LO Writer not saving Drops Caps

Hello I am having trouble when reopening my file in Libre Office Writer.
I am saving in ODT.

I am using drops caps at the start of each chapter with a different font from the main body of the text. These disappear when I reopen the file and I then have the same font as the rest of the document as well as the same font size as the rest of the document.

Headers and footers also keep defaulting for example if I have made it blank page with no page numbers when I reopen it will have a page number.

Can anyone give me an idea as to where I am going wrong?
Thanks in advance.
Simon

You need to specify which operating system and Libreoffice version you are using.
Running v6.x under Linux Mint my drop caps at the start of a chapter are retained, but not always showing on the screen. If you check highlight fields you get the grey background to the letter even if the graphic is not shown, and switching from one level of zoom to another will force the display to correct itself.
Also, how are you setting drop caps? With a paragraph style or with direct formatting. As a novelist I use a template with a First Paragraph style which includes an initial dropped caps letter.

Hi James thank you for your response.
We are using ubuntu 18.4 and Libre Office 6.1.2.1

We do have the greg background to the letter. It was just when reopening the file they are always all gone.

We are using default paragraph style I was not aware I could customise it in the way you say with a default drops Cap for the first paragraph. I will look this up and see if we can try that.

Many thanks again for the answer.
Simon

Pleas use the comments or edit your question.

On old LibO versions there was a bug when you used drop caps as direct formatting in a paragraph, but I think it was fixed since then. Drop Caps always work when using paragraph and characters styles, though: just check chapter 6 in my free book about Writer :wink:

Note: if you can reproduce the error each time you are using direct formatting on the paragraph, please fill a bug report.