[Solved+Issue] Forced page breaks

[rgordon123]

Hello, I have a small but serious problem with page breaks in OpenOffice Writer. I use OpenOffice to write my manuscripts, and inevitably after I save and re-open them, the program creates a forced page break. I know that the way to get rid of them is in the paragraph settings, and I do change those settings to fix it, but once I re-open the document it always has re-created the same page breaks. Does anybody have a fix for this? I feel like I can't be the only one with this problem.

[RoryOF]

OpenOffice, being a word processor, formats text to fit pages. If you don't wish to see page breaks, you can minimise their occurrence by choosing (/Format /Page) a long user page dimension, or alternately change to /View /Web layout instead of /View /Print layout which is the default.

[rgordon123]

Perhaps I should specify- the break occurs only on the second page, and then there are no more after. Also, I don't know what you mean by long user page dimension?

[rgordon123]

Also I just tried changing the dimension (the page height I suppose?) and it just moved the break to the first page rather than the second. I'm trying to get rid of the breaks altogether.

[Bill]

Please upload a sample document. I can't even guess why Writer would automatically create a manual page break.

[RoryOF]

You can't get rid of the breaks altogether, only reduce their occurrence. You are possibly thinking on Normal View (? whatever called) in MS Word. OO Writer does not have that mode.

[rgordon123]

I've uploaded a document where the problem occurs. What I'm talking about occurs on the second page. I know that you can disable it in the paragraph->text flow options, but it re-occurs when I re-open the document

[John_Ha]

Ugh!

I opened the .doc file, backspaced to delete the page break after "Now I'm moving" and saved it as a .doc. When I re-opened it the page break was back.

I note that you have three page styles - Page 1 is First Page; Page 2 is Default; Page 3 and 4 are Convert 1.

The problem is caused because you have page breaks on each paragraph.Note how the paragraph "Big. Long. Made of metal. No lungs. Introspective. Dancing. And so close now." has a forced page break.

The cure? Reset all paragraphs to whatever style you want but be sure that you do not have a page break in the style definition.

It looks like it might be corruption in the .doc file. When I save it as a .odt it does not happen.

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

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.

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

[rgordon123]

Thanks, John! Investigating it myself, I found that what was causing the problem was indeed the page styles, but the problem is that I need different page styles so that I can remove the header on the first page (a necessity for the manuscript style at the places I submit to). What I wanted was a way to remove the header on the first page without creating a big blank space after, but I guess I just can't do that in OpenOffice.

PS: Is there any way to effectively convert and odt file to a .doc without problems like these? These manuscripts have to be submitted in .doc

[John_Ha]

See my added comment above. You can do what you want. The mantra is "If you want to change anything like header, footer, page number etc, then you must insert a page break with a new page style to do what you want on that page.

Reed my added comment for more information.

[RoryOF]

First Page style for (guess) the first page! Subsequent pages will be Default Page Style. Turn off header on First Page Style (if it is enabled) and set Header on Default Page Style.

See Writer for students (several languages)
for an overview of working in Writer.

[Bill]

This may be caused by a bug in the .doc export filter. If the page break is removed and the document is saved using AOO Writer, then the page break reappears if the document is opened with AOO Writer or LO Writer. The page break doesn't reappear when using LibreOffice Writer to remove the page break. If you have to use the .doc format, then try using LibreOffice.

[rgordon123]

Hey Rory, that's what I'm doing currently (using the first page style for the first page and default for the rest) but it still results in the big white sections that signify the page breaks, and that's what I was trying to get rid of. I think it has to do with my saving it in .doc

Thanks Bill, I'll try that

[RoryOF]

Yes, it seems to do with the file format. Work in .odt format and when finished Save As in .doc.

Edit: Won't work - it's still picking up the page break when saved in .doc

[rgordon123]

Update: LibreOffice worked!

[Bill]

Years ago, the "Next Style" setting in a page style wasn't exported when saving in the .doc format. The page break problem may be related to the attempt to fix that problem.

Issue 60332 - WW8: Follow style lost on round-trip

When the document is opened in AOO Writer, the First Page style is applied to the first page and the "Next Style" setting is used to change the page style of the second page to the Default style. When the document is opened in LO Writer, the Default page style is applied to the first page so the "Next Style" setting isn't used to change the page style for the second page.

[RoryOF]

The formatting seems to attach to Page Style Convert 1, which cannot be deleted. If I force a different page style (Default) and remove the page break formatting from the first line, Saving as .doc, when I reopen the page is back to Convert 1 and the page break is back.

[John_Ha]

If I create a new empty document > Import > File ..., bring in the original .doc file, and save as a .doc, the .doc saves with many more page breaks - it has six pages - and with new page styles Convert 2 and Convert 3.

I wonder what Page Styles Convert 1, 2 and 3 are and where they come from?

[RoryOF]

Page Styles Convert 1, 2 and 3 etc are typical in files which have been saved in .doc format; whether they indicate that the file has been edited in MS Word I cannot say for certain.

I found Convert 1 page style could not be deleted; I didn't try with Convert 2 and 3. In the XML code at the location of the forced page break in .odt format are some extra XML tokens which seem to force the break when the file is re-saved in .doc. Conversion to .odt and re-saving in .doc does not remove these, although they do not manifest in .odt.

[John_Ha]

Googling Page Style "Convert 1" word document found the 2016 post OO keeps reformatting headers and page margins which seems to be the same problem.

[Bill]

I don't understand why it does this. Is OO creating a page break because there's a paragraph that spans Pages 1 and Pages 2?

That is exactly what Writer is doing when the page style is changed using the "Next Style" setting and the document is saved in .doc format. In that case, when a paragraph starts on the first page and ends at the bottom of the first page or on the second page, then a page break is inserted after the paragraph. The First Page style does use the "Next Style" setting to change the style of the next page to "Default", so a page break is always inserted when the First Page style is used and the document is saved in .doc format.

While LO Writer seems to handle the uploaded document without inserting a page break, LO did insert the page break in another basic text document after I applied the First Page style to the first page and changed the margins for the First Page style.

[John_Ha]

Page Styles Convert 1, 2 and 3 etc are typical in files which have been saved in .doc format; whether they indicate that the file has been edited in MS Word I cannot say for certain.

I found Convert 1 page style could not be deleted

The first time I deleted Convert 1 it was not deleted.

It always used to be a sure sign of insanity to do something again, exactly the same as before, expecting a different outcome. However, Microsoft has made that observation irrelevant.

I therefore deleted Convert 1 again. The second time, AOO asked if I was sure I wanted to delete a applied Style. I said yes ... and Convert 1 obligingly disappeared.

Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that.