Re: [libreoffice-users] Styles

Hi Chris,

On 22/10/2023 17:18, Chris J. wrote:
> A few details might change, but stories submissions to publishers and editors have pretty much the 
> same characteristics, in the States anyway; 1.00 inch margin top and bottom, 1.25 inch margins 
> right and left, Times Roman or Times New Roman font, 12pt, double spaced. Page numbers are helpful 
> and I put mine right justified in the header and centered in the footer. Most want the title in the 
> header right side. Some want the chapter title in the header, left side. Some want a table of 
> contents which I read can be done in Write in the header I believe.
>
> The first page of a chapter is a little different. There's some white space at he top (I put 6 
> double spaced lines), then an a chapter number or title, more white space (same), then a page by 
> age repeat of the above first paragraph.
>
> One would think this should be possible with a couple of styles.
>
> I can change an existing paragraph style with no problem. But setting up a new one with the above 
> attributes and getting it defined for entire page/story is eluding me for some reason. It's driving 
> me nuts to the point that keep a couple blank formatted pages around as above and just copy them to 
> new stories.
>
> Is there a list of common mistakes I can look at to try figuring out I'm dong wrong?
All the above requirements, as you suppose, are capable of being placed into page or paragraph 
styles. For the example of the first page of a chapter, you can define a new page style based off 
the default page style. I find the easiest way of working is to have the Styles sidebar visible on 
the right hand side of the screen, select the page styles by clicking on the little icon at the top 
(there are six of these and on my Writer, the page styles icon is 4th from the left). Then on the 
Default page style, right click and select New Style and in the dialogue that opens, proceed from 
tab to tab to set up the characteristics you require.

First you'll need to specify that it's 'right side only', then you can set the top margin to a 
larger value to avoid the ad hoc formatting you do with 6 double spaced lines. You can also select 
to have no header on this page (which may not be what your agents require but is typical for print 
formats.)

To get more space under the chapter title, you will achieve this by modifying (or creating a new 
style) the Heading style you use for these chapter titles. That is done within the paragraph styles 
in the sidebar.

All text paragraphs can be set up with single or double spacing. Header and footer styles can be 
set up with the various fields you require (chapter title, book title, page number...). You can 
create new header, footer, heading and text body styles from the default versions and give them new 
names which help you to remember which is which.

For a lengthy manuscript, it is likely that you will require several page styles (I have preface, 
left hand empty, right hand new chapter, regular left/right mirrored pages for the body of the 
book, back-matter left/right pages). Same goes for paragraph styles: first paragraph of chapter (no 
indent), regular text body, several list styles, centered text example style ... and so on.  They 
take a little time to set up but can be transferred to other documents as you need them.

Using styles will avoid a lot of complications in the coding if you subsequently require to turn 
the manuscript into an epub. Ad hoc formatting is liable to leave an unwanted heap of formatting 
tokens in the eBook. Once you get the hang of it, it saves a load of aggro and I find the styles 
easier to set up in Writer than in Word.

Philip

--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy