frustrations Frustrations FRUSTRATIONS

I’m trying to insert images into many pages of text (in Word I do this by formatting the image in text wrapping /tight and position the image where I like). The less than satisfactory solution that I have used is to create a template with three text boxes and one image box. However, there is no provision for text flow and, if the text in the last box “overflows” a new page is created /inserted in the same format as the 3 text /1 image box. The problem is that the next page of my book should be full text. If I back out the text, or change the font size to fit in the container, the new page doesn’t disappear and has to be manually deleted. The problem with my template is text spacing. Because I can’t nudge the textboxes to contact one another, often the spacing in one sentence is awkward and looks bad. HUGE amounts of fiddling with text is also a problem. Often the font size arbitrarily changes when I copy and paste from a word file. If I have two font styles in one text box and have to adjust the size of the container in “edit layout”, ALL the text in the container formats to the first font when I return to the edit page (whether I made changes or not)! And changes that are made in edit layout cannot be undone once you leave the edit layout window. Now I am confronted with re-formatting the fonts because I can’t undo. When the text flow backs out to a previous page due to editing, often the period or quotation mark is lost and the entire edited section must be proof read again. Further, I have three books (Stories /Poetry /Illustrated stories) which I would like to merge into one book of “complete writings”. The more I read the messages the more discouraged I become about this merge. It is a daunting task to create a “complete works” book from scratch (300 plus pages with the aforementioned text issues!) Blurb needs address text flow issues and the incredibly unstable text software. AND, please ,please, please help with merging books together. Thanks for reading my ramblings. 

David

MORE FRUSTRATIONS UPON FRUSTRATIONS!

My problems are similar to Davids—text flow is terrible.  It began in an earlier version of Booksmart so I downloaded the newest version this morning  (3.4) to see if it helps, to no avail (even worse, actually).

Problem—- 300+ p project in Booksmart seems to keep adding large spaces between paragraphs (and as a result extra pages). AND, when it refreshes, sometimes a few paragraphs of text get duplicated.  So those also have to be removed. 

So I start repairing…And after each repair of >anything< (adding a punctuation mark, hitting backspace to delete one of these randomly generated ‘returns’, whatever) there is a 20 second wait while Booksmart ‘thinks’ and refreshes. 

At this time it freezes and doesn’t look like it freezes, so God forbid you type or do anything in the meantime, or you get a randomly-placed change wherever the cursor happens to land during this process.  You might not even know it, but while you were waiting for the Booksmart to wake up again, you’ve altered the text somewhere on that page.

Is there ANY way to keep these random spacings/returns/white spaces between paragraphs that I did not place in from happening?  Is there any way to keep these odd duplications from occuring???

 Of the tons of problems I’m finding, I’ll settle for just getting those improved…even a little.

 I just want to finish this project…I feel like I’m going in circles.  I spend hours on the same 10 or 15 pages, removing the same things just to have others randomly appear…

I’ve done quite a few books over several years via Booksmart, this is far and away the worst experience.  I have to say it’s really souring me on Blurb period.

Lynn

I wish I’d seen this before. Inserting text is a NIGHTMARE. Does anyone know of a programme designed mainly for text as that’s what I want.