Recently, I decided to order a proof copy through KDP of my main WIP. Holding the story in my hands in book form will hopefully help me see that self-publishing is possible for me. There's a lot of work to do to get it ready. A full-wrap cover and formatting are the main things. So far I haven't tackled the cover, but I have done some formatting, and it was interesting. I'm not ready to invest too much money into my writing career yet, so I'm using a free word processing software called LibreOffice. It's able to save and open Word files, and I've never had compatibility issues. Until now.
There's a website called diybooktemplates.com that has a variety of Word templates for free. I downloaded them and poked around. When I had figured out which one I liked and what fonts I wanted, I started copying my manuscript in. Things went fairly well, though a bit tediously. The second day I was working on the formatting, the footers didn't look quite right. I noticed that at the start of each chapter, the page numbers started over at 1 again. This really bothered me. I know it's just a proof copy to hold in my hands, but I want it to be as good as I can easily get it. While falling asleep that night, I decided that I'd just manually put the page numbers in. Except when I tried to implement that plan, something went wrong, as if the program was being too smart. I can't even explain what it did, but it was completely wrong.
So I gave up. It's only a proof copy. There will be no footers or page numbers in this copy. But that's fine. Why am I sharing this? Because almost everyone I see online seems to be using Word, or even some Apple software. There are only two people I've come across who use the same program as me. I feel there's a need to put my experience out there so maybe someone else with the same struggles as me will maybe not feel alone. Or see what not to try. If you use LibreOffice, leave a comment below so we can be buddies.