Is open office a good program to use in writing a book ?

tharmon

I'm relatively new to using Open Office. I'm thinking about using it in writing a book that would be about 200 pages long with lots of photographs/images. I have tried using WordPerfect, but gave up in frustration.

I would like some input from this forum as to whether or not this is a good idea. What is somewhat daunting to me is the steep learning curve on any new program. My experience with WordPerfect was I invested many hours in trying to learn the program and got about 20 pages into my book and realized that I was spending way too much time learning navigation and not writing. What I really wish was available was a YouTube video showing how to insert pictures and move text around and move a couple of pages from one section to another, thereby pushing the balance of the text a couple of pages, etc.

Of course, having a responsive forum to help is very encouraging! Smile

And where should I post specific editing questions?

Thank you so much for your help.... Tom

floris_v · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:35 pm Post subject:

Welcome to the forum!. Ask Writer related questions in the Writer forum (and consider signing up at the official community forum as well, see the link in my signature). Unfortunately, OOo has a rather steep learning curve as well.
Here are a few pointers:
* Save your work in OOo's own format. That sounds obvious, but many people prefer to save in MS Office format. Unfortunately those formats aren't 100 % compatible. Make back-ups regularly. Don't work from USB sticks, and make sure that if you save your files on a battery driven laptop, you don't turn it off right away or OOo may not have completed saving and you lose your work.
* Don't include the pictures in the file but insert them as links. That will keep your file small and relatively safe.
* Consult the (written) tutorials in the new forum, especially about styles, page numbering, etc.
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