Different headers and footers throughout a doc

[JUSTROB]

I want to have some pages with one header displaying the book title with page number, some pages with just the topic with page number, some pages with no header but a footer with just the page number and some pages with no header or footer.

I’m having difficulty in how to do pages styles and different page breaks and manual breaks. I’m having problems where I will put in a manual page break, add a header but it will change the format of previous page headers. I haven’t even gotten into trying to insert a footer with no header.

Is there a youtube tutorial that goes through this? Or a regular tutorial?

Thanks!

EDIT October 4, 2020 addition

I almost have my Left Page/Right Page headers working but one problem (I’ll use actual page numbers for discussion):

I have page 23 style as a Right Page with its appropriate header showing the page number and book title. When I go to Page Style->Organizer it shows Style
Name: Right Page
Next Style: Left Page

Now, when I go to the page 24 and click in the header it shows Page Style->Organizer->Style:
Name: Converted25
Next Style: Converted24

How can I change page 24’s page style to Left Page?

[EarnestAl]

Hi. You need to Insert > More Breaks > Manual Break but when you are in the dialog you also need to change the Page Style to a different style than the previous.

There is more information starting page 132 of the Writer Guide 6.4 found on Documentation . Cheers, Al

[ajlittoz]

Apparently, your document comes from some .docx one or you save it in M$ Word format, which results in the same issue: conversion to alien format on save and another conversion to load the document. Even this roundtrip is not guaranteed to be idempotent.

Even if you save as .odt, your document has been polluted and the page styles (one per page because Word has no notion of page style!) are already there. This means you must restyle everything by hand. Worse, either there is a manual page break inserted between pages or the “generated” page styles have all a unique Next Style attached to them; this must be removed first.

As a first workaround test, select a sequence of pages which should alternate between Right Page and Left Page and style them Default Page.

WARNING! It seems you can’t force a page style when a sequence of characters is selected. Then you must style each page individually.

Back to the first page, style it Right Page and it should do.

[JUSTROB]

I’m not using MS Word. I’m using LibreOffice Writer v 6.1.2.1 on Windows 10

If I save this as .odt will that stop all of the pollution? Would it make a difference if I do this on a linux machine?

[ajlittoz]

The problem comes from using the .docx save format and is the same on any machine. This causes conversions on load to internal form and save from internal form. Saving in .odt will skip the conversions. But, you’ll still have the initial .docx to internal to get the document into memory. The “pollution” will be present there.

Cleaning to reach a safe state needs a comprehensive manual job, mainly assigning dedicated page styles to every page. A way to see the job is complete is to try to delete the Converted99 styles. This is not possible when the style is still in use.

Do this only if you intend to save .odt and, after that, save exclusively as .odt to avoid pollution return.

[JUSTROB]

I have now stayed exclusively with .odt but from previous conversions I have a slew of excess Converted1-60 styles. What is standard?

Also, I lost power and now have to redo all of the inserted page breaks and some headers are in when they shouldn’t be. How do you remove a header from a page?

[ajlittoz]

Two ways to remove a header/footer:

• click in the offending header, erase it; you get a “null-header” (I mean the header is till there with empty string)
• disable the header in the page style; this will also reclaim the header area to add it to the text area (this is not the same as M$ Word)

In both cases, all pages controlled by the page style will be affected.

What is standard?

Everything conforming to design specification. In this case, you’re confronted to diverging specification. Word has no notion of page styles and uses another page description principle. The safest conversion method is then to create a page style for nearly every manual page break (because Writer can’t tell if page properties are the same after the break in the .docx file).

[JUSTROB]

Ok, I am using LIBRE OFFICE WRITER v6.1.2.1 (Not MS Word)

THIS IS BEYOND FRUSTRATING!!!

I want to have a document with page properties described below and this is how I TRIED to create page breaks:

1. First page
    a. Header = none
    b. Next page = First page
2. First page
    a. Header = none
    b. Next page = Left page
3. Left page
    a. Header = Page number and Document title
    b. Next page = First page
4. Left page
    a. Header = Page number and Document title
    b. Next page = Right page
5. Rightr page
    a. Header = Chapter and Page number 
    b. Next page = First page
6. Rightr page
    a. Header = Chapter and Page number 
    b. Next page = Left page

My problem is that when I’m going through the document and I see the page style in the Styles pane is incorrect I have a problem when I double-click the style I want the page to be. It messes up previous page styles. No space 4 more…

[ajlittoz]

Is there a typo is page #3: Left page with next = First (instead of Right)?

When you double-click to force a page style, it will affect all pages between the cursor and the previous manual/style page break and cursor and next manual page break. However, once the page style is set, the next attribute will take control and reformat the sequence.

Your problem is probably misplacement or lack or forced page breaks. Remember Writer is not page oriented but rather paragraph oriented. Thus the page break must be inspired by the semantic nature of the paragraph. A chapter heading can be “naturally” associated with a page break before which will constitute a frontier against page style propagation.

Structure your book around the semantic value (the nature) of your paragraphs and organise the page styles as a consequence of this, not the other way round.

Remember that in Writer pages are a by-product of text flow and do not exist until needed.

[JUSTROB]

3 is not a typo. After a left page there is a new section of the book.
I have inserted a manual page break at the end of each page. Is this not paragraph associated?
Can you give me an example of how to configure the paragraphs with my above criteria?
Also, I have formatting marks on in the view menu. Is there a way to show page breaks types?

[ajlittoz]

Manual page breaks are always displayed between the pages as a dotted line, unless you opted for View>Web. Revert then to View>Normal.

Page styles have a Next attribute to automate page style change when end of page is met. Whenever the desired subsequent page style is different from the Next attribute, you must insert a forced break.

To automate the change, the first paragraph of the page must be specific (a “signature” that it should start a new page). Is the first paragraph in your pages a Heading 1? or some user paragraph style which can occur only in first position of a page? You can eventually create a clone of Text Body (with a user-name) for this specific function.

[JUSTROB]

I have selected View > Normal and at a manually inserted page break all I see is a paragraph marker with no dotted line.

And to answer your question about the first paragraphs, there are all different paragraph types. For instance, a left page paragraph is just a normal paragraph and conversely for the right page. But I have those working fine.

My problem is when I insert a manual page break it corrupts previous pages. Usually I insert a manual page break at the bottom of a page if the next page is a new style.

Here is a picture of what I’m seeing:
link text

[ajlittoz]

@JUSTROB: access not allowed on your google drive. Can you reduce your file to max 5 pages and attach it to your question with an edit. This would be simpler and more informational. If need be, replace private text with “lorem ipsum” but keep your original formatting (very very important).

[JUSTROB]

Forget it! I’m new to google drive and don’t know how to change permissions.

It was just a 1 page screen shot of what I’m seeing where there is NO DOTTED LINE at a manual page break!

This might seem snide but I would have thought LibreOffice Writer would be more intuitive than this! Incredible how hard it is to put in what should be a simple page break!

[ajlittoz]

Here’s what it looks like:

“Intuition” is the name we give to a procedure which fits into our habits. “Hard” is the case when we must learn something new.

To put a page break, just Ctrl+Enter. Automating it is a bit more complicated because it involves configuring a paragraph style (thus my question about the semantic properties of the first paragraph because different semantic value = different paragraph style).

[JUSTROB]

THANK YOU for the screenshot (if I knew how you put that in it might help).

I have the page break dotted lines. Just not between left page/right page but those work ok. So why if I add a page break below text which is below another page break does it change page breaks above the first page break?

[ajlittoz]

Without a look at the file, frankly I don’t know.

Since it is becoming pinpointed to specific problems, I suggest we continue on private mail because it might not be general information for all users. Besides, the comment is becoming long, which I was told this is not the right way to use this site (Q&A, not conversation).

Contact me on ajlittoz (at) users (dot) sf (dot) net. After an initial message exchange, you’ll receive my real @ddress.

[JUSTROB]

I sent you a message earlier today. Let me know if you did not get it ~ thank you

[ajlittoz]

Basically you need one page style per type of page layout. Your “specification” is not detailed nor rigorous enough to give you detailed instruction.

It is unrealistic to create one page style for every page (due to your complaint about the propagation of the header change – remember the header is an attribute of the style and can have only one value) with the added difficulty you would also manually insert page breaks which would break the automatic text flow.

The first thing to do is to write down the description of your pages and the transition between them. I you see a regular pattern, it can be translated with the Next property of page style. This Next requests to automatically change the page style when the end of page is reached. This allows for first chapter page to “common” page or left/right alternation.

When several identical pages follow one another, transition must be triggered with a special page break, like starting a new chapter. In this latter case, if the chapter starts with a specific paragraph like a heading, the page break can be included in the paragraph style (eliminating the need to add it manually).

If header/footer content can be deduced from some page content, the number of needed page styles can further be reduced by the use of field insertion. There are many fields for that, like chapter heading. This works as long as you have a consistent use of paragraph styles (mainly the Heading n family) throughout your document. The header/footer becomes kind of dynamic and its content is computed at start of every page (end for footer). Potentially it may be different for every page controlled by a specific page style without disturbing already created pages.

To summarise:

• make sure your document is formatted with paragraph styles and not direct formatting

  The most important family is Heading n which defines the outline structure of your document (aka. chapter organisation).

• describe rigorously the sequence of page layouts (page styles)

  See where you have 1-page long sequences. These singleton sequences can transition to the next style with the Next property. This covers the left/right alternation.

  Longer sequences need a special page break where you designate the page style to switch to.

  If the switch is associated with a paragraph style change (like Heading 1 at the start of a chapter), code the page break in the paragraph style. In all other cases, you end up with a manual page break.

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