Headers: pages with/without; left-hand and right-hand pages different

[wtb32141]

My question (problem) concerns the formatting of the headers to appear on all pages of a book’s chapters except the chapter’s first page. Beginning with a chapter’s 2nd page, I want the page headers to be formatted as follows:

1. Even-numbered pages—I want the page number to be flush against the page’s outside margin with the book’s title centered in the header.
2. Odd-numbered pages—I want the page number to be flush against the page’s outside margin with the chapter’s title centered in the header.

I have been unable to figure out a way to achieve that formatting with LibreOffice Writer. Two books that have that formatting are (1) Einstein’s paperback book titled “Relativity—The Special and the General Theory” and (2) Walter Isaacson’s Einstein book.

A page without header or footer has 49 lines of type (with my page margins, 11-point font, and single spacing). Adding a header reduces the line count to 47; adding a footer reduces it to 45. So by putting the page number in the header instead of in the footer increases by 2 the number of lines of print that I can get on each page of a chapter other than its first page (the page number on a chapter’s first page goes in the footer).

Any suggestions you may have re my problem’s solution are welcome.

[Hrbrgr]

You should create or use three page templates.

• Page template for the first page.

• Page template for left pages.

• Page template for right pages.

Apply the page templates accordingly.

[Grantler]

Recommended tutorials:

http://openoffice-uni.org/

To Tame a Writer

[ajlittoz]

Adding a header reduces the line count to 47

An underestimated point in Writer is the definition of margins. Margins are absolutely no-print areas. In M$ Word, margins define where text can be written and “decorations” like header and footer are sent into the margins. In LO Writer, according to the definition, header and footer will borrow space from the area between the margins, thus reducing what is left for text.

If you defined your margins to allocate text estate, reduce your margins to account for the header (footer). The distance to remove is the sum of the header paragraph vertical extent (it can be multi-line though this is seldom the case) as the line spacing plus spacings above and below plus the spacing between the header paragraph and the text you allocate in the page style.

In very complex cases (i.e. with borders and shadow in the header), the formula has more terms.

headers to appear on all pages of a book’s chapters except the chapter’s first page

Your case is quite simple. You should go by with the options in the Header tab of the page style(s). By default, when you separate left and right pages, the header in even-numbered pages is styled with Header Left and the odd-numbered pages with Header (strangely, the style is not automatically switched to Header Right).

All built-in styles have a center-alignment tab at mid-width and a right-alignment tab at right. You don’t need to customise them. Just separate the elements with tabs.

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