Format->Page changes style instead of page

[tudor]

I’m using LibreOffice Writer version 6.2.4.2 on Ubuntu 19.04.

I’m trying to change a single page to Landscape. I have manual page breaks both before and after the page.

The problem is that when I open the Format->Page or Right-Click the page and select Page, the dialog box that pops up is for changing the “Page Style” and not the page itself. e.g. It says “Page Style: Default Style” and there is an Organiser tab where I can’t edit the name of the style or select another style for the page.

Since I have no way of changing the page style assigned to the page any changes I make affect all pages.

I tested this by changing the background. When I did it, it changed the background of all the pages and not just the page I was on.

I have tried the old trick of adding sections but that didn’t work either.

The only thing I can do is add a new style and then change the “Next Style” following, making a style per page in a sequence.

This isn’t how I remember being able to change the style of a page.

Is this a bug? Has it been fixed in the next version?

[mikekaganski]

Is this a bug?

No it is not a bug. Fortunately, all page-related formatting is only implemented through manipulations with styles, without any “direct formatting”. And that is logical (and hardly imaginable otherwise), given that “pages” don’t exist at document model level, and are generated on-the-fly, on demand, when content (the only really existing entity of document) needs space for layout. Then the page style associated with the content is used to create pages.

See this FAQ to format a single page landscape.

[gabix]

Also read this tutorial and this tutorial.

[tudor]

Yeah. I discovered this a few hours later. The tutorial that led me up the garden path was this: Changing Page Orientation (Landscape or Portrait) - LibreOffice Help

But the thing that really threw me was that the status bar lists the current style, but right-click is blocked in certain circumstances!

[tudor]

…and, of course, “Format->Page” is therefore misleading if there’s no such concept as a “page”.

[martago]

In the latest help file in file:///C:/Program%20Files/LibreOffice/help/en-US/text/shared/01/05040200.html?DbPAR=SHARED#bm_id3150620, it still mentions “To access this command - Choose Format - Page - Page tab” and not Page Style. In my view, we cannot change a software to what we “think” is better or more logical, but we should respect what is easier for the users to find out a certain program option. “Page format” is easier than “Page Layout”, no matter what a developer thinks. Users always first.