Changing page layout / style of existing document

[frankvw]

I have an existing document in LO Writer 6 that is to be printed double-sided, which means that:

1. I need different left hand side and
   right hand side margins for odd and even pages;
2. I need the page number in the footers to be on opposite sides for odd and even pages.

I have Googled extensively, read the help that comes with LO for several hours, and I’m no closer to making this work. The menu structure in LO6 is different from what the bundled help pages and the online Wike quotes; changes i make in the page style either have no effect of make page footers disappear, throws off page numbering and has other spurious effects, and the whole thing is very conflicting and confusing. I have played with page styles (left and right), tried mirrored page layout and what not, and I simply can’t get any sensible result, much less the one I want.

So. Can anyone please tell me in nice, simple, one-syllable words how to modify my existing document in LO Write 6 to have different margins for odd and even pages and have the page numbers in the footer on opposite sides?

Thank you!!

[mikekaganski]

I’d like to help you, but first I need to tell this: there are some simple steps, and they would work, but only if your existing document has simple formatting (and it’s not like “I see it’s simple!” - a simple-looking document might have a nightmare of internal formatting). So there are two options:

1. I start writing something simple, and you start replying “but that doesn’t work in most fancy ways!”
2. You provide your (sanitized) document, and we do it right from the start.

[gabix]

1. Read this tutorial and this tutorial.
2. If you can’t find an answer, read these guidelines and ask a good question.

You say:

• …played with page styles (left and right)… *

What exactly you did and what failed?

[EasyTrieve]

Thank you @gabix !

[frankvw]

Thanks for the links, @Gabix!

[frankvw]

OK. Having gone through all the tutorials and all the documentation (noting that the documentation bundled with LO6 is outdated) and followed all the instructions, it turns out that my problem mainly stemmed from the fact that part of my document was written in LO4, the rest in LO6. The older portions of the document (which is 230 pages in size) don’t seem to play nicely with LO6.

So I’ve had to resort to pasting the entire document into a plain ASCII editor to remove any residual formatting, then pasting it back into a fresh document in LO6 and reapplying all the formatting. Fortunately I have not used anything fancy but only stuck to basic formatting.

Now LO6 behaves as advertised and I can apply the desired styles and page layout.

So the moral of the story seems to be: if you have (portions of) and older LO document, don’t expect the latest version of LO to handle it. Migrating documents from older LO versions appears to trigger all sorts of bugs and glitches.

[mikekaganski]

I suppose that the real moral of the story seems to be: you haven’t found out what formatting (that is, for sure, supported for current versions, as it was for previous) had prevented you from doing what you want, and you resorted to some brute-force measures (possibly just “clear direct formatting” could help you), and made some illogical conclusion from that.

[Hrbrgr]

I do not think so with morality. For this one would have to know how the original document was created, in which format it was saved. What hard formatting was done, etc. One should draw no virile conclusions and make allegations.

[ajlittoz]

Since I never had problems with porting and editing old documents (even those with antiquated LO .swx extension) to newer releases, I’d guess that some direct formatting was the cause of it. Unfortunately, everything has been wiped out and forensics analysis can no longer be done. The lesson from it is “always work with styles without direct formatting”, so that you can focus on a really small set of data on your document, even better on templates when several documents are involved.

[frankvw]

Other than H1-3 level headers and the occasional bold font for emphasis the original document had NO formatting whatsoever. I finalized the text before attempting to format it. I tried the “Clear direct formatting” option but behavior remained erratic until I finally created a new document in LO6 from scratch. These are the facts; sorry if that doesn’t suit you. On a personal note, I find this particular community unfriendly to the point of being hostile. Not sure why. LO has bugs. Deal with it.

[mikekaganski]

Yes, LO has bugs. But to fix bugs, one needs to have something to work with. The “unfriendly community” has offered you help; me myself suggested you to provide the document, so that we could find out what the problem was. If we’d discover the problem with LO, we’d file a bug report, and have a chance for something improved. Instead, we have your reply that doesn’t allow anyone (including yourself) to learn something from this, except allegations.