How to make header margins smaller than body margins?

[nicofs]

LibreOffice Writer, v4.2.6.3, English @ Xubuntu 14.04 64bit, English

I want to create a document form that has a header with a margin of 1cm and a main text body with a margin of 1,9cm to meet my company’s corporate design requirements. All I can do is the other way round in the header margin settings: add to the page margin. I need to subtract - or even better: have the header margin and page margin operate completely independent of each other!

How come the idea that header and footer (if differing from main text body) are always smaller that the main text body is hardcoded into LibreOffice Writer?

[Regina]

It is not clear to me, what your problem is. Can you make a drawing and show, where you want which distances? In general, the settings are all in the page style. The page margins describe the area without any content and the header tab allows to set the height of the header and the distance between header and text body.

[oweng]

There are several effective ways to set header content with a width that is greater than the content in the main body of a page. Thanks to the comment by @Regina below for pointing out others in addition to what I originally provided in this answer. In the examples below I have used the header area and Header paragraph style, but obviously this can vary according to needs.

Outdented header paragraph

1. Set page margins to 1.9 cm all around.
2. Set Header paragraph style to -1.0 cm Before text and After text.

The result should be:

Outdented header table

1. Set page margins to 1.9 cm all around.
2. In the header area > Table > Insert > Table… > single column/row > uncheck Border > click Insert.
3. With the cursor in the table > Table > Properties… > Table tab > Alignment section check Manual > Spacing section set Left and Right to -1.0 cm.

The result should be:

Outdented header frame

This method essentially uses the same principles as placing a table in the header area and setting the frame to be outdented. The difficulty with a frame though is that indenting from right needs to be manually calculated.

The result should be:

Indented main body paragraph

1. Set page margins to 1 cm all around.
2. Set Default Style paragraph style to 0.9 cm Before text and After text (Indents and Spacing tab > Indent section).
3. Set Header paragraph style to 0.0 cm Before text and After text.

The result should be:

[Regina]

Hi oweng, your interpretation makes sense. For that case some ideas in addition: (1) Do not manipulate the Default Style but set the indents to negative values in the Header paragraph styles. (2) Insert a table into the header and set negative margins to the table. (3) Set page margin to the values needed for header and use a section with its indents for the text body. (4) Anchor a frame to the header and write into the frame, frame width may be larger than 100%.

[oweng]

@Regina, yes there are several possible options and (1) is likely better than what I have proposed. I will update my answer.