[AccessD] Book or writing template

Sun Oct 2 20:02:09 CDT 2022

John,

As a LibreOffice user (but only a writer of in-house specifications and
some user help) I would suggest:
1) Accept that you do not know the final details of how
your masterpiece will be presented in terms of font choice, font size,
indentation and bolding.  You might end up publishing in a different medium
or being subjected to someone else's editorial style to fit in.  Keep that
all abstract by ensuring all text is assigned a style.  How each style is
to finally appear can be dealt with as part of publishing.  Because we use
WYSIWIG editors you will need to define each style so you can see the
difference between them while you are writing.
2) I like to start by setting up a bunch of styles within
  Format - Bullets and numbering - outline
but that is because I feel the need to hierarchical sections, sub-sections,
sub-sub-sections and maybe more.  This helps if you later need to promote
or demote a (sub-)section.  Traditional books might not need sub-sections
so avoid this painful step if you can.
3) You can add more styles as you find a unique need for them, such as for
code or for comments within code.  A key point is to keep the number of
styles small and use them consistently.  Be aware that LibreOffice has
different types of styles.  A character style can be placed over a
paragraph style (such as for a hyperlink in the text of a sub-subsection).
4) Back in the days of LibreOffice 4 they published a Writer Guide (along
with a Calc guide and a few others).  If you can't track down a more recent
version I have one I downloaded in 2013.  It was written more to explain
the possibilities offered by features rather than explaining
the consequences of clicking a button.  That means it is still
worth reading if you want to learn!  I quote from its contents below.
5) You can easily import all your good words and apply styles to replace
your original formatting.  LibreOffice also lets you search for and replace
styles if you need to.
6) F11 (the styles window) and the F5 (the navigator window) can be handy
when writing big documents - especially if you have a separate monitor for
them.

The contents page of the LibreOffice 4 Writer guide includes the following:
Chapter 6
Introduction to
Styles......................................................................................................173
What are
styles?......................................................................................................................173
The Styles and Formatting
window..........................................................................................174
Applying
styles.........................................................................................................................178
Modifying
styles.......................................................................................................................187
Creating custom paragraph styles:
examples..........................................................................191
Assigning styles to shortcut
keys.............................................................................................195
Defining a hierarchy of
headings..............................................................................................195

I hope this helps.

Paul Wolstenholme

On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 12:17, John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:

> And what is most irritating, I downloaded the manual for Writer, which is a
> very professionally written manual, good stuff, which states that it is
> written using a template.  Does it provide a LINK to the template it uses?
> OF COURSE NOT.  And so I go play an hour of Empire Deluxe.😜😁
>
> On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 7:08 PM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Look at this mess...
> >
> > LibreOffice templates help
> > <
> https://extensions.libreoffice.org/?Tags%5B%5D=118&q=&action_doExtensionSearch=Search
> >
> >
> > Hundreds.  Try filtering on book.  NOTHING.
> >
> > Sigh.
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 5:08 PM John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I am trying to write an ebook for my classes and events.  I keep getting
> >> bogged down in formatting.  TBH I have never written a book before and
> it
> >> is a skill I have never mastered obviously.  Anyway, I am trying very
> hard
> >> to use LibreOffice Writer rather than Office Word.  I have googled and I
> >> just don't understand the whole template thing.  I downloaded and opened
> >> several and though they do in fact seem to include 'all you need' what
> they
> >> don't do is teach 'these are the tasks, and this is how you use them in
> >> this template'.
> >>
> >> My challenge is that I do not expect to make any money on this thing due
> >> to the limited audience, and so paying much if anything for a Pro to do
> >> this for me is a problem.  Not to mention that the worse my formatting,
> the
> >> more time such a person would have to spend.
> >>
> >> And so I am reaching out to this forum for advice.  I know that Rocky
> >> wrote his book.  I know that Arthur has written an ebook.  And I know
> that
> >> Susan writes for tech magazines.  So perhaps one of you or others on
> this
> >> list can recommend a good book (ebook / kindle preferably) which
> discusses
> >> the process of writing a book, focusing on using a modern editor to set
> up
> >> everything.  And then discuss which if any template you use for your
> >> writing.
> >>
> >> I am thinking about such things as 'use this font for the main text, use
> >> this for code, use this for notes'.  How to automatically format a
> section
> >> of already written text to be one of those things.  For now I care less
> >> about 'page and paragraph widows and orphans' and all that. Making  a
> TOC
> >> and hyperlinks to get at the correct location would be good.
> >>
> >> I just want to discover 'this is a good template for writing a technical
> >> book, these are the things that a template does for you, and this is how
> >> you get these things done using this template'.
> >>
> >> I have a ton written but I need to make the push to get it done.  It was
> >> written over the years, much of it came from the AccessD emails from
> long
> >> ago, I have cut and pasted various things into a single document, and
> >> therefore I have a mess I need to clean up.
> >>
> >> --
> >> John W. Colby
> >> Colby Consulting
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > John W. Colby
> > Colby Consulting
> >
>
>
> --
> John W. Colby
> Colby Consulting
> --
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