How can I insert an image into a page style?

[AgingCannon]

I would think this is an extremely common need, so I’m surprised that I can’t find an easy solution. Hopefully, I’m just missing something! I need to create document templates that include two or three images on each page, and I would think the best (only?) place to put them is in the page styles… but Writer does not allow me to put images anywhere in the page style.

Consider a “company letterhead” example. The first page of each letter (using “First Page” page style) has a large company logo in the top left corner, and a bigger top margin (say, 2") to ensure that text is adequately separated from the image. All other pages (using “Default Page” page style) have a smaller company logo, also in the top left corner, and a regular 1" top margin. All pages have a wide ribbon-type image at the bottom of the page, with perhaps a decorative graphic, the company motto, and the company address, website, etc.

If these images can be placed into the page style, any number of business paper formats can be easily handled and laid out. But for now, one has to manually set up the images in the header and footer, or simply anchored to the page and sent to back, and the user can easily mess them up unwittingly while editing content. And that does not help at all if different page styles (like a landscape-oriented page with charts on it, or a page style with a dark background or a different version of the logo) require different placement and type/size of images. I can get what I want on each document manually, but I can’t build it into a template so the images are automatically applied and placed when the desired page style is selected.

What I’m trying to do is simply the digital equivalent of having letterhead stationery, and envelope labels, and all sorts of other stuff, made up at a print shop and then printing my text on the special paper. Is there a way to do this so that changing the page style smoothly and automatically changes the images that are part of the page layout? If not, how do I submit a feature request? Thanks in advance!

[mikekaganski]

The page style consists of page properties (name; next style; format; margins; layout; fill; borders; column and footnote settings; and headers/footers). And for what you want, headers/footers are the perfect match, the areas specifically existing to hold the data appearing in the top/bottom parts of every page having that style; allowing for different placement/type/size requirement of different styles. So - what specifically does not work for you with using headers/footers for what you need?

[ajlittoz]

You’re close to it! A template not only contains styles but also “content”.

Consequently, design your template just like you would design an ordinary “letter”, i.e. the first page with your special first-page decorations, optionally placeholders for date, subject, references, header and footer, and an empty second+ page with its decorations. In case of need, add also a landscape page under page style Landscape with its decorations.

When this is done, save this document as a template.

When a new document is created from the template, user has to delete which is not used, e.g. landscape dummy page or second page.

I agree that this does not prevent user from messing up the layout but templates are not meant to lock-in users, only to provide a starting point and eliminate repetitive unchanging setup tasks.

Remember that styles only define formatting properties and not content. However, I recommend that all your “decorations” are put inside a frame because there exist frame styles which have positioning attributes. Frame styles can be as well controlled as the other styles.

By the way, never use To page anchor unless you are perfectly aware of the consequences. To page anchor links the object to specific page and this links is “frozen”. An example, you anchor a picture to the current page which happens to be page 10. After editing, the document text needs only 7 pages. However, the picture remains for ever on page 10 with seemingly unerasable blanks pages in between (because they are dummy pages, just like the pages inserted for page style parity – odd/even only page styles).

To show the community your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers. These are the mechanisms for communicating the quality of the Q&A on this site. Thanks!

[mikekaganski]

but I can’t build it into a template so the images are automatically applied and placed when the desired page style is selected

This part confuses me.

Not only does it show that OP is aware of using templates, but also tells that something strange is happening - because the images should be perfectly stored both in styles (as content of headers/footers or header/footer/page backgrounds), and in templates (having them in styles and content)…

IMO, it’s a case of a tldr description going in length to describing why, instead of a specific description of what steps user tried and what didn’t work.

[ajlittoz]

You’re right.

Maybe I’m overcautious. In my templates, I prefer to show a few page styles with content (not all, only the “critical” ones) to avoid being surprised by long-forgotten artefacts contained there in.My personal choice is it is much easier to remove something than to add a new “feature” to integrate seamlessly with the rest.

Perhaps OP should attach the template or a sample of it if details are confidential.