Self Publishing Steps
Paul Muller

Using the 6” X 9” Self-Publishing Template
This template file BookSample.odt is designed for use with the LibreOffice Write word
processor. This is a free open source word processor that has many of the features of
Microsoft Word. Libre Office can be downloaded and installed into your PC at:
https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice/
Make a copy of the BookSample.odt file and then rename that copy as Test.odt of some such.
That way you can experiment on this file and if it all comes off the rails, there is still the
original BookSample.odt file to try again.
Once Libre Office is installed in your PC, launch the Write word processor and open the
Test.odt file. You should see the title page.
The idea is that you can simply backspace out the information on the first few pages (title,
copyright, preface, etc) and type in your book data instead. Even the Table of Contents is
designed to be re-purposed as needed.
The ‘Chapter 1’ and ‘Chapter 2’ title heading can be changed to your title using the backspace
key. Subsequent chapter titles can be added at any time by making the chapter title a
Heading 2 from the Paragraph Style drop-down. New Chapters always appear on the righthand
pages of the book.
When you are ready to add your manuscript text to Chapter 1 in Test.odt, proceed as follows:
First, copy the text from your manuscript – maybe do this a few paragraphs at a time – into a
text editor like Notepad. This will flush out all of the formatting from your word processor and
reduce it to just plain ASCII text.
Next, copy the plain text in your text editor and paste into Test.odt, starting where you want it
to appear on the page. The text should fill the page, and create new pages to accommodate
the manuscript text as you add it. Check this by looking at the page number on the bottom of
the page to see that they increase accordingly.
Continue the copy and paste using the text editor intermediary until the chapter is filled. Add
blank spaces until the new Chapter heading can be placed on a right-hand page.
Familiarize yourself with the Manual Page Break function in the Libre Office Insert menu.
Page breaks are needed to separate page styles between the front-part of the book (Blank
style pages) and the (Basic) chapter pages. The Page Break is already in place between the
front pages and chapter pages in BookSample.odt (this is marked on the page following the
Table of Contents just before Chapter 1 page). Sometimes the Page Breaks get over-written
by accident and need to be re-inserted.
When everything is in place and looks good, go to the File menu and select Export Directly as
pdf.
Check the resulting .pdf file to be sure it is correctly formatted!