Writer's Guide Questions

Jean,

I've been reviewing Chapter 13, "Working With Master Documents." Most of it is good, but I do have a couple of questions:

1). About 2/3 of the screen shots needed for the figures are missing (not just invisible, but actually not there according to my navigator panel). I would be happy to work on that. Is it necessary for my Ubuntu version of LO to be 3.4.5? I'm running 3.5 in Ubuntu and 3.4.5 in Windows XP, but the XP version is visually not consistent with the screen shots that are already there.

2). I have noticed one issue on page 18 "creating one file from a master document and its subdocuments." Figure 19 looks completely different in Windows. And,in the tip box below Fig. 19; there is no "links" command at all. I guess my larger question is: How do we typically deal with differences across platforms?

Regards,
David Blymire

Hi :slight_smile:
Err do you have "Auto-Save" on perchance?  Images sometimes seem to vanish if you have that box ticked.

Screeenshots between different branches of LibreOffice and with different themes tend to look more different then the "same" (or similar) theme used on different platforms.  The only high-contrast theme we could find that worked on all 3 (4?) major platforms is not the default in any of them.

So, are you using the default theme in a different branch, say the 3.5.x branch while ready documentation for the 3.3.x branch?

Hopefully that might help but i am not completely certain about the exact names of the right themes on the various Operating Systems. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Jean,

I've been reviewing Chapter 13, "Working With Master Documents." Most of it
is good, but I do have a couple of questions:

1). About 2/3 of the screen shots needed for the figures are missing (not
just invisible, but actually not there according to my navigator panel). I
would be happy to work on that. Is it necessary for my Ubuntu version of LO
to be 3.4.5? I'm running 3.5 in Ubuntu and 3.4.5 in Windows XP, but the XP
version is visually not consistent with the screen shots that are already
there.

The problem of pix disappearing completely from the file is one we
encounter often, especially with some of the older files (of which
that is one). Others can help you deal with this (or I can later today
when I have more time), but my suggestion is to use the PDF for
viewing what the pix should be and flagging any that you think are out
of date or different in ways that you think may be significant. That
way you can carry on with the review even if the pix don't behave
themselves. And if the pix do need replacing with more up to date
ones, then taming the old ones is ultimately a waste of time.

For that particular chapter, we'd prefer you use LO 3.4.5 (or 3.4.6),
because there may be some differences in LO3.5 and we want to finish
the Writer Guide for 3.4.

Screenshots in that chapter may be out of date, or there may be a
difference between o/s. It depends on what is "visually different"
about them. Do you have "Use LO Open/Save dialogs" ticked in the
options? Do you have the Galaxy icon set selected in the options?

2). I have noticed one issue on page 18 "creating one file from a master
document and its subdocuments." Figure 19 looks completely different in
Windows. And,in the tip box below Fig. 19; there is no "links" command at
all. I guess my larger question is: How do we typically deal with
differences across platforms?

Usually the differences are trivial and do not need to be mentioned.
We include a generic statement that we are using the LO dialogs, not
the o/s specific dialogs, in the book's illustrations.

In the case of Figure 19, I think it is because you are using the
Windows dialogs, not the LO ones.

As for the Tip, it may be unclear that the reference is to the main
Writer window with the new .odt file open in it.

--Jean

David,

How are you doing with that chapter? Have you got the problems with
the figures sorted out?

--Jean

Jean,

I seem to be experiencing the vanishing images problem only in this file. I had previously configured the settings under tools-options for memory, etc., and I can seemingly open any other file and see the images. I tried Chapter 13 from version 3.3 and found all the images with no problem. So, either there is some setting I'm missing, or the images really are not there. Could the file have become corrupted in download? My only other alternative is to open the chapter from both 3.4 and 3.3, side by side, and compare the settings, which I'm about to do.

I had created a master document with subdocuments to check the instructions, and they work just fine. Its not knowing the state of the figures.

David Blymire

Once the file loses the figures completely, the only thing you can do is get a fresh copy of the file and start over, or copy the figures into the working copy. To tell if the figures are actually gone, look at the file size. If it's conspicuously smaller than the original file, the pix are gone.

--Jean

David,
Unless you are already doing so, I will update the images that I
flagged in that chapter as needing work. Perhaps after I do that, as a
side-effect the file will behave itself better.

--Jean

I have put the updated file here:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/writer-guide/draft-lo3.4/wg3.4-ch13-master-docs-1/view

--Jean

Jean,

I reloaded the file from ODF Authors and discovered a substantial difference (500KB) in the size of the original file and the reloaded file. So that seems to account for the vanishing images -- they were not present in the file the first time. So I can finish the review by Monday or earlier (eastern US time).

David Blymire