Self-Publishing with LibreOffice 6 Writer

[Pages:208]Self-publishing

using LibreOffice Writer 6

How to use free software to write, design, and create ebooks and

PDFs for print-on-demand books

Jean Hollis Weber

Friends of OpenDocument, Inc. Australia

Copyright ? 2019 Jean Hollis Weber

This book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, v 4.0 (). You are free to copy, distribute, and transmit the work, and to adapt the work, under the condition that you must attribute the source (this book) to Jean Hollis Weber, but not in any way that suggests Jean endorses you or your use of the work.

All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Published by: Friends of OpenDocument Inc. 544/60 Beck Drive North Condon, QLD 4915 Australia

This book was created using free software: LibreOffice Writer 6.3 (word processing, page layout, and PDF production), GIMP 2.10 (image editing), and Calibre 4.00 (ebook creation). These programs are available for Windows, GNU/Linux, and macOS.

Cover photograph by Jean Hollis Weber: Agile wallaby, Australia.

ISBN 978-1-921320-56-9

Contents

Preface.........................................................10

Why use LibreOffice?.................................................................10 What do you need to do first?.....................................................11 Using LibreOffice on a Mac........................................................11 What you see may be different...................................................12 Terminology...............................................................................12 For more on self-publishing.......................................................12 Acknowledgments......................................................................13

Part 1: Essentials..........................................15

1 Introduction to Writer..................................17

The Writer workspace................................................................17 Title bar and Menu bar...........................................................17 Sidebar.................................................................................... 18 Toolbars.................................................................................. 19 Customizing toolbars.............................................................20 Right-click (context) menus..................................................20 Status bar................................................................................21

Changing document views.........................................................23 Using the Navigator...................................................................24

Move quickly through a document.........................................25 Use the Navigation toolbar.....................................................25 Set reminders.........................................................................26 Creating a new document..........................................................26 Create a document from a template.......................................27 Saving a document.....................................................................27 Save as a Microsoft Word document......................................27 Combining several documents into a book...............................28

2 Set up Writer...............................................29

Choosing options for all of LibreOffice......................................29 User data................................................................................30 View options...........................................................................30 Print options...........................................................................31 Fonts options..........................................................................32

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Security options.....................................................................32 Application colors options.....................................................32 Choosing Save options...............................................................33 Choosing options for Writer......................................................34 Writer general options...........................................................35 View options...........................................................................36 Formatting Aids options........................................................37 Grid options...........................................................................38 Basic Fonts (Western)............................................................38 Print options for Writer.........................................................38 Table options.........................................................................40 Change-tracking options........................................................40 Choosing language settings........................................................41 Change some locale and language settings.............................41 Choose spelling options.........................................................42 Choose grammar options.......................................................42

3 Write and edit..............................................45

General recommendations.........................................................45 Selecting, copying, and pasting text..........................................46 Moving paragraphs quickly.......................................................46 Finding and replacing text and formatting................................46

Using the Find toolbar...........................................................47 Using the Find and Replace dialog.........................................47 Find and replace specific formatting.....................................48 Find and replace paragraph styles.........................................49 Find and replace line breaks and paragraph ends.................50 Checking spelling.......................................................................50 Checking grammar.....................................................................52 Using Writer's built-in language tools.......................................53 Using synonyms and the thesaurus...........................................54 Using automatic functions.........................................................56 AutoCorrect............................................................................56 Word completion....................................................................57 AutoText................................................................................. 58 Including document information..............................................59

4 Design your book using Writer's styles.........61

What are styles? Why use them?................................................61 Types of styles........................................................................62

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Basic page layout using page styles...........................................63 Automating the sequence of page styles................................64

Creating and modifying paragraph styles..................................67 Properties of paragraph styles...............................................68 Modify the built-in sequence of styles...................................68 Modifying other paragraph properties...................................71

5 Format pages...............................................73

Defining page styles...................................................................73 Examples................................................................................ 73

Setting up headers and footers..................................................78 Numbering pages.......................................................................79 Applying page styles...................................................................79

Apply a sequence of page styles.............................................79 Restart page numbering........................................................80 Add a title page to an existing book.......................................81 Add a copyright page to an existing book..............................81 Use the Page deck in the sidebar...............................................82

6 Format text..................................................83

Typography................................................................................83 Hyphenating words...................................................................84

Manual hyphenation..............................................................86 Working with fonts....................................................................86

Use paragraph styles..............................................................87 Use character styles................................................................87 Applying paragraph and character styles..................................88 Use the Styles deck in the sidebar.........................................88 Use the Apply Style list..........................................................88 Use Fill Format mode............................................................89 Use keyboard shortcuts.........................................................90 Inserting special characters.......................................................90 Inserting non-breaking spaces and hyphens.............................91 Inserting dashes.........................................................................91 Defining your own tabs and indents..........................................92 Working with lists......................................................................92 Create a new list style.............................................................93 Apply the list style..................................................................96 Combine list and paragraph styles.........................................97

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7 Create PDFs and covers................................99

Quick export to PDF..................................................................99 Controlling PDF content and quality.......................................100

General tab of PDF Options dialog......................................100 Initial View tab.....................................................................103 User Interface tab.................................................................103 Links tab...............................................................................104 Security tab...........................................................................104 Digital Signatures tab...........................................................105 Creating a PDF for onscreen reading.......................................105 Creating covers for print books................................................106

8 Create ebooks.............................................107

Creating an ebook cover...........................................................107 Exporting to EPUB directly from Writer.................................108 Exporting to EPUB from Calibre..............................................110 Checking and manually editing.................................................111 Editing metadata in Calibre......................................................112 Converting to other ebook formats...........................................112

Part 2: Extras..............................................113

9 Include illustrations...................................115

Creating and editing images.....................................................115 Prepare images for black-and-white printing.......................116

Inserting an image from a file..................................................116 Inserting images from other sources........................................119

Graphics program.................................................................119 Scanner................................................................................. 119 LibreOffice Gallery................................................................119 Modifying an image..................................................................120 Use the Image toolbar..........................................................120 Use the Object toolbar and right-click menu........................121 Use the Image dialog.............................................................121 Crop an image.......................................................................121 Flip or rotate an image.........................................................123 Positioning images within the text...........................................123 Arrange images.....................................................................124 Anchor images......................................................................125 Align images.........................................................................126 Wrapping text around images..................................................126

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