Printed copies of LibreOffice 3.4 Getting Started

Documentation General
#1

I just received a printed copy of the LibreOffice 3.4 Getting Started
book from Lulu.com. Wow, the cover looks good on the real book! :smiley:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/libreoffice-34-getting-started/12820113

Interior's not bad, either. For the printed copies, I reduced the page
size to 6x9, which seems to work well although the text font is almost
too small and the interior (binding edge) margin is a bit too narrow.
Some further tweaking of the template will occur, eventually.

Cheers, Jean

#2

I had noticed that the 3.4 version was a smaller format (6X9) and I wondered about the text size. Originally I thought the 3.3 versions were too large, but the larger text size is nice. Maybe a final size somewhere between the 3.3 version size and the 6X9 size.

Graphically to keep the 6X9 size, I believe the bound side of the page should have a wider margin. I expect that would push the text to be more pages, making a thicker book.

BTW I have purchased a copy each of LO 3.3 Writer Guide, Calc Guide, Impress Guide, Math Guide and the Draw Guide. I am also providing some review comments on the draft 3.4 Writer. If I can get access to the draft 3.5 Impress Guide I will help review it, also.

John Hart

#3

Sans serif was chosen for the PDF version, which is primarily intended for onscreen reading. The printed books use the same PDF because this is the most efficient way to produce them. Changing the font for the printed version causes other, unwanted changes such as page breaks and means another round of QA on the books.

Jean

#4

Hi *,

I just received a printed copy of the LibreOffice 3.4 Getting Started
book from Lulu.com. Wow, the cover looks good on the real book! :smiley:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/libreoffice-34-getting-started/12820113

Interior's not bad, either. For the printed copies, I reduced the page
size to 6x9, which seems to work well although the text font is almost
too small and the interior (binding edge) margin is a bit too narrow.

A sans-serif font is used for the body text. Is that intentional?

I find serif fonts much easier to read on paper. (I love the look of
Gentium - unfortunately it doesn't look as well on screen as it does
on paper..)

ciao
Christian
PS: only subscribed to the marketing list

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
I prefer sans.  It seems cleaner somehow
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

Your observation is what is typically used in practice--using serif typefaces for body text in print docs and sans serif for onscreen viewing. Some editors will switch typefaces used for headings, though: sans serif for print docs and serif in an online doc.

Why not try creating your own "print" version by simply altering the typeface for the body-text paragraph styles that were employed the source docs--a very simple task. Then just port out your own PDF.

Gary

#7

I do share the OP comments about printed matter vs screen display and your idea seems very interesting to me, Gary.

Perhaps we could keep that need in mind while re-designing the documentation templates? BTW, the styles cataloging is on my workbench for a few days now. I hope that, as a first step, I can get a styles dependencies map by to-morrow. (I'll open a new thread on due time)

#8

I keep delaying starting to work on a version 3.5.x template redesign--and getting rid of all the needless OOo prefixes and such for the paragraph and character style names, among others. I plan to create a more general template, which would have a more universal character for others to employ for (print) book building.

I tend to prefer not having the right-ragged edges , so the template would then use justified body text and hyphenation, etc. So, maybe, I might begin to work on it in a few days. I am doing some minor reroofing of my home and a few other projects now that the weather is getting warmer and drier.

Gary

#9

What you might desire to do is going through a thorough listing of most (or all) of the factory-default styles and then work from there. The very start of such a listing of mine follows...

*Factory-default styles (Title)*

All of the formatting in this template contains the factory-default settings. No formatting changes are made whatsoever, so that the factory-default characteristics can be determined. The first instance (and possibly others) of any paragraph style will have a parenthetical notational at the end of that paragraph (possibly also preceded with a list style notation), such as in this paragraph. (Text body)

The factory-default template has the following styles (List Heading):

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