Well, I'm assuming you have your basic formatting for ebook in hand by now, and you're just looking to finish up the print book. That requires a handy dandy header, though, doesn't it?
Put your butt in the seat and hang on for dear life. Shit's about to get real.
This is where things get completely FUBARed. The blogs I read tried to coach this via either Adobe Acrobat Pro or MS Word. Let me be clear: NEITHER OF THESE WILL WORK THE WAY YOU WANT THEM TO.
Adobe gouges you ($15/mo or $500 for life), and on top of that it has only one simple way to format headers--page numbers and a single heading (book title). You wanna get fancy on it? YOU'RE FUCKED. Either you do it manually page by page, or download another program to use in concert with Adobe that will supply a wider range of options. BUT WHY? We aren't made of money. And the kicker? Once you finish doing your headers, YOU CAN NO LONGER EDIT THE BOOK. Just...fuck no.
And as for Word? HA! I gave it the ol' college try...FOR TWO DAYS. I scoured the Internet basically to be told, "LULZ, Word doesn't have the option to format like that anymore." Nothing works because Word is a TWAT. Have I mentioned this? Oh...I have? Let me just reiterate this: WORD IS A BUTT SMEAR OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.
But what about the stuff for OpenOffice? Holy crepes, man... It's like reading a manual for a time machine. I'm not a techie just because I dick around with the computer a lot. When I'm over here scratching my head after a dozen attempts, the manual sucks.
Enough of that, though. Down to brass tacks. Your nuggets of wisdom are as follows:
Go back over to the "Format" option on the ribbon. Click it and scroll down to "Page." I know; Here? Again? ALAS. Go over to the "Header" tab in the dialogue.
You want to turn the headers on. Notice that little box below it that says "Same content left/right"? Depending on what you want your header to look like, you will either leave that little bastard alone or unclick it.
If you want the general header with book name at the top and pagination at the bottom, leave it. If, like me, you want something a little different, where your headers alternate between page and author name, or book title and page...unclick it. Know this, however: YOUR ROAD WILL BE A TOUGH ONE.
Let's start with the easy stuff. You just want a general header/footer scheme as mentioned above? Cool. Leave that bad boy clicked on. Go over to "Footer" and turn that little monster on, too. Click "OK."
Well shit the bed... See that skinny gray box at the top? That's your header. We don't want it mucking about on the title pages and the copyright page, however. It's time to kick that freeloader to the curb.
You should still be in the "Styles and Formatting" option on the right hand toolbox. Across the top there, you'll see five icons. Click the fourth--"Page Styles." You're going to be in and out of here a couple of times.
To repress the headers on ONLY certain pages, you have to format them differently. Right click on the "First Page" option and modify it. You'll have to reset your margins to CreateSpace specs, click the "Mirrored" option under "Page Layout," and make sure the header and footer are turned OFF. Then, click "OK."
Place your cursor anywhere on the title page and double click the "First Page" Style.
Interesting. No more header. But we still have one on the copyright page and the second title page. No bueno.
Remember that "Breaks" option I mentioned earlier? Yeah, time to get into that. Go to your copyright page and place the cursor anywhere in the first line of text. On the side bar, click back onto the "Paragraphs" tab (first one across the top) in the "Styles and Formatting" option.
It should automatically show the Style that paragraph has been formatted with. Now, right click on it and select "Modify." Go into the "Text Flow" tab. Now...on your breaks, I pointed out the "With page style" option. Click it.
It will bring up this dialogue. You've already optioned this with a page break BEFORE this page. Specify the style as "First Page." Do this again with your second title page. It will format these pages as "First Page" and remove the header and footer.
Now, you've come to your first actual page of the document, where you need your page numbers to start (maybe). Before we can do that, however, we need to reformat a smidge. If you attempt to insert a page number, it won't start at 1, but rather 4. That's not right. The front matter doesn't count.
Before we can fully fix this, we have to backtrack a little. Highlight your "Chapter One," and right click the paragraph style. You want to create a new modified chapter heading Style. Just add "Mod" at the end when you name it. Go over to "Text Flow" and remove the break we put in earlier. Yeah, yeah, this backs it up onto the title page, again, but bear with me.
Next, insert a manual page break. Place your cursor BEFORE "Chapter One." Go to your top ribbon and select "Insert," and then "Manual Break."
Click into your footer and select the center justification option from the top ribbon. Go over to the "Insert" option and click on "Fields." Then click on "Page Number."
Almost done. Now, click into your header box and choose the center justification option on your top ribbon, then type the name of your book. You can play with the font and font size for the header and footer, but that's up to you. Boom. You're finished.
Pretty snazzy, right? Hmm...maybe not. Let's say you decide you don't want the header and footer on the first page of the chapter. Looks a little cluttered or whatever.
Okay, place your cursor anywhere in the text for your first chapter page. Go back over to "Page Styles" tab (fourth across the top in the "Styles and Formatting" option) and click "First Page." Great. No more header or footer.
Highlight "Chapter Two" and double click the modified heading style to apply it. Next, place your cursor at the very end of the text for chapter one (after the period on what I've circled below) and insert the page break. You want "default" and don't mess with the page numbers this time.
Next, place your cursor anywhere in the text for the first page of chapter two and apply the "First Page" style again.
FUCK YEAH! This shit looks good.
Okay, but maybe not good enough. Let's say you want to do the alternating headers. This gets a little trickier.
Go back up into your "Format" option from the top ribbon and click "Page." Right here, in case you've forgotten.
Now, go over to the "Header" tab. You want to unclick the "Same Content Left/Right" option. If you're following this from what's already been done, you also need to go over to the "Footer" tab and make sure it's turned off.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When you open a print book, all of the even numbered pages should fall on the left side. Go check all of the books you have. Yup. What we've done with the basic formatting here (full title page [right], copyright page [left], half title page [right], chapter one [left]), this can become an issue. Depending on the amount of front matter, your book's even pages may fall on the wrong side. You can just insert a manual break after the full title page (creates a blank page) to make sure your pages are placed correctly.
This is important because when you format the alternating headers, all even pages should have the header placed on the left hand side (away from the binding, right? RIGHT!).
Now, you should only have the header box showing on the subsequent pages following the first page of your chapters. Click into the header on the second page of chapter one. Select the left justification from the top ribbon, then go back to the "Insert" option and insert your page numbers.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Sometimes OpenOffice will try to force a ghost page on you and no matter what you do, your numbering will be off for no apparent reason. The ghost page only appears on the "Page View" option (what I've circled below). Seriously? The fuck is this shit? It counts the ghost page as 1, which throws off every page thereafter. No bueno.
Now, seemingly, no matter what you do, you can't get rid of this sumbitch. I found this post from the OpenOffice help desk. Didn't work. BUT...this one did.
Anywho, your name should appear on all left hand headers. You can either keep it justified with the number, or put it in the middle of the page. The easy way is to keep it to the left hand side. Just hit the space bar, type your name, and voila.
Now, go onto the third page of chapter one and click into the header. Choose the right justification from the top ribbon. Type the name of your book, hit the space bar. Click "Insert," "Fields," and "Page Number." BOOM! Fuck yeah, man. Is that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen or what?
If you chose "or what," you suck, but this is YOUR book. I understand you want it to look good. So let's say you want to do a segmented, alternating header. You want your name and the book name to show up in the middle of the header, while your page numbers show up on the outer edges.
Pretty simple stuff. While in your header for page 2 (and after deleting any previous information), go up to "Table," "Insert," "Table."
It will bring up this dialogue, which you need to format like so. Make sure you unclick "Border."
Now click into the leftmost column. Go up to "Insert," "Fields," and "Page Number." It should automatically have the left justification selected. Click into the center column, select the center justification from the top ribbon, and type your name.
Now go over to page three. With your cursor in the header, insert another table with the same specifications. It will automatically name itself. On the rightmost column, select the right justification from the ribbon, then insert the page number. In the center column, choose the center justification, then type the name of the book.
And there you have it. The finished product will look something like this:
So...no melting down, my lovelies. This unholy shite CAN be done, and--what's more--it can be done for FREE.
*tips hat*
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