Start page numbering from page 3 as page 1

[pooky2483]

I'm trying to number a book but as the page numbering I want starts on physical page 3, which I want numbered as 1, I Googled the problem and found THIS.

I tried following the instructions but I end up with page 2 showing as page '0' and page 3 as '1', what am I doing wrong as I don't want page 2 numbered at all.

[John_Ha]

You may find this explanation helps your understanding.

It's all about Page Breaks. The page following a Page Break can be exactly the same Page Style as the page before the Page Break. BUT if you want to change the Page Style (so as to change headers or header text, footers or footer text, page numbers, hide page numbers etc) you must insert a Page Break and you must select a new Page Style which makes the change you want.

In a correctly working document page numbers follow from the preceding page. If you want to change the page number itself, or remove a page number from a page, or add a page number to a page without one, you need to insert a Page Break where you select the Page Style for that page (and subsequent pages) which does what you want.

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 the Page Break appears as a thin blue line.

Page Styles (and hence changed headers and footers); Page Breaks and Page Number are an attribute of the first paragraph on the page following a change 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. Set View > Non printing characters ..., to ON to see the paragraph break.

When you Insert > Manual Break > Page Break..., the small pop-up window allows you to choose the Page Style for the first (and hence subsequent) page(s) following the break; and also the option to change the Page Number for the frst (and hence subsequent) page(s) following the break.

You can also manually insert and delete Page Breaks, 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 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 Page Breaks by Backspace, or by deleting highlighted text which includes the Page Break.

Debug page style changes / changed page numbering / changed header problems by placing the cursor in the first paragraph following a page break and going Format > Paragraph > Text Flow > Breaks .... What is the document telling Writer to do following the break? If you see nothing there to cause the change, the document has become corrupted and (much!) more diagnosis is required.

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 all other pages which use that same Page Style will also have their formats changed.

You can get more information on Page Styles, Page Breaks and Page Numbering in Chapter 4 - Formatting Pages of the Writer Manual.

If this solves the problem, 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.

[keme]

Also:
viewtopic.php?f=71&t=1221

If you still can't make it work, try this:

• Download the DumpZone (Attached document) to your documents folder and open it.
• Copy front matter from your document and dump it in the dumpzone (paste it on the first page).
• Copy body text from your document and dump it in the dumpzone (paste it on the last page).

[John_Ha]

See the Writer Tutorials where you will find [Example] Document structure and numbering and [Tutorial] Page numbering

[duinker]

Hi, There's a much easier way to do this. Once you have your page number in the footer, right click on the page number on the first page, choose Fields, then at the bottom of that you'll see Offset. If you want to skip say three pages before the page numbering begins, simply type in -3 into the offset box and click OK.
Hope that helps.

[John_Ha]

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you for pointing out that method. AOO usually has several different methods to do any particular thing. Strangely, the "forced pagination" does not appear when you check Format > Paragraph ..., so I am not quite sure how it works!

Edit: See post by RoryoF below. It is not a valid method if you want the document to be consistent.

As a new poster you will find much useful information in the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials, the up to date Writer guide and the Writer Manual. May I suggest you bookmark the pages.

Press F1 to access the Help screen and search for your problem

The chapter headings in the manual are:

1 - Introducing Writer
2 - Setting up Writer
3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
11 - Using Mail Merge
12 - Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies
13 - Working with Master Documents
14 - Working with Fields
15 - Using Forms in Writer
16 - Customizing Writer – Keyboard shortcuts.

When a pop-up window opens, click the Help button for extensive help on that function - it is often more comprehensive than the manual.

[RoryOF]

Hi, There's a much easier way to do this. Once you have your page number in the footer, right click on the page number on the first page, choose Fields, then at the bottom of that you'll see Offset. If you want to skip say three pages before the page numbering begins, simply type in -3 into the offset box and click OK.
Hope that helps.

This is a quick and dirty way to approach the task; note that the earlier pages will not be numbered (as specified by the offset), but a Table of Contents will be incorrect - it will show the actual physical page count, not the number in the footer of the page. This may also give problems if the preliminary pages of a book are required to be numbered (say) in small romans. I suspect (not tried) that it will also mess up cross references and index entries.

[Bill]

Also if a +3 offset is used to start numbering in the first page at 3, the last 3 pages of the document won't be numbered. The offset is a reference to the number of a different page, not a change of the page number of the current page. If the offset refers to a page that doesn't exist, then no page number is displayed. The only legitimate way to change the actual page number is by using the page number setting when inserting a page break.

[duinker]

Thanks Bill. My document is a simple one but I can see how the TOC and any other references would be messed up using that method.
Ren