Wednesday, January 7, 2009

EZ Ebook Templates

Free Templates, Tips & Tutorials

What Do YOU Want To Learn?

Posted by Tracy On June - 28 - 2008

Since I’m not a very good psychic, I’d like you to tell me what you want to learn how to do with OpenOffice Writer and EZ Ebook Templates.

No matter how silly you think your request is, post it up here and I’ll place up a tutorial explaining how to get it done.

Why am I doing this?

To make this site a better fountain for learning. And the best way to do that is to hear from you!

So, just post up a quick, or long, comment telling me what you’re having trouble with and I’ll create a freely available tutorial just for you.

And, before you get too sheepish about adding your request, just remember, you may not be the only person struggling with an issue :-)

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Let’s work together to make this site a better place to learn!

How To Make Your Own OOo Ebook Templates: Part 2

Posted by Tracy On June - 27 - 2008

In the first portion of this tutorial, we assembled our tools. And, discovered some free places to amass even more cool stuff to add to our own OOo ebook template designs.

Now, in Part 2, we’ll actually begin the first steps to building our own OpenOffice Writer ebook templates. Don’t worry, it’s really easy to do. For simple designs. We’ll cover the tougher stuff in later tutorials :-).

So, let’s get started. . .

STEP 1: Open Up OpenOffice Writer

Pretty self explanatory, just open up the OOo program and create a new Text Document. You can do that by clicking on “File> New”, but since you’ve just opened up the program there should already be a new Text Document there waiting for you to add content to ;-)

And here’s what it should look like:

STEP 2: Insert A “Default” Header & Footer Into The Document

Again, pretty simple, but here’s the actual ‘break down’ on how to do this . . . .

Go To: Insert > Header > Default

You will now see a new table looking portion at the top of your new text document:

Now, to insert the footer, do the same thing:

Go To: Insert > Footer > Default

Again, you will see a new table portion at the very bottom of your new text document:

The next thing you should do is enter some basic text inside both the Header and Footer.

Normally, I simply add “Ebook Title Here” or “Author Name” inside the Header section along with the Page Number that I either set to the far left or far right.

**Quick Tip : You can also add in a table to better separate any text and page numbering to make things flow better inside your headers and footers.

To add a Page Number count, simply go to: Insert > Fields > Page Number and it will show up wherever you place it. You can find the text alignment settings in the upper toolbar inside OpenOffice Writer shown here:

And here’s what I came up with for my Header default text:

To separate the “Ebook Title Here” text and the Page Number, I just added extra spaces with the space bar.

Now, do the same thing with the Footer. Personally, I like to add something like: “copyright(c)2008 Your Name or Site Link Here” in this area, but you may want to do something different.

Again, you can right align, left align, or center align this text just as you did with the Header text in the same manner.

Here’s what I ended up with:

To get the neato copyright symbol, just go to: Insert > Special Character and a new window will pop open, then just find the copyright symbol, click on it, hit OK and it will auto insert it.

You can also insert a table to add and separate text and special fields section such as Page Numbering( as mentioned earlier ).

Do this by following: Table > Insert > Table

You can make further adjustments to the inserted table after you have put it inside the area you want it to be in by Right Clicking inside one of the table portions, or “cells”.

A new window will pop open giving you plenty of options for adding colors, borders, background colors, table size proportions, and more. Just play around with the settings to see what you can come up with.

Also, to adjust the column widths, you can simply left click and hold the button then drag the middle column line.

STEP 3: Select A “Page” Background Image & Add It

To add an image to the entire ebook, or “Page”, background area, you will need to right click somewhere inside the new Text Document “white area” — this is exactly what it sounds like — the “white” area within the text document that isn’t inside the Header or Footer areas you just added.

This will bring up a menu. Inside this menu, find the linked word: “Page” and left click it once.

A new window will be brought up that looks like this, or similar to this depending on your computer operating system:

Remember too that you can use any .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif image you want for the background.

Personally, I would try and stay away from backgrounds that don’t provide a center “white” area for your ebook contents. This would make reading much more difficult for your audience.

However, you can always add a table right on top of the background image you select that is filled with the color white. That would solve the problem :-)

STEP 4: Add Your Ebook Content

Now that you have your background in place — if you choose to use one — and your Header + Footer added, all that’s left to do is add your ebook content.

When I use the word “content” I’m mostly always referring to text contents. But, you could be creating a graphical ebook. At any rate, all that’s left to do is add your own stuff inside your ebook template.

STEP 5: Save Your Work & Export As A PDF

Pretty easy here.

Just hit: “File > Save”

or, you can also use the little blue floppy disc icon on the toolbar — just left click it once

Either one will save the document. And of course you’ll have to give your new ebook .ODT file a name.

Then, all that’s left to do is hit the little PDF icon and presto! You have your own uniquely designed ebook.

In both editable .ODT format and non-editable .PDF format to pass out to your customers/readers.

CONCLUSION

Don’t be afraid to play around with font settings for your text, sizes, colors, adding plain colors to your ebook background, and changing your header/footer styles.

You can come up with great looking ebooks no matter what your skill level. It’s all about playing ;-)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

I’ll be adding more in the near future.

And, while you wait, be sure to have a little fun out there!

How To Add Cool Lines To Your Ebook Templates

Posted by Tracy On May - 30 - 2008

Ever wonder how to get some neat looking lines inside your ebook template designs without a bunch of fuss having to create them first inside Photoshop?

Well wonder no more!

Because today, I’m going to show you how to do it, simple, fast, and above all. . .easy!

Let’s get to it. . . .

How To Add Simple Lines To Your Headers & Footers

The first thing you’re gonna want to do is open up either an existing .ODT OpenOffice Writer text document, or create a new one by opening up OpenOffice Writer.

Now, normally, when you open up OOo Writer, it will create a brand new text document by default. At least, it does for me :-)

Okay, once we have OOo Writer up and a text document, it’s time to add some snazzy lines to the Headers & Footers in our document.

For this tutorial, I’m gonna start off with a fresh new text document, and so this is my starting point:

Now it’s time to add a “default” Header & Footer:

From the top toolbar: Insert > Header > Default

From the top toobar: Insert > Footer > Default

Okay, now that we have our “default” Header & Footer inside our text document, it’s time to add a little bit of text to them. You can add whatever you want, or add nothing and skip this step. It isn’t necessary to add text to add the cool lines.

But, here’s what I have so far:


Nothing too spectacular, just some plain old text.

Now comes the fun part. . . .

Adding the lines. Yay!

To add a simple line that runs the length of either the Header or Footer, “Right Click” inside either the Header area or the Footer area.

From the menu that pops open, select “Paragraph. .”

And a new window will appear that looks similar to this:

And, if it isn’t already showing, like above, you will need to left click on the “Borders” tab:

Now we’re cookin’! Well, almost :-)

We’ll need to determine how our line will look inside our Header or Footer.

To do this, simply play around with the settings inside the Line “style” section:

You can adjust the width of the line, and the color from here.

The next thing we’ll want to do is decide on where we want the line placed. Do we want it at the bottom of our text line? At the top? Around the right and left edges? Both top and bottom? Or enclose the text completely with the lines?

We can do any of these things inside the “Line arrangement” section:

For this tutorial, I’m only going to add a line that runs along the bottom of my Header and Footer.

To do this, all you need to do is “left click” one time inside the bottom line area of the image shown inside the “Line arrangement” section:

You’ll notice that there is now a dashed line surrounding a solid line with arrows on either side. That means that this is where our line will appear within our Header or Footer. Pretty easy, right?

Towards the bottom of the “Line arrangement” section, you’ll see a “Shadow style” section. Use this if you want to add a shadow to your line. I’m not going to, but feel free to play around with those settings and see what you come up with.

For a basic, thin black line underneath your text, use these settings:

Line “style”: 0.05pt - Color: Black

Okay, if you are pleased with your line settings, simply hit the “OK” button and whammo! There’s your line, tucked right underneath your Header or Footer text:

Cool!

How To Add More “Stylish” Lines To Your Header & Footer

That’s terrific, but what if you want to add a “dashed” line inside your Header or Footer?

Well, I can tell you how to do this too!

Here’s how. . . .

First you’ll need to bring up the “Drawing” toolbar, if it isn’t already visible. Inside my copy of OOo Writer, it wasn’t, so here’s how to open it:

Go to “View” on the top toolbar and select: View > Toolbars > Drawing

And poof! It will show up:

When I first opened up my Drawing toolbar, it popped up at the bottom of my OOo Writer in the left hand corner, yours may too. Or, it may show up at the top on the right hand side.

Okay, moving on. . . .

If you haven’t already guessed, we’re going to be drawing our dashed line. But don’t worry, it’s easier than you think. If you can hold down a couple of keys and drag your mouse, you can draw a perfectly dashed line.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is select the “Line” tool from your “Drawing” toolbar:

Now, you will want to go to the section where you want your dashed line to appear within your text document.

In this case, it will be inside our Footer.

Go up to the left hand side of the Footer, while still having the “line” tool selected, left click and hold it down while at the same time holding down the “Shift” key and drag across all the way to the right side of your Footer.

This is what you should end up with:

I know it doesn’t look like much now, but let’s keep going.

Right now, you should have a solid straight line as pictured above, even though you can’t see it very well.

But, we’ll change that.

The next step is to “hover” your mouse over top of your newly drawn line and then “right click”.

A new menu will open up and from that menu, select “Line”.

Now, you should see a new window that looks similar to this one:

From here, we’re going to solely concentrate on the “Line properties” area of this window.

In the first drop down menu, pictured above it has the word: Continuous shown, you will select the following from it: Dashed (variable).

This should give you a nice looking dashed line.

Feel free to change the color of the line and the width of the line also in the options below the drop down menu section.

Once you’ve made all your adjustments, simply hit “OK”.

Now, to actually see your new dashed line, left click anywhere inside your text document main area.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Again, I made my dashed line thicker so that you could see my end result. Yours will probably look different.

Don’t be afraid to test out new things by playing around with all the settings and tools available inside OpenOffice Writer.

You may just surprise yourself with what you can do ;-)

3 New FREE Ebook Templates Added

Posted by Tracy On May - 17 - 2008

Took a while, but I’ve managed to add 3 all new free OpenOffice Writer ebook templates to the Free Templates page.

I’ll try to get a few more up in the next week for you to download as well.

But, for now, enjoy the new templates!

Well, more often than not, it really is a case of “to each his/her own”. Trial and error. All that jazz.

For me though, and the designs I like to do, I find that a 670 pixel width by 910 pixel height works dandy.

You may feel differently, but the 670×910 layout area to work in shows up nicely for every page inside the default settings in OOo Writer.

Also, another point to ponder is what type of background design element you are incorporating into your ebooks.

If you are using a seamless, tiling background image, then really, the size of the actual OOo Writer text document is of little consequence.

Speaking of seamless, tiling background images, I’m creating a few and will be adding those later on inside the freebie area for download.

But, while you wait, there are other places to find some great looking seamless, tiling backgrounds. Here are just a few:

Nature Themed Seamless Backgrounds

Background City - lots of nice tiling backgrounds in an array of different categories

Pambytes Textured Backgrounds - plenty of colorful designs, but may be a bit too “loud” for ebook backgrounds though

Free Background Zone - a good variety found here for tiling backgrounds

And remember, as with anything titled “free”, it’s really best to check any and ALL “terms of use” BEFORE you decide to use the images :-).

Why OOo Templates And Not MS Word??

Posted by Tracy On April - 26 - 2008

You know, a lot of people ask me why I decided to create ebook templates for use exclusively within OpenOffice Writer and not develop them for Microsoft Word.

Well, here’s the short answer . . .

Because OOo Writer is FREE!

The longer answer is . . . .

There are plenty of free resources for ebook templates for use inside MS Word, but not even a handful for OOo Writer.

One highly respected friend of mine asked me why I wouldn’t just create ebook templates in both formats so that I wouldn’t leave any “money on the table”. And, he had a great point.

But, honestly, I tried converting the templates over to MS Word, and what a friggin nightmare that was!!

The images didn’t show up, the table formatting was all wrong, the text looked like crap, etc., etc.

And talk about a pain in the a$$ trying to use MS Word as compared to the ease of OOo Writer. Wow. It was simply something that I wouldn’t want to do again.

Now I have a question . . .

Why Are People Still Using MS Word And NOT Using OpenOffice Writer??!?

All around, the program is much better than MS Word. It’s easy, simple, and fast. Not to mention it’s 100% totally FREE! Who could ask for more than that? I don’t know, maybe someone who likes doing things the hard way?

The last thing I’m going to say is this . . .

If YOU are still using MS Word, I think you might want to switch over to OpenOffice Writer. It’s a better program that makes more sense.

You can download the entire OOo Suite of programs free from here:

http://www.openoffice.org

Whoever said you can’t get anything decent for free wasn’t talking about OOo!