Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Redesigning Or Improving Lulu.com ODF Templates

Just yesterday, I came up with the idea of having a single separate template for the title page, copyright page, and table of contents, which can all be sized with the page styles. Read on, for the details. Reminder: I would appreciate some feedback.

The idea is to find a simpler and tidier way to keep these pages. I figured that many of the pages in each book would be similar, and it would be easier to just type in a few things, and then select the size of the page.

However, after more thought, I am beginning to change my mind. I prefer to keep them in the document with the main content. Therefore, I am leaning towards upgrading all of the templates to include a title page, copyright page, and a table of contents. The advantage to keeping them all in 1 document is that, when you search for your ODF file, you only have to search for 1 file, and not several. Also, keeping all of the pages in 1 file allows us to more easily use the page count feature, and that feature is very helpful for calculating book costs and dealing with page layouts.

I also want to create OTG versions of templates as well, so that we can create picture books, with the same convenience. Unfortunately, OpenOffice.org does not offer page styles of ODG and ODT files. 1 way of getting a better idea of what to do, is to create a comic book, and let that be my guide.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Eugene,
    Just a note to say thank you for you efforts in redesigning the book template from Lulu 8 1/2x 11. I use it all the time and wanted to send my kudos! Yours, Grant

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Grant. Thank you for using it. It took me a long time to make them, so I really appreciate that they are getting some good use.

      It kind of bothered me, that they aren't more popular. Somebody even down voted 1 or more of them. He/She probably hoped to find some help on how to write a good book! :^D

      What kind of books do you write?

      If you have any suggestions for improvements, then let me know.

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