Additional Page With Heading

[MattC]

When I set the heading that is straight after the ToC page to heading 1, it produces a blank page between it and the next heading. This is not a ‘Blank Page’ that is seen in book preview, but a blank page with a header. (Heading 1 is set to include page break before - but this works fine on other subsequent headings. Removing this setting removes the page break and the blank page, but I want the page break set.) If I try to insert a new heading before the problem one, the new one has a blank page, as well. The one after, the old one, which still has a blank page, can be corrected by fiddling, but the new one, the one now straight after the ToC, is unable to be corrected. If the first page is filled with text and overflowing to the second, blank, page, the problem is not obvious, as the text flows over onto the, now, accessible page.

Also, there are ‘blank pages’ which can be suppressed, but are these normal - can I remove this completely from the setup, as it is confusing from the page count at the bottom of the screen.
Temp.odt

[anon87010807]

A few questions:

• Could you, to clarify your question, upload a sample file with that formatting but dummy text in case your document contains private material?

• What’s the next heading after the Heading 1 styled heading? A Heading 2? Did you set a page break after Heading 1 or a page break before Heading 2?

• How have you configured your page styles with respect to header and footers?

[MattC]

From experimenting, it appears that the ‘blank pages’ are only inserted when the heading style is set to inserting breaks (with type:page; pos:before) with page style (Default Style) and with page number (1). Although I want the new section page number to revert to one, I don’t want the book style page counting and ‘blank pages’. However, this still doesn’t explain the issue in the first paragraph, above.

[MattC]

I’ll try to get a file uploaded.
The following heading is Heading 1, on both the problem section and the following section. No page breaks are present.
You may have to explain your third point as I’m not entirely sure what you mean. The header is set to display the header 1 through a field, and the page number, which automatically resets with each new Heading 1.

[MattC]

Temp file uploaded in original post.

[ajlittoz]

You have a drawing object Anchored to page in this undeletable page. For some unknown reason, this text box containing “CC BY-SA 3.0 and a URL” is invisible and not selectionable. It is permanently anchored to page 6 and whatever you do this page 6 will exist for ever, even if you reduce your document to its first page.

Anchoring frames or objects to page is a common error. Although pages do not exist per se in Writer, anchor mode To page creates a static permanent page with this number. Text may flow as usual through it but the page and its position is now an immutable object.

I found no way to make this text box editable again. There is still the possibility to manually patch the XML but I don’t recommend it if you can do otherwise because you could damage irremediably the document (or at least the copy). However, I did it to check and your page 6 disappeared as expected.

Also, using a text box is usually not what you want. A text box is meaningful in a form but if you’re writing an “ordinary” text document, the right “object” is a text frame which creates a secondary text flow with all the usual formatting properties, which a text box does not possess.

Also, why did you change the hierarchy of Heading 1 to 6 (and Title as well) to make them dependent on your user style normal instead of the usual Heading? I also noticed you have 118 character styles ListLabel n which is a clear indication you missed something in the general style mechanism.

Since your text boxes can’t be deleted, restart your document from scratch if it does not contain a lot of text yet. Otherwise, copy you text in a fresh document. I emphasized word text to insist upon the fact you must copy paragraph per paragraph to make sure you don’t copy the drawing objects by accident.

Avoid using any drawing objects unless you really need graphics in it (a text box is just another form of graphic object). Even in this case, it is better to draw your graphics in Draw and copy/paste the result as a single image. Text frames are your best friends for side insertion of short text like margin notes or “floating” captions.

Never anchor To page until you perfectly know the non-conventional properties of this mode and its consequences.

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In case you need clarification, edit your question (not an answer which is reserved for solutions) or comment the relevant answer.

[MattC]

Thank you for your comprehensive answer. This temp file is based directly off a template I created, which was based directly off a stripped down previous document, which maybe where the hidden text box came from. I obviously need to create a new template from scratch. Thanks for the advice on carefully transferring the text across to a new document.

As I am new to LO, can you elucidate your fifth paragraph, re hierarchy of headings, as I honestly have no idea what you mean.

[ajlittoz]

Styles can be organised like a family tree where those lower in the tree inherit their attribute from their immediate ancestor (which inherits … up to Default xxx style, xxx = paragraph or character). At each stage, you only need to override the attributes which must be different. This means that when a non-overridden attribute is changed in the ancestor, this attribute is also changed in the style.

As an example, all Heading n, Title and several others are descendants of Heading. Heading is usually set such that its font face is different than the one in Text Body or Default Paragraph Style making the headings distinctively stand out of the “discourse”. By making some Heading n dependent on your normal which is itself independent of Default Paragraph Style, you defeat this inheritance feature.

The inheritance is very valuable when you tune your document formatting at proof-reading time, playing only with critical styles to change document appearance centrally.

[MattC]

Ahh, I think I understand. The answer to the question in the previous comment, then, is: I had no idea what I was doing :). But thanks anyway. Hopefully this will help me in the future.