript requirements that
publishers and printers have?

For math, and related fields, the standard format is TeX.

For virtually everything else, you are looking at either an MS Word
Document, or a PDF produced by Adobe.

FLOSS solutions have a really poor reputation in the publishing world.
The few outfits that accept them, do so with extreme reluctance.

The real irony is that when FLOSS solutions are correctly used, and can
be correctly exported to the file format that the printer or publisher
requires, the results are usually better than when the tool chain
suggested/required by the printer or publisher is used.

Jean wrote:

for what he wants, LibreOffice can do a fine job.

The requirements, as described by the OP, are trivial to meet using
LibO. However, are the requirements described by the OP identical to
the specifications laid out by the publisher, or printer?

jonathon
- --
If Bing copied Google, there wouldn't be anything new worth requesting.

If Bing did not copy Google, there wouldn't be anything relevant worth
requesting.

                              DaveJakeman 20110207 Groklaw.

#11

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Have you considered using Desk Top Publishing programs such as Scribus?

The trouble with Scribus is you can get the software for free, but it costs you to get the documentation for it, or at least it was that way the last time I looked.

How much time have you spent looking at the manuscript requirements that
publishers and printers have?

For math, and related fields, the standard format is TeX.

For virtually everything else, you are looking at either an MS Word
Document, or a PDF produced by Adobe.

Well, LibreOffice can certainly save the work in Word .doc or Adobe .pdf file formats.

If you need to have it in TeX format, there are Writer2LaTeX extensions for OOo/LibrO available.

FLOSS solutions have a really poor reputation in the publishing world.
The few outfits that accept them, do so with extreme reluctance.

The real irony is that when FLOSS solutions are correctly used, and can
be correctly exported to the file format that the printer or publisher
requires, the results are usually better than when the tool chain
suggested/required by the printer or publisher is used.

Jean wrote:

for what he wants, LibreOffice can do a fine job.

The requirements, as described by the OP, are trivial to meet using
LibO. However, are the requirements described by the OP identical to
the specifications laid out by the publisher, or printer?

Well if you are going to deal with a publisher, you ask them what format they want the manuscripts in.

If you are talking about printers, you will need to find out what they require.

If you are going to use print-on-demand printing services, Lulu.com has templates for the different book/page sizes that they print.

It should be very easy to find out what format is needed for the publisher or printer service.

LibreOffice should have to difficulties to do them.

Here are templates from Lulu.com Pocket Book is the size of a normal Paperback book.
http://www.lulu.com/publish/books/?cid=nav_bks

#12

Hi

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> Have you considered using Desk Top Publishing programs such as Scribus?

How much time have you spent looking at the manuscript requirements that
publishers and printers have?

For math, and related fields, the standard format is TeX.

For virtually everything else, you are looking at either an MS Word
Document, or a PDF produced by Adobe.

FLOSS solutions have a really poor reputation in the publishing world.
The few outfits that accept them, do so with extreme reluctance.

The real irony is that when FLOSS solutions are correctly used, and can
be correctly exported to the file format that the printer or publisher
requires, the results are usually better than when the tool chain
suggested/required by the printer or publisher is used.

Jean wrote:

>for what he wants, LibreOffice can do a fine job.

The requirements, as described by the OP, are trivial to meet using
LibO. However, are the requirements described by the OP identical to
the specifications laid out by the publisher, or printer?

jonathon
- --
If Bing copied Google, there wouldn't be anything new worth requesting.

If Bing did not copy Google, there wouldn't be anything relevant worth
requesting.

                              DaveJakeman 20110207 Groklaw.
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I can see the requirement for using specific formats. Do publishers
really care what program was actually used to create it? I would assume
they would not care as long as they get something in the appropriate
format. The problem is publishers have standardized on two proprietary
formats not on an open document format. My guess is their other software
properly handle DOC and PDF correctly but not ODT.

I have to sometimes submit MS Word format to people and what I do is
save the document as both DOC and ODT. I use ODT as the primary and save
to DOC when I need to submit it. A few people actually know I am not
using Word but LO because they know my primary OS is Linux and they have
never reported a problem.

#13

Do publishers really care what program was actually used to create it?

Yes.

I would assume they would not care as long as they get something in the appropriate format.

"Appropriate Format" usually includes some minor specification that is
only found in the specific program that is recommended/suggested/required.

jonathon
- --
If Bing copied Google, there wouldn't be anything new worth requesting.

If Bing did not copy Google, there wouldn't be anything relevant worth
requesting.

                              DaveJakeman 20110207 Groklaw.

#14

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Do publishers really care what program was actually used to create it?

Yes.

I would assume they would not care as long as they get something in the appropriate format.

OK I sent a message to my wife's old college roommate who does book editing, from time to time. Since she is a professional editor [and artist], maybe she will be able to give me a clear answer on what format[s] publishers would like to see manuscripts in.

Hopefully she will give me an answer soon.

#15

I'm an also editor and a writer who has worked with some of the book and
journal publishers. In my experience, it depends entirely on the
publisher. Some (particularly those doing technical books) are likely to
want specific formatting, or the use of particular programs to produce
files, as jonathan described.

Other publishers want PDFs or Word documents done in a particular
layout.

Other publishers want authors to provide Word documents with NO
formatting at all, or minimal formatting, because they will do all the
page layout themselves. For those publishers, the first thing an editor
does is strip out all the formatting the author has put in.

Then there are printers who deal with PDFs. Some (such as Lightning
Source) demand that the PDFs be produced using Adobe Acrobat because
they have found that their digital printers don't handle well some PDFs
produced by other programs... and troubleshooting those problem PDFs is
too time-consuming and expensive.

So as jonathan says, it's very important to find out what the
requirements of a particular publisher or printer may be. Most of them
will tell you, usually in the instructions to authors (or publishers in
the case of printers).

--Jean
Jean Hollis Weber

#16

Wow, a lot of feedback for one weekend. Thanks everybody.

Jean: "I'll expand upon my previous answer. Don't use Left Page/Right Page
if
the only difference is that margins are mirrored and the info in headers
and/or footers is different. Use a mirrored page style instead. Then the
lefts and rights will take care of themselves when they follow a first
page style. You can set the First Page style to be "left and right" (it
defaults to right only)."

Thanks Jean. Who would have thought it was so simple! That's exactly what I
was looking for.

#17

________________________________
From: rdb <rdbusser@gmail.com>
To: users@libreoffice.org
Sent: Mon, 16 May, 2011 6:41:09
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Complex page styles for book layout

Wow, a lot of feedback for one weekend. Thanks everybody.

Jean: "I'll expand upon my previous answer. Don't use Left Page/Right Page
if
the only difference is that margins are mirrored and the info in headers
and/or footers is different. Use a mirrored page style instead. Then the
lefts and rights will take care of themselves when they follow a first
page style. You can set the First Page style to be "left and right" (it
defaults to right only)."

Thanks Jean. Who would have thought it was so simple! That's exactly what I
was looking for.

<snip> ... </snip>

Krackedpress: "Well, LibreOffice can certainly save the work in Word .doc or
Adobe .pdf
file formats."

Jay: "I have to sometimes submit MS Word format to people and what I do is
save the document as both DOC and ODT. I use ODT as the primary and save
to DOC when I need to submit it. A few people actually know I am not
using Word but LO because they know my primary OS is Linux and they have
never reported a problem."

I assumed that outputting to .doc is not without its problems, especially if
your document contains complicated tables. I've had all kinds of problems
importing Word into LibreOffice, and I assumed it would be the same the
other way around.

Rik

<solved>

Hi :slight_smile:
I think that there tends to be a lot less trouble converting the other way
around, ie from odt to doc or from ods to xls. There are still a few
differences sometimes & i would guess that tables are one of the areas to expect
a little hassle with. So, Jean's answer seems best for this case.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: