While Writer allows you to create an advanced book template that consists of a master document and a number of subdocuments, there are situations where using a simpler, one-file template makes more sense. The main advantage of a one-file book template is that it helps you to work around two major problems in Writer.

First of all, there is a bug (1 and 2) that makes it rather difficult to manage figure numbering. Moreover, the current implementation of the cross-reference feature makes managing cross-references between sub-documents quite cumbersome. Besides that, you might find it easier to work on a single file, where you don’t have to keep tabs on all the sub-documents. It’s also easier to troubleshoot if something goes wrong with the book layout. Moreover, creating a one-file template requires far fewer steps, which saves you time. So if a one-file book template best fits your needs, then read on. The following description assumes that you are familiar with OpenOffice.org and that you know how to work with paragraph and page styles.

First of all you have to outline the overall structure of the book. For this example, I will be creating a book template consisting of the following parts:

• Front matter, including a copyright page, table of contents (TOC), and a preface
• Book body consisting of several chapters
• Alphabetical index

Creating paragraph styles

To set up the book template, you need to create custom paragraph, character, and page styles as well as specify outline numbering for use with the TOC. Which paragraph and character styles you need to create is completely up to you. However, as a minimum, you have to create the following paragraph styles:

• Text body for use in the book body
• Headings for chapter titles and subtitles
• Footer and header for use with the book’s headers and footers

Depending on the contents of the book, you might need to specify additional styles. For example, if your book is going to include numbered and bulleted lists, you need to create paragraph styles for them, too. The same goes for figure captions, tips, boxouts, etc. To create a new paragraph style, click on the Paragraph Styles button in the Stylist window, right-click somewhere in the window, and select New from the context menu. (If you don’t see the Stylist, press F11 or choose Format→Styles and Formatting). Then use the available options to set up the paragraph style. While most of the available options are self-explanatory, there are a few settings that deserve a closer examination. The Organizer tab allows you to specify the Next Style and Linked with options. As the name suggests, you can use the Next Style option to select the style that follows the current style in the book.

Figure 1: The Organizer tab allows you to specify the Next Style and Linked with options

For example, in figure 1, the BOOK_Heading style is followed by BOOK_Text_body style. In practice, this means that after you’ve entered a heading which has the BOOK_Heading style and then pressed enter, Writer automatically switches to the BOOK_Text_body paragraph style. This is a nifty trick that can save you a lot of time. The Linked with option allows you to select an existing style that you want to base the new style on. For example, when creating the BOOK_Tip_body style, you might want to link it with BOOK_Text_body. The linked BOOK_Tip_body style automatically inherits all the properties of the BOOK_Text_body style, so you don’t have to specify all the settings from scratch. More importantly, if you later make changes to the BOOK_Text_body style, they will automatically propagate to the linked styles, which can save you a lot of time.

Figure 2: Specifying the Text Flow option