Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

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jephmat1964
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Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by jephmat1964 »

I have an open Office document that is a book manuscript. I want the page numbering to start with page 1 on page 4, and have no numbering on the first three pages. (Or at least have the first three pages be numbered in Roman numerals, with page 4 starting with the page number 1 in good ol' Arabic numerals and continue throughout!)

I have been combing through tutorials and documentation and have been working for a few hours to make this happen. Nothing works. The standard Paragraph formatting solution keeps the initial numbering on the first three pages and inserts a giant blank break on the fourth page, kicking the entire text one page further. Deleting the giant piece of whitespace causes the numbering to reset altogether.

I am at a loss. How can something that should be so basic be so %&^$#! complicated???

This isn't helping. I keep getting redirected to this page when I do searches which just causes a temporal causality loop:

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Docume ... her_than_1
OpenOffice 4.1.1 - Windows 10
JeJe
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by JeJe »

Create a second page style for your numbered pages (the header is a property of the page style)

Add the number field to that heading and set the offset of the page number field to -3

See sample

Edit of sample: & set the second style to follow on from the first in the page style organizer tab
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by Hagar Delest »

See: [Tutorial] Page numbering.

I strongly advise against the use of the offset feature. Use the page break instead to set the start for page numbering from that point (properties of the first paragraph of that page).

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the *EDIT button if your issue has been fixed.
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RoryOF
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by RoryOF »

If your book will be printed Duplex (i.e. double sided), your first text page should be the fifth page.
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jephmat1964
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by jephmat1964 »

Where do I set the page numbering offset? I am combing through menus and sub menus and I don't see a field for that.
JeJe wrote:Create a second page style for your numbered pages (the header is a property of the page style)

Add the number field to that heading and set the offset of the page number field to -3

See sample

Edit of sample: & set the second style to follow on from the first in the page style organizer tab
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Bill
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by Bill »

jephmat1964 wrote:I want the page numbering to start with page 1 on page 4...The standard Paragraph formatting solution keeps the initial numbering on the first three pages and inserts a giant blank break on the fourth page, kicking the entire text one page further.
It doesn't work because you're trying to put an odd page number on a left page, but odd page numbers can only be on right pages. That's why a blank page is inserted automatically.
jephmat1964 wrote:Where do I set the page numbering offset?
Select the page number field then select Edit > Fields to open the dialog with the Offset setting. Warning: Click the Help button on the dialog and read about Offset. It is used to display the number of a different page when a page number field is inserted. It does not change the actual page number of any page. This can cause blank page number fields if the offset points to a non-existent page. If you have a TOC in the book, it will show the actual page numbers, not show the offset numbers. There may be other consequences.
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JeJe
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by JeJe »

The approach on Hagar Delest's tutorial will likely be better than using the offset... as he's much more experienced with this than me... setting the break via the paragraph... format menu/paragraph/text flow tab
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John_Ha
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Re: Page Numbering Nightmare: Start page 1 on page 4

Post by John_Ha »

It's all about Page Breaks. Every time you add a Page Break you can
  • set a new page number
  • change the Page Style so you can change content in headers or footers, landscape, margins etc
Conversely, if you want to
  • set a new page number
  • change the Page Style so you can change content in headers or footers, landscape, margins etc
then the easiest way is to add a Page Break.
Clipboard01.gif
You may find this explanation helps your understanding.

It's (almost all) all about Page Styles where Page Syles can only be changed at a Page Break.

You can get full information on Page Styles, Page Breaks and Page Numbering in Chapter 4 - Formatting Pages of the Writer Manual. Also see the Writer Tutorials where you will find [Example] Document structure and numbering and [Tutorial] Page numbering.

Be sure to download the two files in [Example] Document structure and numbering and format the example file - it will help you immeasurably.

It is very useful to make Page Breaks visible by Tools > Options (Preferences on Mac) > OpenOffice > Appearance > scroll to Text document > tick Section boundaries > choose a colour for Page and column breaks. Page Breaks now show on the screen as a thin coloured line and identify all Page Breaks. This is the default setting on later installations where Page Breaks appear as a thin blue line.

Also be sure to Set View > Non printing characters ..., to ON to see the paragraph breaks.

Page numbers

Page Numbers follow on sequentially from the previous page and there is nothing stored in the document to tell you what a given page number is because, apart from where a change is made, each page number is calculated by how far away from "its start" it is.

Setting a new page number

The usual way to set a new Page Number is to insert a Page Break and set the new Page Number. Go Insert > Manual Break > Page Break..., and a small pop-up window allows you to change the Page Number for the first (and hence subsequent) page(s) following the Page Break.

The Page Number you set is stored as an attribute of "the first paragraph on the page following the Page Break where the change in number is made". It can be seen, and changed, by placing the cursor in "the first paragraph on the page following the Page Break" and going Format > Paragraph > Text Flow .... The value " 0 " here means "page number follows on from the previous page number". Any value 17, 23 … etc means that this page starts at 17 or 23 etc.

So, a second way to set a new page number is to edit the attribute in the first paragraph of the page where you want new numbering to start. But ...

... be careful. Say the previous page is 12 and you set the next to 15. If you now add 4 pages of text before it, the numbering will run ..., 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 15, 16, 17, ... etc.

There is an exception. If you define Page Style Fred to have a "Next Style Bill" then, when you insert a Page Style Fred, the next page will automatically be styled Bill. In this case there is no Page Break between Fred and Bill, and Bill's "start" for numbering is Fred. Format > Paragraph ..., in the first paragraph of Bill has no pagination information.

Changing Page Styles (ie page formats), headers, footers

If you want to change the Page Style you must insert a Page Break and set the new Page Style. Go Insert > Manual Break > Page Break..., and a small pop-up window allows you to choose the Page Style for the first (and hence subsequent) page(s) following the Page Break.

If you want to change a header, change the header text, change a footer or change the footer text you must insert a Page Break and you must select a Page Style which makes the change you want.

The Page Style following a Page Break can be exactly the same Page Style as the page before the Page Break or it can be a different Page Style. Page Styles (and hence changed headers and footers); Page Breaks and Page Number are an attribute of "the first paragraph on the page following the Page Break where the change in number is made" even if the paragraph is empty; or is a Heading; or is a table at the very top. Note that Heading means a Heading 1 or a Heading 2 etc, and not a Page header as in header/footer.

You can also manually insert or delete a Page Break; manually choose the Page Style (and hence change headers and footers); and manually change the Page Number; by placing the cursor in "the first paragraph on a page following a Page Break" and going Format > Paragraph > Text Flow > Breaks ... (or in the table, and going Table > Properties > Text Flow...) where all these options can be changed.

You can also delete a Page Break by Backspace, or by deleting highlighted text which includes the Page Break.

Debugging problems with page numbers or page styles, headers and footers

Debug Page Style changes / changed page numbering / changed header problems by placing the cursor in "the first paragraph on the page where the change in number is made" and going Format > Paragraph > Text Flow > Breaks .... What is the document telling Writer to do here? If you see nothing there to cause the change the document has become corrupted and (much!) more diagnosis is required. Remember if the Page Number here is " 0 " it means “page number follows on from previous page ...”

Remember that there is no Page Break between different Page Styles if the second Page Style (Bill) is defined as the Next Style in the first Page Style(Fred). See Fred and Bill above.

A word of caution

You can go Format > Page ..., and edit the format of the page in which the cursor is currently located. However, you are actually editing that page's Page Style, so every other page using that same Page Style will also have its format changed.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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