I have created chapters for my book. But I have started at the Preface e.g. Chapter 1 Preface. How do I remove this so the chapters start numbering from the next section e.g. Chapter 1 Beginnings leaving the Preface alone.
Many thanks.
You need to create a new paragraph style and assign to it a “level 1” outline. The process is as follows:
- Open the style editor and right click on Heading 1 paragraph style → New
- On the Organizer tab give it a name (for example, Preface), select as “Body Text” as “Next Style” and don’t touch “Inherited from” (it must remain as “Heading 1”)
- On the Outline & Numbering tab, for “Outline level” select “Level 1” and accept
- Go to the heading of your preface and apply to it the new style
Done. You just need to update your TOC and everything will work.
If you are interested on learning more about the use of styles, you can check my free book about Writer 
Excellent. Thanks for your time. And I’m going to your book.
Well thanks. Am I actually recreating all the Chapter headings again here? Or just modifying the Preface page? Thanks.
You just need to create one new paragraph style to use for the Preface heading, so it’s not numbered, as you asked in the original question. The concepts of “style” and “outline level” are really important in Writer, they provide structure to the document and are the basis for a correct layout.