I would recommend LibreOffice over Open Office:
https://www.libreoffice.org/
LibreOffice is actively developed, while Open Office has pretty much been abandonware for years.
Note: In 2011, the LibreOffice developers split from Open Office. LibreOffice went their own way, and have been fixing thousands of bugs and adding more functionality. OpenOffice has been rotting on the vine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jray9242
Is Open Office better to use for writing my book? If so why?
I really need to understand the benefits of using Open Office
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Anything you can do in Microsoft Word, you'll be able to do in LibreOffice Writer.
The largest advantages are:
- Free.
- No monthly fee, no expensive purchase to read/edit/access your documents.
- It works on any OS (Windows, Mac, Linux).
- Microsoft Word on Mac =/= Windows version... Mac is a considered a second-class citizen.
The rest of the pros are mostly technical/philosophical (open source, open formats, following the standards, being able to cleanly open much older documents, future-proofing, [...]).
Quote:
Originally Posted by jray9242
if there are templates for us creating eBooks and well as Paper books.
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I don't mess with templates, but some might exist somewhere. But honestly, once you learn how to
use the tools at your disposal, you'll be much better off than relying on others.
I believe one of the biggest skills to learn is how to use Styles:
Word 2013: Use Quick Styles
How to REALLY use Microsoft Office: Word Styles 101
Note: These two videos deal with Microsoft Word's Styles, but the same logic applies across the board.
Once you learn to use Styles, you can easily adapt the text to any page size, font size, [...].
Making an ebook then requires much less cleanup, and it becomes much easier to export and convert text cleanly.
Note #2: There's also the
LibreOffice Writer User's Guide which explains anything you would want to know in detail. Or a helpful community over at the
LibreOffice subreddit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elchamaco
Try Atlantis Word. It generates a good epub directly from the program.
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LibreOffice 6.1 introduced EPUB export, and it's getting better all the time.
It still requires some cleanup using Sigil or Calibre's Editor, but if you use Styles, you'll need to put in much less elbow grease.
And if anything, you can still rely on Calibre to convert ODT or DOCX -> EPUB.