Empty spaces in master documents...

users
#1

So sorry no one responded;

          but maybe no one knew what you were asking -
         I for one am not sure what you're asking, but will make an attempt
to answer,

       what are these blanks you're seeing? - could these have been placed
there by the author for a set purpose?,
          sometimes this is done to distinguish parts from another -
although other methods are usually better.

       See further response intermixed below -

#2

        So sorry no one responded;
           but maybe no one knew what you were asking -
          I for one am not sure what you're asking, but will make an attempt
to answer,
        what are these blanks you're seeing? - could these have been placed
there by the author for a set purpose?,

Nope, no page breaks and empty paragraphs, the blanks are inserted by LO and disappear after the master document is forced to recalculate the layout of the pages. On http://media.vanderworp.org/.dot/.lo/1_lo_after_open.png: r2c2, r4c4 show these white spaces for example.

For some manuals I use master documents with satellites in Writer.

        [to what are you referring?]

One .odm master document containing several .odt satellite, linked documents.

What I do:
   * Open document
   * Update index
   * Update selection for every satellite (using navigator)
   * Update index again
   * Export to PDF for printing and distribution

        is the index the document?

Indexes and tables, the table of contents, r1c2, the grey part. RMB > Update.

        how many of these satellites are you using? -
           are you possibly referring to those in space which allow for
messages to be sent-received?

Hehe! No, just keeping feet on the ground, I'm referring to a .odm master with linked .odt files (as satellites). You can see them in the navigator part on the left side of the screen dump.

        what is the reason for using PDFs?

Printer doesn't like filesize, some raster images are simply too big, not LO to blame, I sample images back to normal values during pdf export.

To get an idea I've temporary placed the following screen dumps on
http://media.vanderworp.org/.dot/.lo/ :

1_lo_after_open.png
2_lo_after_update_index.png
3_lo_after_update_selection.png

This solution is highly complex and unfriendly (some of these masters
contain a lot satellites), I consider not properly calculating the
layout a bug.

        huh?

In the above example it means updating the TOC, RMB every attached .odt in navigator en choose update selection, then update the TOC again. These steps should not be needed imo.

The documents themselves have strict style rules and only contain
bitmaps and svg's.

        huh?

I mean, there is nothing fancy that could be blamed for not calculating the lay out properly.

After opening it starts organizing the flow of content and at a certain point it simply stops. No idea if it is a time out, a crashing subprocess. The reason to think in that direction is because every time I open the same master document, the layout, the places where blanks occur, is different. It also looks like what is described at http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/6144 .

I just made a master document and, as a test, inserted the Writer 4.2 manual (https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/) in it. Almost 500 pages, no problem.

However I noticed that pictures in this manual are set to no wrap. Maybe that makes things too complex for LO in my document.

Thanks for your time.