Editing in Libre Office

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peelseel2
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by peelseel2 »

R.126 was still opening with about 3-4 extra pages. Word would always display differently from computer to computer depending on the document. An old trick I would use was to set the Windows printer default to Adobe PDF printer or Microsoft Print to PDF printer as the default, and then open the document. That took care of a lot of problems with Word, so I tried it with Libre Office.

R.126 only broke in 1 place, and that was at Parrot. I put another carriage return after Owlbear and then deleted it. The document straightened out.

All in all a lot better than all previous attempts.
sambutoki
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by sambutoki »

One thing for certain is you need the correct font - which is to say "Soutane BF" not just "Soutane"

Which brings up a question for me - Where can I get "Soutane BF" at? I've been looking everywhere and can't seem to find it.
kmerfeld
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by kmerfeld »

sambutoki wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:46 pm Which brings up a question for me - Where can I get "Soutane BF" at? I've been looking everywhere and can't seem to find it.
viewtopic.php?t=2333
sambutoki
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by sambutoki »

kmerfeld wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:53 pm
sambutoki wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:46 pm Which brings up a question for me - Where can I get "Soutane BF" at? I've been looking everywhere and can't seem to find it.
viewtopic.php?t=2333
Thank you so much. I was searching and looking on the Downloads page and in the forums with Google. But I never looked at the start of that particular thread.
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peelseel2
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by peelseel2 »

sambutoki wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:13 pm
kmerfeld wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:53 pm
sambutoki wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:46 pm Which brings up a question for me - Where can I get "Soutane BF" at? I've been looking everywhere and can't seem to find it.
viewtopic.php?t=2333
Thank you so much. I was searching and looking on the Downloads page and in the forums with Google. But I never looked at the start of that particular thread.
I too only just realized there was a font package. I thought I had done a good job of culling the correct fonts, but the font package gave me ones I did not know existed. Thats what really got me on track with trying to edit the documents again. It is a great resource.
sambutoki
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by sambutoki »

peelseel2 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:58 pm I too only just realized there was a font package. I thought I had done a good job of culling the correct fonts, but the font package gave me ones I did not know existed. Thats what really got me on track with trying to edit the documents again. It is a great resource.
Yeah, I kept looking in the Style Guide thread, certain I was missing something. And I did multiple Google searches specifying basicfantasy.org with various iterations of "soutane" and "soutane bf".

I didn't think to look in the Adventure and Supplements thread, but in retrospect it makes a bit of sense.

Honestly, I think about 80% of the posts regarding problems with opening BFRPG in LibreOffice come down to not having the correct fonts installed.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by Solomoriah »

That could easily be so.
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JugglinDan
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by JugglinDan »

It's probably a lot rarer, but if you are editing with change tracking, and displaying the full change markup, all the line and paragraph lengths are longer which will sometimes push content to new pages and generally mess with the flow. Things should go back to normal when the changes are either hidden or merged.

Although it's rare, I mention it just in case others start wondering (like I did) why the document flow gets out of shape when editing.
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sambutoki
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by sambutoki »

Sol, you mentioned elsewhere some of the formatting/layout changes and weirdness people experience when opening the odt might be from printer settings causing changes to the document.

Would you be willing to share what the basic page size and layout should be (margins, column width, other basic things)? Not necessarily deep detail, just the basics. I've tried to check on my copy, but I'm afraid simply opening it may have changed page layout and margins due to my printer default settings.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Editing in Libre Office

Post by Solomoriah »

Page formatting is not printer settings, and does not change based on your setup; margins, paper size, etc. are defined in the document. And printer settings have little or no effect on current LibreOffice versions; that's (thankfully) mostly a thing of the past, which is mostly when I've complained about that.

However, there will be trouble spots in any large, complex document where LibreOffice will have a hard time figuring out the flow; it will get it wrong sometimes. For the current Core Rules on my computers, I experience:

* Occasional problems around Dinosaur, Triceratops, where the picture transgresses the bottom margin for no apparent reason.

* Frequent flow issues that start at Judging Wishes and screw up page layout down through Preparing Spells from Memory.

If the Alpha Index isn't falling on page number 201, I know something is broken and I scroll through the document at a full-double-page zoom level to find the errors. In most cases, inserting a paragraph (i.e. pressing Enter) above the problem area, then removing it (backspace one time) will restore the flow. It's important to do this from top to bottom.

Making any major change (anything that should change the page numbers) will likely introduce additional breakage, and I'm not even going to describe the process I refer to as "flow hammering" other than to say that I have to get creative and make a lot of odd decisions when it happens.

Is this a pain? Yes.

But using LibreOffice lowers the barrier to entry for others who want to publish materials with us. It's worth the relatively minor hassle.
My personal site: www.gonnerman.org
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