Can 'Open Office' be used to create an e-book? I will probably only need it for the text part - I'm hoping I can create the cover in Gimp.
I just downloaded some e-book templates but they will not even open on my computer - No I don't have microsoft office

There is an animated format for e-books which are generated by websites. I am not sure any office suites can mimic it. Perhaps you can make a presentation with pages as slides.

If you are asking about PDF, Libre Office and do that in one click. As for the cover, you can use the image that you plan to create using GIMP and use the " insert " option in Libre office to add it to the document which you can export as PDF.

I hope open office can do the same.

Yes you can create the cover in Gimp, and use Open Office Writer to create the e-book.
I'm using Libre Office, it's basically same bundle but updated more often than Open Office.
Remember to save your work in native format, you can export to pdf format using File>Export.
Additionally, if you want to use the epub format instead of pdf there's a plug-in for that:

http://writer2epub.it/en/download/

If you want all bells, whistles and full management, there's Calibre. I didn't find it useful for my random e-book needs.
It's not a writer, so you still need a word processor to create the book, but it can do everything else.

You didn't mention what format the templates are, and why would you need it?
But they probably are mobi, epub or some other unusual format if they don't open.

Thanks for the replies.

I think I had that at one stage Nidhogg - in fact I thought it was the same. Maybe Apache bought Libre out, or visa versa?

I haven't seen a category for the ebook I want to do - A friend of mine has written over 400 poems and is just categorising them now. At the moment they are in years only on the website.
I have put them all online in a website for her but am just waiting for an answer as to whether she would like them as an ebook. They can be published for free but a hard cover book cannot. The more free stuff I can do for her the better.

The templates? I couldn't open them so I have no idea what they were. And the site I downloaded thm from didn't have any previews either. I clicked on download hoping I would get a preview before it downloaded. I might try somewhere else unless someone can give me pointers where to go.

For me the best e-book format is pdf because it's so universal. The acrobat pdf reader is available for all pc operating systems and android. Probably ios as well.
Nearly all scientific documents are in this form as well.
Libre Office Writer can compose in docx or it's own format and easily export as pdf.
Like Gimp it's open source so anyone can download it.

Apache Open Office was previously owned by Oracle. Libre Office comes from the Document Foundation.
Poems?
I'd place one poem on each page. Maybe with a low opacity ornament on background, something very subtle that doesn't draw your focus from the text.
Or if they are categorized, a divider page with a poetic image compatible with the theme?

Thanks again.
Yeah Tas, I've noticed with Open Office I can save in a Microsoft file name, But it won't allow me to edit the document once I get it in Word,
(Like I only have OO on my computer and at work they only have Microsoft. Tried saving through google docs but it comes out too small)

I am sorry, but what is the exact difficulty you are facing ?

1. You can create a PDF which will work in almost all OS

2. You can create a cover art through GIMP and use it inside the PDF

Considering you know how to do both, I am not sure what question you have in mind.

The difficulty seems to be editing same document under Windows, that you saved as MS compatible .doc or .docx in Open Office.
Or maybe it was exported to pdf, looks like Word can open pdfs.
Didn't know because I don't have MS Office, the preinstalled Word in my work machine will remain unregistered and idle for all eternity!

It could be something related to Open Office. I use Libre Office and have extensively used .docx format. On the other end where people use MS Office never complained.

As for PDF, there was some forum post where someone suggested that PDF created in Linux won't work well in Windows. My personal experience was error free.

The best way to deal with this is to use WPS office which is free ( has ads ) and has better compatibility with MS Office. It is available for Windows.

Meetdilip, my original question was in my initial post, My last reply about open office and microsoft was a by the way.

1. I don't know about Open Office, but with Libre Office, yes you can if you choose PDF or ePUB formats

2. You can make a cover using GIMP and insert it as a picture through the " Insert " menu

3.

Which OS do you use ? What is the extension of those e-book templates ?

When you try to open the templates, it will ask you whether to check for a proper program through the store. Allow it and see which program it is selecting.

Libre Office and Apache Open Office are two forks of the same product and both can produce PDF.

Nice to know @Erlslan

Do your art or photos in GIMP, your text in Open Office or Libre Office, then put it all together in Scribus, for the most professional product. It takes some learning but it is the finest open source desktop publishing software there is. Pretty much all operating systems supported.

https://www.scribus.net/

Current stable release: Scribus 1.4.8

Source Archives:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus ... bus/1.4.8/

Windows 32 Bit (2000 SP4, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus ... bus/1.4.8/

Windows 64 Bit (Vista, 7, 8, 10):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus ... bus/1.4.8/

Portable Scribus (Windows 32 Bit):
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/scribus_portable

Mac OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.x) or higher (DMG):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus ... bus/1.4.8/

Mac OS X CLI Binary installer via Homebrew Cask (Intel only, Leopard (10.5) or higher):
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus ... ebrew_Cask

OS/2 Warp 4 and eComStation:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus ... bus/1.4.8/

FreeBSD:
http://www.freshports.org/print/scribus

OpenBSD:
http://ports.su/print/scribus

NetBSD:
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/curren ... EADME.html

Solaris and OpenIndiana (IPS packages from project SFE) – (build recipes):
http://pkgbuild.svn.sourceforge.net/vie ... tra/trunk/

RPM repo with packages for CentOS, Fedora, RedHat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux and OpenSUSE:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/mrdocs/

Instructions for Debian / Ubuntu:
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Debian

Packages for Gentoo:
https://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-office/scribus

Thank you

You're quite welcome. They also have a forum with super knowledgeable users (like this site) who can answer any questions.

http://forums.scribus.net/

Very useful information from Steven8.

I use Libre Office writer when making guides/tutorials for my custom font stuff. I prefer to cut and paste the text from the document into GimpChat or GimpLearn - and the guide can be made into a pdf with one click. It's a bit of a faff saving image resources to upload whichever way you do it I suppose.

Finally went about it this way for one. I might do the others the same. (I am only doing one or two categories per book)
Copied the poems one by one into google docs then uploaded them to Designrr (I only had to pay $42 dollars for a standard plan. Unfortunately that would only do a pdf and not a shareable file so I downloaded the pdf and uploaded it to another site where I could make a https://flippingbook.com/?utm_source=publication&utm_medium=fbo&utm_campaign=Logo for free. I have 14 days - maybe 13 left trial on that site so can do a couple more I hope.
I also hope they are still hosted after the trial is over.