Writer: duplicate page number

My document is build above a template defining the styles (page, character, frame, page and list). It is made of “chapters” with the same structure:

  • a first page with reduced header/footer automatically linked to the following
  • a content page with full header/footer

Table of contents and index are considered “chapters” and also have their own page styles.

The “first page” style is invoked by a paragraph style which forces a page break TOC and index initial paragraphs (the tile ones generated from the “insert index/table” dialog) even force page number resetting to 1 from their styles.

This works fine.

The document ends with a licence built following the same scheme: a first page and content pages. Heading paragraph (similar to Heading 1 so that it is not numbered but appears in the TOC) inserts a page break before invoking the “first licence” page style with page number reset to 1. The style are composed like the ones for chapter/TOC/index (or I think so).

But, page number “1” appears on the first and second pages and then increments normally. This also happens if the heading paragraph directly breaks to content page instead of first.

If I remove page reset, pages are numbered as expected in continuity with what comes before.

I tried erasing the offending page styles and reconstructed them to no avail. I have even examined the XML style definition (.fodt document) and detected nothing unusual though I am not familiar with ODF. I have been on this problem for more than a week and do not know where to look for. Page reset, AFAIK, can be configured only in a paragraph style and nowhere else. Consequently, the source of the problem must be in the paragraph style definition but I do not see it.

I have streamlined my document to the minimum needed to show the issue. It is attached as Bugged.odt. The offending paragraph style is GNU FDL Title, the page styles LicenceStart and Licence.

If anyone could drive me in the right direction …

I don’t see anything wrong in that file; pages are numbered with roman numerals, i and ii of ii. When I add text to force a third page, numbering continues as it should. The way you structured the file is, by the way, exactly what you should do to get the desired effect.

But there seems to be something wrong with that set-up that I never noticed, because I never restart page numbering at a new chapter. When I started a blank document to copy your structure, I got at first exactly the effect that you describe, with continuous page numbering, and with the first page actually showing page number 0 at one point. things went back to normal only when I added a TOC at the start of the document.

EDIT: You can file a bug report about this at bugzilla.

Sure, there is something wrong, but I don’t see it. Worst of all, there seems to be a random behaviour, just like you mention. The trouble is I got a deadline for two 200+ pages documents and I find no workaround against the stuttering page numbers. To add to confusion, during my tests with blank documents, sometimes the first page was numbered 2 instead of 1. Things do not get tidy in the big documents (title, back cover, TOC, chapters, index and buggy licence).

Thanks for your investigation