Start page numbers from a specific page for a book

English
#1

I have finished writing a book and am typesetting it in LO Writer 24.2. I am viewing this book in the “book view” (using the icon on the right of the very bottom tool bar). The first 16 pages of the book are the accolades, mature rating, title page, legal material, dedication, foreward, etc … and I do not wish for these pages to have page numbers. I wish to begin my page numbering on the 17th page of the book. I have spent hours (literally) try to set up simple page numbering that begins on the 17th page (so that page 17 is numbered page 1) with no success. I also want these pages to be mirrored so that for left hand pages, the numbers appear in the far upper left of the page, and for right hand pages, they appear on the far upper right of the page, … but, … they page numbers must appear within my 6 inch by 9 inch margins (which in the book world is called “trim size”). I have tried forty different techniques and read several forum posts and still have had no success. I did try to make the first 16 pages as a separate page style but that does not seem to work for me. I tried setting up a section break but that does not seem to work either. I tried to follow the instructions in this post:

But those instructions are not working for me in LO Writer 24.2. My entire book document seems to be set up in “default paragraph style” and any attempt to change that or separate the first 16 pages from the main body of the book fails. To be honest, I am totally confused. I did try to read through the LO Writer 24.2 official instruction manual but it is confusing, has 497 pages! and after trying some of the steps, they don’t work for me. What I really need is some step by step instructions for a kindergarten student. (And I do mean step by step.) Please assume i know nothing about page styles, page breaks, and section breaks. I never, … ever, … ever, … thought starting simple page numbering on a document from page 17 would be SO difficult.

#2

You probably want a front cover, unnumbered, then your copyright page, dedication page, etc, see Book design - Wikipedia . To simplify I will just use one separate style for demonstration

  1. Create a new page style using the Styles pane in the Sidebar by right clicking Default Page Style and selecting New
    1. In the Organiser tab give it a name, e.g. FrontMaterial. Set next style to FrontMaterial
    2. In the Page tab, set Page Numbers to Roman, your choice of upper or lower case
    3. In Footer tab tick Footer on and OK
  2. Click at the end of the front material and click Insert > More breaks > Manual Break
  3. In the dialogue select
    1. Page break
    2. In Page Style select Default Page Style
    3. Tick the box Change page number, it will show 1 as the starting number so let it stand. OK
  4. You have now split the document in two. Click in the front part and then double click the new page style that you made, FrontMaterial.
  5. Click in the footer of one of the FrontMaterial pages and click Insert > Page Number, OK

You should have Roman numbering in the first part and Arabic numbering, starting from 1, in the second part.

Try this sample document, create the new page style, then split it just before the heading “Content”
PracticePageStyles104044EA.odt (47.4 KB)

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#3

Go to:

Chapters:

12 Default Page Formatting
13 Title Page
14 Papers Without a Title Page
15 Pages with and without numbers

HTH

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#9

The first answer by EarnestAI produces two different numbers exactly as provided in the instructions. Sadly, I do not want any numbering in my front material. I define front material following the instructions above but I can’t seem to remove headers from only the front material. Anytime I try to add headers or remove them, it seems to apply to the whole document and not just to the Front Material. So, what I want is two sections:

Front Material = No headers or footers, no numbering
Body Material = Headers, no footers, numbering starting with page one (page 1 is actually page 17)

The other stuff is not that helpful and with no disrespect intended, I don’t wish to order a book from the UK when I live in California.

Might I make a suggestion to the powers that be at the Document Foundation - Libre Office Writer section: The method described above is WAY too long and convoluted to simply start page numbering at a particular spot. Anyone should be able to go to whatever page they want, … say page 133, … right click which brings up a menu with one of the choices being Start Page Numbering from here. If you click that option, you then have further options to mirror page numbering and choose Roman numerals, etc … This method would be SO much simpler.

#14

A few general remarks. Please be sure that I don’t intend anything offensive. I just am not a native speaker of any English.

  1. A forum site or a Q&A tool like the one here shouldn’t be expected to teach everybody private lessons in taylor-made style following exactly the very special approach a newcomer thought (wrongly?) to be appropriate for himself.
  2. Typesetting software for a wide range of use-cases can’t avoid any and all complications because user’s needs and expectations can be very different. Every additional feature needs additional means to set related options e.g. And type setting is an old art.
  3. Therefore any new user needs to learn about the basics. Experienced users can point him mainly to written sources covering these basics. They may also offer a specialized example. Thats’s it.
  4. A few decades ago, a profit-oriented company invented an advertising slogan that became an acronym as “WYSIWYG”. This was a disaster for people who knew a typewriter but had no idea about typesetting. They were led to believe that would be enough.
  5. So if you believe in the capitalist paradigm, you should “buy” and use their software. If you want something better, you may have to learn a little more, but you get the software for free.

(Partly created with DeepL.com - free version.)
[If experienced contributors tell me this is too far “Off Topic”, I will delete the post.]

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#15

Read his instructions again. Just don’t do step 5 wich integrates the page number in the footer… (I didn’t try however - using my mobile today…)

#4

Can I recomend that you get a copy of Boring but Essential - A Handbook for Authors.
www.amazon.co.uk/Boring-but-Essential-Handbook-Authors/dp/B0CKB6NZ83/
This book explains how to start the numbering from the page starting Chapter 1.

#7

The first step is to logically divide your document into “parts”. Then each part can have its own page styles and consequently its own footer/header with or without page numbering.

“Parts” are delimited by boundaries. A boundary is created with Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break. A dialog pops up and allows you to choose the properties of the part beginning after the break:

  • page style to apply: it must have been previously created
  • starting page number if any

In your case, it is probably better to define various pages styles for the different component of your front material and use Default Page Style for the main topic.

You can request Default Page Style in your division step. This will apply the same page style to all parts but the boundary is nevertheless created.

Afterwards, you can change the page style in any part:

  1. put the cursor in a part
  2. double-click on the taget page style name in the style side pane
  3. check in the bottom status bar that the desired page style has been applied

After this, insert the various fields (page number, document title, chapter name, …) and fixed text in your header or footer.

#12

I would ajlittoz but I have never seen a forum like this one. EVERY FORUM has simple reply and edit buttons but this one. This whole forum is like designed by some weird developer that has never seen a regular forum before. In short, your method is not working for me in LO Writer 24.2. When I go to Insert->More Breaks-> Manual->page style and try to select a page style I already defined, it is not listed. All I can choose is default paragraph. I have spent about 14 hours over 3 days trying to simply add page numbers starting from page 17. To me, this is a very, very simple request that any author would need. I have never seen a program this convoluted before, … EVER! I mean no offense but I need EXACT, line by line instructions for a baby. Assume I know nothing (which is close to the truth).

#13

This site is not a forum. It is a Question & Answers one. There is no “thread”. You ask a question and you get answer(s). A question may be imprecise and additional details may be needed to understand it. These additions are requested by comments under the question and, in principle, OP should provide them by editing the question so that all data is in a single location, avoiding the need to scroll across a “discussion” to understand.

Here, all contributions can be modified any time (except for newcomers who are restricted to a rather short deadline until they have enough “privileges”, i.e. roughly enough visits).

Similarly, answers may be obscure or slightly off-topic. Again, precisions can be requested by comments under the relevant “answer”.

Finally, the site engine, called Discourse (not developed by TDF), can reorder the “answers” according to its own relevance rules, thus breaking the chronological ordering and making things obscure if you rely on this order.

If you really mean Default Paragraph Style, then this is not the right dialog. You should read Default Page Style.

Indeed. But you must understand the Writer abstract model.
Regarding pages, it is based on user-positioned “boundaries” as I told. Once you have these “boundaries”, the sequence of pages between them can be styled any way you like.

What I don’t understand is why your custom styles are not in the drop-down menu. For technical analysis, attach your file.

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