Book manuscript: Single File or Separate for Chapters?

[coventrm]

Hi--

I'm wondering about folks' experience of using a single file for a book manuscript versus keeping the chapters in distinct files. What are the pros and cons in your experience? The attraction of the single file is the ability to see and navigate the entire outline of the document and have the page numbers flow. What are the thoughts of others? Is it too many eggs in one basket to rely on one file for the whole project?

Michael Coventry

[shades]

About 18 months ago I finished a book, to the point of PDFs sent to the printer (all B&W); he used Windows for his production work. I kept each chapter separate from writing stage through page layout and PDF production, then I joined the PDFs into one file using PDFLab. Worked without a hitch.

I felt safer using separate files for each chapter; in the earliest stages of writing I had used MS Word 98, and had many problems after 50 pages. I switched to writing in Nisus Writer (OS 9). When I switched to OS X, I began using Mellel, continuing with it until I got to the page layout stage. At the time of adding photos, page layout, and final editing, I used Papyrus. It allows offset page numbering, and so it was relatively simple to keep page numbering consistent, across many files. Not once did Papyrus cause a problem.

Were I to do it again, I would use Mellel for all writing, Papyrus for page layout, and keep all chapters separate until after the final PDFs were completed. In other words, my first attempt worked so well, I wouldn't change anything - except write faster!

[Hans-Reinhard Koch]

The way I work, I don't think having a different file for each chapter is very practical. My book manuscript has now appr. 400 pages, 800 literature refs and 150 figures. Juggling around between different (20) chapter files would be highly frustrating. Also you loose the beautiful auto-numbering feature for headings,several levels of sub-headings, figs, etc. And Mellel has no problem whatsoever with large files. It handles my 500 MB file without delays and problems and never crashes (Touch wood). The only draw back is: its a bit long with saves (due to the many illustrations in my case, see thread on auto-save, this forum)
Best regards,
Hans-Reinhard

[coventrm]

Thanks for the two views. Working in one file is really attractive and it's good to know it can handle your complex document.

I'll just be sure to keep backups all around--just in case!

[fastmiso]

Good question, but note also that I would be surprised if XRefs work across various chapter files.

[shades]

I should point out that in my case, there were no cross-references and no footnotes in the book. So that wasn't a problem for me. Thus, the only things that mattered were chapter numbering (and sub-numbering) and caption numbering for photos, which Papyrus handled with ease.

Now in the next two years, as I approach a book with many footnotes and cross-references (theological/academic), then all in one in Mellel will probably make more sense for me.

[Reiner]

The only scenario I personally can imagine at the moment which would argue for multiple files is when your book has to have end-of-chapter-notes. This is not possible with Mellel at the moment but hopefully will be implemented in a future release.

[mbywater]

Single file has been fine for me on several manuscripts -- the most challenging being one with multiple-level autoheadings, four note streams (don't ask!), multiple sections, header "mentions" and all the rest of it. No problems at all.

I wonder if the idea of separate chapter files is a hangover from the days of slow floppies and memory constraints? Or indeed from W*rd, which can't handle anything above 25 000 words gracefully.

Of course, if you're a tinkerer, futzer, incremental writer or whatever, individual chapter files may be easier. I tend to futz in the pre-writing phase. Once words start going down, it's more or less linear, so One Big File it is for me.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, my publishers told me if I did end-of-chapter notes they would beat me to death. THEY do that sort of stuff in mark-up and InDesign. Different if you're producing camera-ready files, of course.

[Timotheus]

The possibility to put a whole book into a single file, together with Mellel's superb outlining, is the principal reason why I work with this application. The book I'm working on presently counts some 236.500 words and 621 footnotes. All in one file - works without a glitch. As far as I know, there is no other program with which this could be done equally well.

[thomasoles]

I am writing a dissertation and am trying to keep the whole document in one file. I need to have continuous pagination throughout, but each chapter must have separate footnote numbering (i.e. Chapter 1 begins at 1, Chapter 2 at 1, and so on). Is there any way to do this in Mellel? The Section Break command seems to result in _both_ pagination and footnotes restarting at 1.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks.

[ozean]

Thomasoles question has been resolved in this thread:
http://forum.redlers.com/viewtopic.php? ... &sk=t&sd=a

[nicka]

Answered, but not really resolved...

At present there is only a workaround, not a solution: manually set the page number at the beginning of each section to follow on from the last -- and update them all, just before printing.

[fliegenderrobert]

Hallo dear Mellel Users,
I'm just new to the community and like to ask a question which might fit to the subject as well,
I need to add chapter names into the header. They differ, obviously, in each chapter and are located in a table cell.
Did someone already figure out how to do this?
I couldn't find a possible way in the documentation at all.
Brgds
Helmut

[signinstranger]

-> Mentions (=Dynamische Kopf- und Fußzeilen)

[fliegenderrobert]

Signinstranger
the explanation in the Mellel Handbook is not clear to me.
I'm unable to find the way to add > Nummerierung > Bearbeiten nor can I find the "Nummerierungspalette".
I only have Lists and "Gliederung".
For shure it is my mistake I cannot find the way. Could you please be so kind and explain it, if their is a way to do it.
Brgds
Helmut