How do I close up big gaps in text?

[tom11]

I have a book I have written in OO.0 that is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?2z2injobht2

I don't know how to write a book in any book making software format so I figured I would just do it as best I can with what I have got eg OO.0 and then figure out where to go from there.

I have alot of pics on it which I usually "anchor to paragraph"

But how do I close up big gaps in text?

When I put the cursor to the left side of the text and try and move it up by hitting the backspace button the text up above jumps down???

Could wrapping my pictures have something to do with it?

What is wrapping?

Thanks in advance.

[tom11]

The problem is when I just copy two pages where the gap is, and paste them onto another OOo doc to demonstrate my point for this forum, the gap automatically closes on the new document.

The book is too big to upload on this forum, so I have put the OO.o file here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3e32 ... efdddf9ae3

An example of the problem pages are the end of 15 and the beginning of 16.

I suspect it is something to do with the way I have been placing pictures.

I don't know what "Wrap" is supposed to do or whether that could help.

...Just tried your Wrap instructions great. That might help. Will remove this post if problem of gaping is solved by that.

...Doesn't solve the problem, but it is still going to be very helpful to know.

[acknak]

Sorry to say, but your document is a mess.

Look at the content on page 17, after the big whitespace gap, starting with the heading "Cathartic exercise ...": every paragraph on that page has the "Heading 1" style, which specifies that the (heading) paragraph should be kept together on the same page with the following paragraph. Since you have a dozen or so "headings" in a row, they all move to the next page so they can stay together, leaving the big gap on the previous page.

The following page starts with "Chapter2. ..." which should be a heading, and is formatted to look like a heading, but is actually a "Body Text" paragraph, a non-heading style.

Anyway, you're going to have strange things happening like this, and waste a lot of time formatting and re-formatting until you learn the basics of how styles work in OOo and how to use them--or at least avoid working against them.

Here's one place to start: Writer Guide

[tom11]

Sorry to say, but your document is a mess.

Look at the content on page 17, after the big whitespace gap, starting with the heading "Cathartic exercise ...": every paragraph on that page has the "Heading 1" style, which specifies that the (heading) paragraph should be kept together on the same page with the following paragraph. Since you have a dozen or so "headings" in a row, they all move to the next page so they can stay together, leaving the big gap on the previous page.

The following page starts with "Chapter2. ..." which should be a heading, and is formatted to look like a heading, but is actually a "Body Text" paragraph, a non-heading style.

Anyway, you're going to have strange things happening like this, and waste a lot of time formatting and re-formatting until you learn the basics of how styles work in OOo and how to use them--or at least avoid working against them.

Here's one place to start: Writer Guide

Thanks for reply. I wasn't aware I was creating any special headings. To my mind I was just putting headings in bold and sometimes underlining them. Before I wade through a book with technical definitions I may struggle to understand,
is there a way to undo the headings I have made and just make headings that don't stuff up my page with gaps?

Or any way to repair the gaps in this document?

I have just clicked on the document properties, and I am working with "Type of File" ="OpenDocument Text" which opens with "swriter" Thanks Tom.

[keme]

Did you even look at that "...book with technical definitions..." before deeming it too complex/technical?

To better see how your document uses styles, remove all the other formatting (make sure you have a copy of your document, so you don't lose any important layout work):
- Select all content in your document (ctrl+A), then Format - use default formatting.

Heading styles are used for appearance, but also as a basis for some cross references (like table of content, including PDF bookmarks), so if you intend to submit this to publishing, you'd better clean up the styles.

[tom11]

Did you even look at that "...book with technical definitions..." before deeming it too complex/technical?

Yes went through about 5 pages as well as putting a search for "Gaps" in there.
Found some interesting stuff about inserting chapter numbers in there, but like most instructions, I very very rarely find they give me the whole picture, just an insight from where I need to do alot of experimenting, however that is probably more due to the way my brain reacts to technical language. I am a big fan of "dummy language" or expanded instructions because I feel they are the only instructions that will work for a certain %tage of people.

To better see how your document uses styles, remove all the other formatting (make sure you have a copy of your document, so you don't lose any important layout work):
- Select all content in your document (ctrl+A), then Format - use default formatting.

Heading styles are used for appearance, but also as a basis for some cross references (like table of content, including PDF bookmarks), so if you intend to submit this to publishing, you'd better clean up the styles.

This exercise showed me my text is a real mess with 3/4 of it going back to Times New Roman and Font size 12 and the rest seeming to increase to font size 20 which had to manually bought back to Times New Roman and Font size 12 and even then I couldn't close up half the gaps.

What I have accepted is when I have finished the writing I need to cut all tables and pictures, dump all the text into a Firefox msn group page to neutralise it, and start again on a new page, inserting tables and pictures again and slowly copying text from a stored copy.

Unless anybody can come up with a better idea in the next week, I will accept that there is just no easy way to solve this issue any other way.

Thanks for help so far all.

PS...One more thing I should mention that could have been stuffing my text up, is that sometimes I wanted a new line without a gap between lines, so sometimes instead of starting a new line with a space for a new paragraph, I would just use the cursor to push the text to the next line down, so there was a new line but no gap between lines.

[acknak]

... instead of starting a new line with a space for a new paragraph, I would just use the cursor to push the text to the next line down, so there was a new line but no gap between lines.

By "the cursor" do you mean typing extra spaces until the lines break the way you want?

You can force a line break at any point by typing Shift+ Enter.

I do sympathize with your difficulty in using written manuals to learn to use software--it's just not effective for everybody, and the User Guide is oriented toward experienced, technical users. It really is a bit information-dense for most people to take in.

One thing you might try is a search for online video tutorials. There are some for OOo; that might be more comfortable for you to get started with.

You can also have a look at the "e-book" available from this page: http://documentation.openoffice.org/conceptualguide/. The book is a rather large file to download, but the material is designed to teach non-technical users how to do practical tasks with OOo. The printed book is also available for purchase if you prefer to have something in hand.

[keme]

A quick solution may be to copy via Wordpad. I.e. Copy your entire document content to clipboard, and paste into Wordpad. Then copy the content from Wordpad and paste into a new Open Office document.

That should strip away the styles while retaining character formatting. You then have to reapply the styles if you need them (for the actual headings, etc.).
(Not sure how this works with autoformatting. I guess it's wise to have Format - Auto Format - While typing unselected when pasting back into Writer.)

[tom11]

By "the cursor" do you mean typing extra spaces until the lines break the way you want?

Yes

You can force a line break at any point by typing Shift+ Enter.

Great

You can also have a look at the "e-book" available from this page: http://documentation.openoffice.org/conceptualguide/. The book is a rather large file to download, but the material is designed to teach non-technical users how to do practical tasks with OOo.

Thanks for that. The book does look user friendly and from there I learnt how to do a bookmark and link it last night.
Next thing to learn will be putting a page number that stays at the beginning of the page. I do get the impression I should have started with some sort of book format right in the very beginning. I have OO.o 2.2

[tom11]

(Not sure how this works with autoformatting. I guess it's wise to have Format - Auto Format - While typing unselected when pasting back into Writer.)

I might have to study that paragraph very carefully.

A quick solution may be to copy via Wordpad. I.e. Copy your entire document content to clipboard, and paste into Wordpad. Then copy the content from Wordpad and paste into a new Open Office document.

That should strip away the styles while retaining character formatting. You then have to reapply the styles if you need them (for the actual headings, etc.).

Thanks. It does sound like you have a potential solution there, its just learning to do it frame by frame. I guess it's a proceedure remotely like this that I am pasting from another post with a few editions:

1) Open your book in OOo Writer.
2) ...........
3) Use the menu: Edit > Copy. This makes a copy of the book in a temporary bin called the "clipboard".
4) Menu: File > New >Wordpad...Oops dont see a Wordpad option so will use OO.o word?
5) In the new OO.o word window, menu: Edit > Paste. This inserts into the document a new copy of whatever is stored in the previous OO.0.
6) ...............
7) Menu: File > Export
8) Choose the location (folder) where you want to save the file. Be careful: the first time you do this, OOo may choose a strange location and you may have to navigate back to your "My Documents" folder.
9) Choose the ??
10) OK

I will start playing with that now and see what happens.
hmm...lost a few pics from cover straight away doing that, so obviously not on track yet.

[tom11]

I am starting the book again now, since text, pictures and tables are pretty much complete, with just the text gaps being the problem, but the trouble is I like different font sizes and font types for headings, but I am afraid that this will stuff up the document again and leave big gaps in the text again.

Any ideas how to have different font sizes and font types without getting a whole lot of text gaps anybody?
(Assuming it wasn't the pictures and tables that caused the text gaps)

Or maybe I am just using the wrong document type?

If somebody wants to give me a PayPal quote for just getting the gaps out of my book's text (from where I am with it now) they can email me on tom1nz@yahoo.co.nz or skype me on lifestudent to get the download link, but it will have to be done on same day and I would like to know how you did it.
Ta Tom