Creating pdfs with Open Office Writer

Tonight I've updated the files at Lightning Source UK with the new book cover design for The Horsepower Whisperer. As the original illustration featured three abreast seating and the new one doesn't, I've amended the text. It occurred to me that the Conformorians would never compromise on which side of the road people should drive on. It would be an either or proposition. Of course, in Anarchadia, they drive on the opposite side of the road on principle.

So M Cadvare's personal transportation device now has left hand drive and I've amended the text to suit.

I've continued to use Word when it comes to writing my books. When I use Open Office Writer, apostrophes don't come out curly. In Open Office Writer they are just little flat things that look cheap and nasty, especially when quotation marks are curly. So I open the Word document in Open Office Writer and the apostrophes appear as I want them. Amend them in Writer, however, and they straighten out again.

The advantage of Open Office Writer, though, is the ease with which pdfs can be created. There's none of that messing about with printers, which is what happens with Word. You just export to pdf and it happens in a few seconds. I had some issues with re-pagination this last time but I think this was due to me updating to Open Office 3.0, whereas previously I was using 2.4. The newer version is cleverer and re-jigged the margins. However, it was simple enough to widen these margins although I checked for widows and orphans again just to be sure that the new page layout didn't provoke any gaps at the foot of the page.

It'll take a few days for the files to be processed and then I'll be back to the stage of ordering new proof copies.