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rx7chick
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Joined: 04 Jul 2012
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 Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:52 am Post subject: Globally replace hard returns with page breaks |
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I am formatting an eBook and the guidelines specifically state: "Use page breaks instead of hard returns." I am new to this terminology. I have been searching for over an hour for a way to do this globally throughout the entire document, with no result. I found some articles that do not take into account explaining what hard returns and page breaks are in Writer, or what they are even called in Writer.
What is a simple operation to identify and find "hard returns" and replace them with "page breaks?"
Thanks so much. This is a bit urgent as I cannot submit the book until this is done. It is holding me back. |
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jrkrideau
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Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 6733
Location: Kingston ON Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:04 am Post subject: Re: Globally replace hard returns with page breaks |
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| rx7chick wrote: | I am formatting an eBook and the guidelines specifically state: "Use page breaks instead of hard returns." I am new to this terminology. I have been searching for over an hour for a way to do this globally throughout the entire document, with no result. I found some articles that do not take into account explaining what hard returns and page breaks are in Writer, or what they are even called in Writer.
What is a simple operation to identify and find "hard returns" and replace them with "page breaks?"
Thanks so much. This is a bit urgent as I cannot submit the book until this is done. It is holding me back. |
This is guessing a bit but it sounds like the editor does not want a lot of empty paragraphs.
A hard return is essentially hitting the return key to move to a new line.
Unfortunately too many people use a word processor like a type writer and hit return a few times to get to the start of a new page. This is not good.
When you want to start a new page go Insert > Manual Break > Page break.
This is what the instructions want.
Good luck
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jrkrideau
Kingston ON Canada
Currently using Windows 7 & OOo 3.4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 & LibreOffice 3.5.2.2 |
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rx7chick
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Joined: 04 Jul 2012
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 2:24 pm Post subject: Finding Hard returns |
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What do I do to locate all of the "hard returns?" this is all very new to me. The thought of replacing each one individually is daunting. But first I have to find them.
Thanks for the reply |
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Robert Tucker
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Location: Manchester UK
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| Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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Turn on non-printing characters (View>Nonprinting Characters – Ctrl+F10) and look for ¶. Install the AltSearch extension and search for \p. (jrkrideau's suspicions being correct, you will probably want to search for multiple occurrences – \p\p\p.)
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jrkrideau
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Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 6733
Location: Kingston ON Canada
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| Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 4:50 am Post subject: Re: Finding Hard returns |
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| rx7chick wrote: | What do I do to locate all of the "hard returns?" this is all very new to me. The thought of replacing each one individually is daunting. But first I have to find them.
Thanks for the reply |
Well you don't want to replace all the hard breaks. As Robert Tucker says you want to look for muliple ones. Each paragraph in your text will have at least one ¶. You only need to replace the muliple ones.
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jrkrideau
Kingston ON Canada
Currently using Windows 7 & OOo 3.4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 & LibreOffice 3.5.2.2 |
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carrt7
Newbie
Joined: 07 Nov 2006
Posts: 3
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
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| Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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"Turn on non-printing characters (View>Nonprinting Characters – Ctrl+F10) and look for ¶. Install the AltSearch extension and search for \p. (jrkrideau's suspicions being correct, you will probably want to search for multiple occurrences – \p\p\p.)"
Ahh - this sounds just what I'm looking for, too. If I install the AltSearch extension, will I be able to use the Find&Replace regex facility across paragraphs?
For example, can I search for "c/r aa c/r bb c/r" and replace it with "c/r aa bb c/r"? If so, terrific!
Forgive my ignorance: (a) how do I install the AltSearch extension, (b) where do I find Help items about it?
Many thanks, carrt7
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rx7chick
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Joined: 04 Jul 2012
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:52 am Post subject: I cannot find out how to accomplish replacing hard returns |
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I appreciate all the effort being made to help me, but I am not able to do what has to be done.
I was able to show all the hidden characters and I see many symbols ¶. The only way I can find to remove them is to put the cursor just before it, hit delete, which then brings the following text up, then do a manual page break or line break. But in some seemingly random places it causes the following text to be italicized and I cannot get it to go to normal text. Doing this also has destroyed the formatting of my cover page, making all the text the same size and I can't get it to format differently.
I am completely stumped. Doing this has also done a weird thing with my Table of Contents, moving seemingly randomly thru the list of chapters in the TOC and adding breaks in that, plus bringing text after the TOC, to before the TOC. I have a total mess on my hands and unless I can figure this out I am dead in the water. None of this is intuitive. I have spent hours on this and only succeeded in creating such a mess I may have to do the entire book over. Can anyone advise? I know this post is garbled. but I barely understand myself what is happening. I have used Writer for years and never needed to know this stuff before. |
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jrkrideau
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Location: Kingston ON Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:41 am Post subject: Re: I cannot find out how to accomplish replacing hard retur |
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| rx7chick wrote: | I appreciate all the effort being made to help me, but I am not able to do what has to be done.
I was able to show all the hidden characters and I see many symbols ¶. The only way I can find to remove them is to put the cursor just before it, hit delete, which then brings the following text up, then do a manual page break or line break. But in some seemingly random places it causes the following text to be italicized and I cannot get it to go to normal text. Doing this also has destroyed the formatting of my cover page, making all the text the same size and I can't get it to format differently.
I am completely stumped. Doing this has also done a weird thing with my Table of Contents, moving seemingly randomly thru the list of chapters in the TOC and adding breaks in that, plus bringing text after the TOC, to before the TOC. I have a total mess on my hands and unless I can figure this out I am dead in the water. None of this is intuitive. I have spent hours on this and only succeeded in creating such a mess I may have to do the entire book over. Can anyone advise? I know this post is garbled. but I barely understand myself what is happening. I have used Writer for years and never needed to know this stuff before. |
It's totally intuitive after the first few months of wrestling with it. 
More seriously, it sounds like you may have some hard formatting mixed in with your styles plus the italic issue may be due to you grabbing a style from a previous paragraph. --grabbing is not very exact but that is all I can think of at the moment.
For example if you have a style Italic and you a) remove a couple of ¶s that ends up merging the lower paragraph,say in default style into the upper italic style, if you hit return again the lower paragraph will probably be in italic . No guarantee since it depends on the Next Style option under the Organizer tab in the Style.
Is there any chance that you could post a portion of the file somewhere such as MediaFire for us to have a look at it?
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jrkrideau
Kingston ON Canada
Currently using Windows 7 & OOo 3.4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 & LibreOffice 3.5.2.2 |
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rx7chick
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Joined: 04 Jul 2012
Posts: 14
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| Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:48 am Post subject: [SOLVED] |
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Thank you for all the help. I finally got how to do this. I deleted all the spaces between paragraphs, then put my cursor where I wanted the next chapter to start, selected Insert > Manual Break > Page Break. Cleaned up all the mess. Thanks!
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