Using LibreOffice to Format a Novel – Part 1: Set up Your Pages

Chose the Size of your Novel

You first need to chose the size of the novel. If you start by choosing you novel size, all subsequent pages you create will be the same size with the same borders. The novel size can be changed at any time and if you base all your pages on your Default Page Style, you only need to change the default style and the others *should* change automatically.

If you open up a LibreOffice Writer document and look at the bottom of the page, you will see the page style is ‘Default Page Style’ . This is the first page we will edit.

You need to go to Format > Page Style then select the Page tab. You can also double click on ‘Default Page Style’ at the bottom of the page, or you can find a list of your page styles in the styles list along the right hand sidebar (you might have to click the three horizontal lines icon to make it show).

You don’t always need to chose a standard book size because modern printing methods seem to be flexible, but I’d say stick to a standard size just in case the self-publishing service you are using demands it. You can find lists of them online, or your self publishing service might have a list. You can also check out the self publishing guides on Amaz0n that will give you various industry standards with their margin widths.

I go for a 13.34 cm wide by 20.32 cm high novel, which is 5 ¼” wide by 8”.

The margins are: Inner: 2.29 cm, Outer 1.52 cm, Top 1.93 cm, Bottom 0.76 cm and gutter 0. I won’t tell you what those sizes are in imperial measurements because I don’t live in the dark ages 😛

The next thing you need to do is tell LibreOffice that this is a novel layout. So the Page Layout should be set to Mirrored, which will mirror the margins to the left and right pages.

For now everything else can stay the same, so select Apply and OK. You might want to save the file as Template or Blank Novel or something.

Choose Your Pages

The layout for pretty much every novel you read is different, so you design it however you please. I’m going to copy the first few pages of the first published novel I found to hand. The pages are:

1. About the Author (or Front Matter, if you prefer)
2. The Title and Author’s name
3. The Copyright page
4. Dedications
5. Random Quotes Relating to the Story
6. The Title without the Author’s Name
7. Chapter Page
8. The novel

Be aware however that some self-publishing services might insist you put the Copyright page with the author’s name at the very very beginning, so check which service you are using if they insist on anything in particular. Pages can easily be removed, so you don’t have to worry about it initially.

I will go through each page, one by one, except for pages 4 and 5, which I will leave as blank pages. I’m too lazy to tell you how to do those, but I’m sure you can work it out.

The reason we will be creating each page with its own style is because the formatting is going to be different for each page. You could simplify the above by just creating a single style for most of it (called Front Matter or something), which will have the same formatting style. However, you would still need to create separate styles for the Title page, Chapter Page, etc.

We’ll start with About the Author. This page could also be praise for the author, quotes, other books by the same author, etc.

You will need the Properties/Styles sidebar open on the right have side of the window. If it’s not open, click on the small toggle button on the right edge of the window, towards the top.

Then click on the three horizontal lines icon above it and from the menu select Styles or make sure Styles is already selected.

Next click on the icon that looks like a piece of paper.

This should bring up your Page Styles. Default Page Style should be on the list. What you will do is create a new page style based on the Default Page Style. To do this select Default Page Style so it’s highlighted then click on the small black triangle at the top of the page style list.

In the drop down menu select New Style From Selection. Enter a name. You can call it whatever you like. I’ll call mine About. Then click OK. By doing this, each Page Style you create will inherit the page size and margins of Default Page Style.

Create Page Styles for Title, Copyright, Dedications, and Chapter Title, then make another page called Chapter First Page. Select Default Page Style and select New Style From Selection. You don’t necessarily need to do every page because some pages can share the the same Page Style.

Next tell each page style which style is to come next. Right click on About and select Modify.

In the pop up window select the Next Style as Title.

Add next styles to each of your pages:

• For Title make the next style Copyright page
• For the Copyright page make the next style Dedications
• For the Dedication page make sure your next style remains as Dedications – i.e. don’t assign a different style as the next style. If it is set as something else, change it to Dedications
• For the Chapter Title make the next style Chapter First Page
• And for the Chapter First Page make the next style Default Page Style
• And Default Page Style should have Default Page Style as its next style

Note that any style you want to use for several pages in a row, the next style should be the same as the current page style. That way, as you type using Default Page Style, every page will remain the same style, which is what you want.

For the other styles, as soon as you type to the end of the page, or add a page break, the next page will automatically change to the assigned style. This feature isn’t always necessary because you can use Manual Page Breaks which means you can make the next style anything you want, regardless of what’s been assigned, but I think it’s good to do the above anyway. The one exception is Chapter First Page, on which you will begin typing your manuscript, and as you type to the next page, the style will automatically change to Default Page Style.

Note also that there is a Title Page feature in LibreOffice, but I don’t use it. To be honest, I don’t know how to use it and you don’t need to use it anyway. It might be useful, I don’t know.

[End of Transmission]

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we’ll be discussion Paragraph Styles …