LO Chapter Template 7-4

Documentation LibreOffice Guides
#21

Hi Team
I raised the issue in the Calc guide thread, but it worth to be discussed here for the 7.4 Template and the master document.

For the Default page style, we need to define what goes on even and odd pages (beside the page number).

Even pages: [pageNumber] | <????>
Odd pages: <????> | [pageNumber]

where <????> is to be defined.

IMHO, on even pages, <????> would be the chapter number + chapter title
On odd pages <????> would be the current heading reference.

Example:
Even: 34 | Chapter 2 Entering, Editing, and Formatting Data
Odd: Entering data | 35

Is that right?

Olivier

#22

Hello Olivier

I agree with you and this method I have used before for user guides.

Odd page reference should be Heading 1 Paragraph Style followed by the page number. For example Using area fills — Page 11

Not sure if the word Page should be included as the present format used is also good to use, but there must be a visible division between the page number and the reference.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#23

Hello

I will look deeper into this as some of your suggestions are good. Need to learn more about captioning and cross referencing.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#24

To be able to reference the chapter name in the footer, it is necessary to redefine the Chapter numbering in Tools - Chapter Numbering as follows:

Level 1
Numbering: None
Paragraph Syle : Title
Character style: none
Show Sublevels: 1

Level 2:
Numbering: None
Paragraph Syle : Heading 1
Character style: none
Show Sublevels: 1

This setting can go to the template, I think. I did it for the Cac Guide 7.4 master document.

Note: For level 1, we can even replace “Chapter n” in the title by changing to “Numbering: 1,2,3” and fill the “Before” entry to "Chapter " (only if you want to reorder the chapters in the book actually, or leave it as is)

To apply the reference in the footer:
Insert - Cross reference, then Document tab.

On even pages:
Chapter → Name and Level=1
On odd pages:
Chapter → Name and Level=2

Regards
Olivier

#25

Hello Olivier

Thanks for the info. I shall update the UG chapter template to include these cross references.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#26

Hi @PeeWee

2 small changes in the template, if possible:

  1. The “Next style” entry of the “Figure” paragraph style should be “Text Body”. Currently it is “Figure”. We normally interleave figures with text, I think.

  2. The 3-columns sections where we fill with the name of the Authors should have a mnemonic name. Suggestion: “SEC_THISEDITION” and “SEC_PREVIOUSEDITION”

Kind regards
Olivier

#27

Hello Olivier

In response to your comments.

  1. The next style for Figure will be change to Text Body. I think that was an error on my part.

  2. The list of contributors is getting very long in some chapters making this first page stretch over two pages. Some thought is required about using a complete list of contributors to prevent this. One solution that I have tried is to change the contributors into 4 columns to reduce the space these lists take.

Why does the contributors list need to have a mnemonic name and why is this list need to be put in sections. Separate sections can cause formatting problems.

I am going to be working on the template during the next couple of days and then issue a usable version.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#28

Hello @PeeWee

Thank you for handling the template.

For the Author and end user, these internal names are of little interest, I agree, but when it comes to write macros to handle text documents it is very difficult to pick elements in the document when they don’t have a (unique) and meaningful identification.

Besides, these sections/frames/images/objects/etc… are visible in the navigator and a mnemonic name helps us to quickly catch what it the object about. You must have noticed the list of images and frames in the chapter and how their default names are useless if you search a specific image.

On the list of contributors, what I can say is that originally it was arranged in a table. The 3-column section is new and work as well.

Regards
Olivier

#29
Calc Guide 7.4 Updates
#31

A new version of the LO UG chapter template (LO-UG-Chapter-Template-7-4-PS-20220919) is now available for review and comment in Contributor Resources on NextCloud.

I have created a procedure to add a caption to a code listing example. It means adding a blank table, creating the caption, then deleting the blank table. This has to be done because a caption cannot be added to a block of text in LibreOffice. The method I created uses the Insert Caption option that is available. The category Listing has also been created.

Regards
PeeWee

#32

Can you explain why many lists are not preceded by a colon?

The space between Table 1 caption and the table should also occur between Listing 1 and the listing. I can’t find the appropriate setting.

#33

Hello Flywire

What kind of lists should be preceded by colon? Bullet, number and simple lists are not preceded by a colon.

The space between a table caption and a table is created by the spacing around the table. The paragraph setting for a caption has to be modified to add spacing below. I will check the template.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#34

Hello Flywire

Spacing problem is fixed between caption and a code listing or table.
Paragraph spacing has been added above the Code paragraph style. This spacing is not added to lines of code that follow each other.
A table has spacing applied by default when the LO User Guide table style is applied.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#35

Hello Olivier

The two following suggestions are only useful if the template is going to be used for a complete user guide. Carrying out these two changes would create a different version of the table of contents that is now used for LO UG chapters.

One solution would be is to create a template for the complete user guide so that the above suggestions could be used. However, this could possibly mean a different template for each complete user guide. Each complete user guide does have its own graphics for the front and rear covers and Preface. Not easy to set up a template to cover all LO modules.

What are your thoughts?

Regards
PeeWee

#36

Sorry to be a pedant but I think it is needed for this document so we have a reliable style guide.

Find : Find All finds 43 occurrences of :. Every list in the Lists section except Ordered (numbered) lists is preceded by a colon but this does not apply throughout the document.

I’d expect all lists to be preceded by a colon. Maybe someone like @jeanweber can comment on the appropriate usage of colons in lists.

Unordered (bullet) lists

The first list item has an inconsistent bullet style even though it has the same style as the next item. I’ve seen this sort of thing before and it seems to be a LO list formatting bug.

#37

Hi @PeeWee
I noticed on the existing template in /Contributor Resources (*-20220819, I could not find *-20220919, if that matters):

  • “HeadingTip” is not under “Text Body” as the other 2 headings

  • Can we add 2 pages styles, namely “Cover” and “Backcover”, not used in chapters but used in master document or final manual book compilation. The cover/backcover page style background will later be filled with the proper cover and backcover images.

If we are done with the template, I would like to write a script/macro to help in sanitizing the styles in the chapter, as well as checking many other rules for all the kind of objects we have in our chapters.

Regards
Olivier

#38

Hello Olivier

Not sure what you mean by “HeadingTip” is not under “Text Body” as the other 2 headings". Could you please explain.

I will explore adding 2 page styles, but they will be called Front Cover and Back Cover respectively.

Regards
PeeWee

#39

Hello Olivier

After some thought on your suggestion for front and back cover page styles, I would like to suggest the following.

The First Page style could easily be used as the page style for the front cover. The only thing to remember is to make sure the front cover graphic is A4 page size after being placed on the First Page.

The Back Cover page style would have to be a left page. The back cover graphic would have to be A4 page size with the back cover text placed into a text box.

Both cover graphics would use the New Chapter paragraph style as an anchoring point. Need to test which type of anchoring would be the best to use, probably Anchor to Page.

The main problem is is the table of contents. When creating a complete user guide, the table of contents is modified to create the correct entries and reduce the number of entries. Instructions could easily be added to the template on how to modify the table of contents so it is suitable for a complete user guide. Also instructions would be have to be added on how to create a complete user guide when using the template, that is adding chapters and covers.

One idea that has come to mind is to have two separate templates - one for chapters and one for the complete user guide.

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com
Technical Writer, LO Documentation Team

#40

An image says much…

The style “Heading Tip” is not in the same Hierarchy as “Heading Note” and Heading Caution"

Untitled 1
Untitled 1532×640 80 KB

Cheers
Olivier

#41

Hi @PeeWee

I rethinked my suggestion on the covers. I bought your idea of 2 templates: book and chapter, given that they are linked together.

The recent book I created had Cover and Backcover page styles with the hi-res PNG images as page background (300 DPI). The Cover and Backcover are empty pages (no contents = one empty paragraph) and were set to page-right/page-left respectively.

The guides TOC were configured to pick styles “Title” and “Heading 1”

image
image716×366 37.3 KB

and the configuration is

image

where the Additional styles are in level 2 for “Heading 1” and level 1 for “Title”

image

and

image

Kind regards

Olivier
PS: The book template based on the Calc 7.4 master document is a quick start, reuse all of f the above.

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