I am preparing to write a (short) book on using styles and templates in
Writer, aimed at intermediate and advanced users. It will be based on
Chapters 6, 7, and 10 of the Writer Guide (and possibly Chapter 3 of
Getting Started and relevant bits of other Writer Guide chapters, such
as Ch12 on ToCs and Ch13 on Master Docs), but it will be reorganised,
have more detail, and contain more examples of use. The OOoAuthors group
talked for several years about the need for this information for styles,
and I know there are relevant conversations in the list's archives. I am
less sure about conversations related to templates.
I need help finding these conversations. I've turned up some info by
searching my gmail account, but I'm sure I've missed important items.
Any help, such as the subject line of a message, would be greatly
appreciated. You are also welcome to reply to this note with your "wish
list" of things to be included. I am also searching through the Writer
forum [1] for questions that aren't answered (or are answered
inadequately) in the existing chapters. If anyone would like to help
with this research, you are most welcome to do so. I have started a page
on the LO wiki to collect the topics are organise a draft outline.[2]
The book will be under CC-BY license and will be provided as a free PDF
as well as in printed form and possibly in HTML on my "Taming OOo/LibO"
website [2]. It should be useful for users of both OOo and LibO and
indeed will be branded and marketed for both programs. When I get to a
certain point of development, I'll put it out for everyone to review and
comment on. Anyone who contributes in more than a trivial manner will be
listed as a contributor or acknowledged in some way in the book.
P.S. Students and inexperienced technical writers may find the process
of book development interesting. This is the first step: research and
outlining.
--Jean
[1] http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/
[2]
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Writer_Styles_and_Templates_Book_Proposal