AstroBoy Online Forums

Thanks, Cybotron.

Currently, I am added chapters (individual WORD files) to the main one, and adding images. I really need publishing software, to make the images and text blend properly, though. As it is, just one line of text next to an image kinda sucks.

I've use OpenOffice for book layout and it seems to work well enough. I wasn't prepared for how much there is to learn about layout and editing though. Styles, tables of contents, orphan and widow paragraphs, etc. I can see why there are professional editors for this kind of thing. For wrapping text alongside images in OpenOffice Writer, it's Insert > Picture > From File > select the picture. Resize and position it, then right click it and select Wrap > Page Wrap. Align and anchor as needed.

My sister used Word for her book. It has columns and 3000+ text wrapped images, so Word is definitely up to the task too.

Hi Jeffbert - long time, no see, but VERY glad to see you are finally going to make the book happen.

I have what might be a very viable solution for you. First of all, I worked for one of the big "vanity" presses in the USA - Vantage - back in the 80's (they are the company that got an expose on 60 Minutes!). The folks there were nice people, and it really was designed as a solution (back then) for people who wanted their research published. Folks who thought Vantage were actually going to help market the books were sadly mislead. I used to do covers and actually lay out the books. Fun job (didn't pay really well though) -

BUT - I'm going to suggest you check out Amazon CreateSpace
https://www.createspace.com/

A friend of mine (she's a children's illustrator) has very successfully self-published a number of coloring books through Amazon. Here's her page:

https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Lanza/e/ ... ont_book_1

She said that it doesn't really cost anything - she supplies a pdf of each book and they are printing "on demand."

As for layout - some people can manipulate Microsoft Word and Open Office extremely effectively, but I personally have found both of them very frustrating. "Real" desktop publishing programs (like InDesign and QuarkXpress) provide tools for setting up things like indexes, sections of books -- but they are still not super-duper easy (I used InDesign to create a 250+ page book once with charts and maps and photos and an index and table of contents - and I'm an experienced graphic designer - but that was a BEAR to work on!

I find that Microsoft Publisher is much more like a true desktop publishing program (you can connect the text boxes, "jump" to designated locations, and set up layouts that are more flexible than is easily possible in Word).

I know I haven't been on the forum much over the past year but I'm still here and still very interested in this book of yours - Any questions you have and any help I can offer, I'm very happy to do so!

Speaking of the forum -- I'm not understanding where everyone went? Discord or something? I just figured it was the utter lack of creation of any new Astro Boy content (whatever happened to the reboot?)

So glad to know you are at the point of publishing, jeffbert!

I downloaded the OpenOffice the other day, thanks for the tip, Dr. Frag; but it will be a while before I am at the point to begin working with it. Good to see you again, April7. Thanks for the input.

Some time back OpenOffice was forked, with a parallel development now going on under the name of LibreOffice. For what it's worth, most Linux distro's are packaging LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice. Both programs are very similar, but you might want to also download LibreOffice and see which one works best for you. I think the LibreOffice flavor might be undergoing more rapid development, and might have more features, making it a better competitor to M$ office.

I really dread the need to learn 2 new programs! Thanks for the input, Tetsuwan Penguin.

OO and LO are so similar that you can consider them the same program, except that LO is a revision or two later than OO. So LO will have the latest features and bug fixes.

O.k., thanks, Tetsuwan Penguin!

i SPENT SOME TIME WITH oo a few weeks ago, but it seems no more than MS Word, so far as I could tell. I need a publisher app.