OO Writer Issues

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statekyle
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OO Writer Issues

Post by statekyle »

Hey everyone. I have been working on a book using Open Office Writer, and today I assembled all the pieces into a single document. I exported it as a PDF, but wanted to go back and make a couple of small revisions. When I did, all my headers have vanished, and I can't seem to bring them back again. What's more, the second page of the actual book is replaced with a blank page that I cannot delete. I tried transferring it over into a new document, but when I transfer the text, it does the same thing. I've tried this with the text as a whole and in certain pieces.

Can anyone explain what happened here and what solutions I could use? I'm at my wit's end.
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Zizi64
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by Zizi64 »

We can guess only without a sample document.
and today I assembled all the pieces into a single document.
Maybe you have mixed the page styles...
Tibor Kovacs, Hungary; LO7.5.8 /Win7-10 x64Prof.
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Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
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RoryOF
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by RoryOF »

How do the individual original documents look? Are the Headers and formatting correct in them? In what format are they Saved?
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statekyle
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by statekyle »

Sorry, I guess I should have added some more information. Essentially, I wrote each chapter, along with copyright, references, etc as separate files. All of these were done under default settings with no headers or footers. The only real formatting any of these have is with the text itself, in that some lines are bold or italicized.

I compiled them all into a single document to make a publishing submission draft. On this, I set the margins, created separate parameters for first page, left page and right page (mainly for the header), and set individual headers for the left and right pages. It took a day for me to do all this, examine the text and make sure it was formatted correctly. I then exported it as a PDF and saved the file. I also made additional file versions of this to test the margins and different fonts for page count.

Today I went into the different files I did with margin and font differences, and they all have the same issue. A blank page between pages 1 and 2, disrupting the flow of the rest of the book, that I cannot remove, and my headers are gone. I'm honestly not sure what caused this or what I need to do. I could do a fresh draft and redo all I did yesterday, but I'm afraid it may have a similar result after it's all said and done.
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RoryOF
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by RoryOF »

Place cursor on Page 1 and tell us what Page Style is in use for it. This style will be shown about one quarter of the way from the left on the Status Bar (bottom bar of OO window). Then do the same for Page 2 and Page 3.
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statekyle
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by statekyle »

the first 8 pages are all in first page format. Page 8 is the first page of chapter 1. the next page is in right page format, but because of the blank page between 1 and 2, it's on the left instead of the right. One other thing I noticed is that up until page 2 of the chapter, the document indicates document pages, whereas page 2 of the chapter says page 10 2/349. It's counting the nonexistent blank page as page 9.
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RoryOF
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by RoryOF »

How are these first eight pages defined? Is there a page break after each one? Then Page 8, is there a page break after it? If not, it is followed on with the page style defined on its Organizer tab (Default, when I check); remember that on Page Style definitions, on the Page tab, bottom right, is the page layout selection. This can cause pages to be always right, always left, mirrored, or right and left.
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Zizi64
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by Zizi64 »

but wanted to go back and make a couple of small revisions. When I did, all my headers have vanished, and I can't seem to bring them back again.
Which file type are you using? You always will lose some formatting properties when you save your documents into a foreign, obsolete, never standardized file format, like the binary .doc format.
Tibor Kovacs, Hungary; LO7.5.8 /Win7-10 x64Prof.
PortableApps/winPenPack: LO3.3.0-7.6.2;AOO4.1.14
Please, edit the initial post in the topic: add the word [Solved] at the beginning of the subject line - if your problem has been solved.
statekyle
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by statekyle »

Every page up until the first page of chapter 1 is an individual break. First pages are organized to be followed by right pages (unless a break is used), right pages are followed by left pages, and left pages are followed again by right pages. All of my files are odt. I never save them as anything else unless I need to export them. All of my pages are set to mirrored format. First pages have no headers, but left and right pages do. There is also a break after each chapter to another First page for each subsequent chapter. Other chapters follow the same organized pattern, but none of them have another blank page between the first and second pages. In addition, my initial direction was to have each chapter start on the left page of the book (organized as a first page). Because of the pesky blank page, however, they are all now shifted to the right page of the book (still organized as a first page, however.)

Upon deeper review, my header and page numbers reappear about 65 pages in and remain for the rest of the book. This is really confusing.
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Bill
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Re: OO Writer Issues

Post by Bill »

statekyle wrote:...my initial direction was to have each chapter start on the left page of the book (organized as a first page).
That's part of the problem. In Writer, odd-numbered pages are right pages and even-numbered pages are left pages, so chapters should start on a right page, not a left page. As a test, open a new document and apply the Left Page style to the first page. A blank page will be inserted because the first page is an odd page and cannot be a Left Page.

In addition, blank pages are inserted between two consecutive even pages or two consecutive odd pages. I suspect that you didn't renumber the first page of the first chapter but did renumber the second page. In that case, the first page of the first chapter is on page 8 (even) and the second page is on page 2 (also even), causing Writer to insert a blank page between the even pages.

Edit: The blank page will be inserted any time the first page of the chapter is on a left (odd) page because the next page has been defined as a right page which must also be odd.

You can supress printing of the blank pages by selecting Tools > Options > OpenOffice Writer > Print and unchecking the option "Print automatically inserted blank pages".
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