Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hello all. I've got a fairly vexing problem I'm hoping to get some help on. I'm formatting a novel for publication and I need for the 'new chapter' pages to appear sans header. Everything is going pretty well, I've got a new page style (named 'adendum'), and Manual-Break, Page Break, Style-adendum works perfectly. No header appears.

The problem is on the next page, when I try to do Manual-Break, Page Break, Style-Default. The header appears correctly, no problems there. But on the last line of the 'new chapter' page the text is no longer justified. Instead, a paragraph mark appears which I can't seem to get rid of no matter what I try.

Other than that one line of text, everything else appears normal. Is there a setting in 'default' that I'm missing or something? I've uploaded a sample from the book for reference, including two chapter sections. Thanks in advance, I know I'll get some help from the experts here!

Dave

p.s. I noticed one more odd thing (don't know if it's relevant) - sometimes when I selected Manual-Break, Page Break, Style-Default it didn't work the first time, and I'd have to repeat the process (the only thing it seemed to do was add a tab to the text, but not every time).

In my opinion, your file was saved in MS .doc in the past.

There are converted page styles (Convert 1, Convert 2, Convert 3, Convert 4) in your document, because the .doc format can not handle the page styles. These Page Styles were direct formatted pages in the .doc format.
Never store your important documents into foreign fileformats. Never convert your documents from the foreign fomats into the International ODF formats, because there is not (never was and never will be) 100% compatibility between the properties of the different file formats.
Always start with a new empty .odt file, and then "Copy - Paste spacial - as unformatted text" the content from the foreign file format document into your ODF type document. Always strore the document into the native ODF fileformats, and make (convert; export) a COPY if you need a different file format one.

Good advice. Thanks, I'll surely follow that in future (didn't realize!).

Do you have any suggestions for what I can do about this non-justified problem? I went back to an older .odt copy of the document, but the issue with justification seems to persist as previously described. I don't want to format too far until I'm able to fix this issue!

Thanks for all the help so far!

If you turn on /View /Non printing characters (same command turns the on-screen display off) you will see that the last character on your chapter pages is a paragraph mark. The easiest solution, bearing in mind that you will have a countable number of chapters - perhaps twenty or thirty?), is to position the cursor immediately in front of each such last character on your chapter pages (which as zizi64 says show the file to have been saved in or edited by MS Word) and press Delete. Do it by hand and get it done.

Edit: Reading your posting again, I note you say that you cannot delete these intrusive paragraph marks. I have been able to do this on my OpenOffice (linux) using the Delete key, not the Backspace key. I think there is no Delete key on a Mac, but there is a two key substitute which I cannot remember just now,

DaveinJapan wrote:Good advice. Thanks, I'll surely follow that in future (didn't realize!).

Do you have any suggestions for what I can do about this non-justified problem? I went back to an older .odt copy of the document, but the issue with justification seems to persist as previously described. I don't want to format too far until I'm able to fix this issue!

Thanks for all the help so far!

It's not a justification problem. A paragraph spanning two pages was split when a page break was inserted in the middle of the paragraph (this may have happened when the document was saved in DOC format). Remove the page break and the paragraph break to rejoin the two paragraphs into a single paragraph.

I found this on using Delete on a Mac

The Delete key on Mac does and doesn't act the same way as the Backspace and Delete keys on a PC. Normally hitting Delete on a Mac will work as a Backspace key. To Forward Delete, normal action of the Delete key on a PC, you have to hold down the fn key and then hit the Delete key.

So fn Delete should take out the character to its right.

For all writing or thinking of writing a book using OpenOffice, this document will be helpful

http://documentation.openoffice.org/whi ... th_OOo.odt

Although it was written for older versions of Writer I think it is still applicable to current versions.

Bill wrote: It's not a justification problem. A paragraph spanning two pages was split when a page break was inserted in the middle of the paragraph (this may have happened when the document was saved in DOC format). Remove the page break and the paragraph break to rejoin the two paragraphs into a single paragraph.

Right. I can do that, but it then deletes the header (I used page break to implement the new style, I think - I found another topic here that instructed me to do so).

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I knew I'd get some great comments. Still trying to figure it out myself as well. Keep the suggestions coming!

Rory, that fn delete works as you said it would, but again, I lose the header when I do that (it DOES set the whole paragraph back to normal though, so I think we're on the right track!).

I think you should work and Save in OpenOffice's .odt format. When your document is complete it can then be exported in some other format. If that export is not satisfactory, there are other methods, such as the document conversion service offered by Zamzar, which conversions are considered to be quite effective.

From a quick look at your document, the position of the intrusive partial line suggests that the interline spacing of the document is also being altered. I cannot test how it appears in MS Word as I don't use Windows or MS Word (starts quietly intoning a Te Deum).

A further play with your document suggests that there may be continuing problems even when working in .odt format. These arise from the (malign?) influence of MS Word, in which format it has at some time been saved and/or by which edited.

I suggest a drastic rescue is needed. Try the following: Pass through your existing document and add CHAPTER before each Chapter number (this can later be removed). Then /File /Save As the document selecting Text (.txt) from the dropdown, giving it a different name, such as Book.txt.

Now close OO and open a blank Writer document. /File /Save |As, selecting type .odt, title Rescued book.odt. Start /Format /Styles and Formatting, press 4th icon from left to get Page Styles. On the Page tab, right click on Default and set size and margins as you require. Doing this at this stage will set all page styles to be that size and parameters. If you leave it until later you will have to hand edit each one. Now /Insert /File : Book.txt.

/File /Save or Ctrl S to save.

/Edit /Find and Replace, drop "More Options" and select "Search for Styles". Find will now offer you a choice via the dropdown on its right - probably only "Preformatted text". Replace will offer you many selections also via its dropdown. Select "Text Body", and press Replace all.

Press Ctrl S to save (when in doubt editing any important work, press Ctrl S instinctively!)

Use Find and Replace yet again. More options and uncheck "Search for Styles"; Find CHAPTER, checking "Match case" and "Whole words only"; Find All. Then press Ctrl 1 to turn all CHAPTER lines into Heading 1 (or 2, 3 by substitution of the level number).

/Format /Styles and Formatting, 1st icon from left, right click on Text body, choose Modify. Indents and Spacing tab, Check Automatic for first line indent on the paragraph, Line spacing (I suggest) Proportional, 115%. Alignment tab, Justified.

Isn't it starting to look nice?

/Format /Styles and formatting, 4th icon for Page styles, right click on Default, select New, and name your Chapter_Page, selecting parameters as you wish, setting Organiser tab subsequent pages to be Default. I normally force a chapter page to start on the right, but that's just me.

Now /Format /Styles and Formatting, 1st icon for paragraph styles. Right click on Heading 1, select Modify, Text flow tab, check Breaks: Insert , Position before, with Page Style Chapter_Page, page number 0 (i.e., continue page numbering)

Ctrl S again.
Now, /Find and Replace, Find "CHAPTER " (check Match case and whole words only) - note the trailing space after the R in CHAPTER, you probably want to remove that from the text) Find All, and press Delete.

Now your document is nearly there - you can make what changes you wish to the formatting, such as adding Headers/Footers etc., and changing font styles in the text; do all this by using Styles.

How long does all this take? I can format the entire text of War and Peace (550,000 words) to reasonable book format much as I have described in 10 minutes.

Edit: The Reason for using CHAPTER (all caps) is that hopefully that particular form will not occur in the body of the text and the flagging of Chapter headings will be unambiguous. If this were a work situated in a monastery or a book on educational matters ("Please all turn to Chapter Seven"), Chapter (sic) might occur and spurious chapter breaks, requiring hand editing to remove, would be inserted.