How do I have continuation of page numbers in a merged file?

I wrote multiple chapters of a document in separate files, then I pasted them together to form the final document. When I go to the footers of each chapter, the first chapter has the default style, the second chapter says “converted 1,” the third chapter says “converted 2,” and so forth. When I apply page number in the first chapter’s footer, it doesn’t continue into the rest of the chapters. How can I merge all the chapters to have continuing page numbers?

All my documents are saved in docx format. After each chapter, I entered a page break then copied the next chapter using the copy icon, then pasted the chapter using the past icon.

Are, by any chance, your documents saved as .doc or .docx? Did you really paste them (Ctl+C, then Ctl+V) ?

Answer these questions editing your question. Don’t use an answer, this is reserved for solution. Don’t forget to mention your OS and LO version.

Welcome in the nightmare of format conversion!

M$ Word has no notion of style beyond paragraph styles. Consequently, how Word does things must be converted to Writer concepts.

Since you copy whole documents which may have different page layout, as a conservative measure, the input filter makes sure that every pasted document keeps its own layout by creating Converted n page style, one for each part.

To avoid this, save all your documents in .odt, the native format of Writer.

Next avoid pasting your chapters. You have two solutions:

  • Insert>Text from File which is a safer and more reliable way to “paste” your chapters
  • create a master document and reference your chapters from there

The second solution does not duplicate the chapters, consequently any modification made in one of them is automatically forwarded in the master document after Tools>Update>Update All

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