I want to set a page number at the beginning of a subsequent chapter. Previous help does not work. My first page of chapter 4 (p124) is Front Page style, my second page is GenesisPage style. Whenever I set the Text Flow, the instructions say “Enable with Page Style”, but), it does not say what page style to set it to. Regardless of what I set it to, each paragraph of every page is separated by a page break.
I repaired your post for you: moved it into the proper English category (since you are asking in English, and that’s how the site is organized). What was your expectation? What did you want to see in the categories instead? If e.g. Writer, then it’s done using tags.
Give us some chance to help you: edit your question to mention OS name, LO version and save format. Editing a question is done by revealing the tools under … button below the question, then choosing the pencil icon.
Describe exactly what you’ve done (this may differ from the procedure you quote). For best advice, attach a reduced sample file (max. 5 pages) so that we can have an idea about your formatting habits.
I am using LibreOffice 7.6.4 on MacOS Monterey 12.4. These odt files have been exported from Scrivener, so there may be internal artifacts from that. How do I attach a “reduced sample file”? I saved the first three pages in odt format. That seems like a lot of text for a Page style and page numbering question. SamplePages.odt (33.1 KB)
Since the notion of styles is not shared by all office suites, at least not to the ubiquitous scale as in Writer, understanding how you interpret it is a key into providing the adequate guidance.
I don’t see in your sample what you’re trying to do. The first paragraph (stylesChapter Title) has an added direct formatting requesting a page break to Front Page, which contradicts
The “destination page style” is set according to your request. You have not enabled the page number change. You must first tick the check box and enter a new starting page number after ticking.
There are indeed, but I am not sure if all of these come from the conversion or from you.
There is absolutely no use of character styles. All variations are brought by direct formatting.
Vertical spacing is partially done with empty paragraphs which should always be avoided. One consequence of it is the creation of blank pages on my computer because I have not your preferred fonts . They are substituted but metrics is different. Therefore, empty paragraphs are taken “literally” instead of being considered as spacing, adding text (yes, an empty paragraph is at least on line of text with the defined font height) to the page, shifting page boundaries. Your sample document is 5 pages long here, including one blank but not empty (it contains 3 empty paragraphs).
Even if you already have a few paragraph styles, too many have received direct formatting.
You won’t succeed in structuring and formatting your book if you don’t practice rigorously and methodically “semantic styling”. To put maximum comfort and reliability on your side, use all style categories: paragraph (apparently, you know them), character, page (already used), list (notably the internal chapter/header numbering one to guarantee consistent numbering even when you reorganise your outline) and also frame if you have illustrations.
I highly recommend you pause a while to read the Writer Guide for an introduction to styles and/or Bruce Byfield’s Designing with LO available in the same linked page. After reading, your productivity will be boosted and you’ll easily regain the time spent in reading.
OK. Many questions here.
I was focusing on Page Styles, not paragraph styles. These latter seem to be ok (at least as far as I know). I am trying to have No Header on the chapter title page (Front Page page style) and a predefined page number at the bottom that increases for following page (GenesisPage page style). The GenesisPage style has different headers on left/right pages. That all seems to work ok. I can get a predefined page number on Front Page, but it doesn’t increment in the following pages. Since it doesn’t matter what I pick (I still get the paragraph per page effect), there must be something else going on.
Destination page style: What is that? Destination of what? The first page (Front page style) or the following ones (GenesisPage style) or Default Page Style? I don’t know enough to know what to request.
I have no need for Character styles for this question or List styles. I feel ok with them. What is direct formatting? How is it different than formatting through paragraph and page styles?
Whenever I set the Text Flow, each paragraph gets its own page, so I get about 30 pages of single paragraphs.
What is an Empty Paragraph (the pilcrow?). Is that different than the Insert->Page Break. The instructions for applying a page style on a new page is Insert->Manual Break followed by Insert->Page Break. Are both required?
Bonus question: I have three chapters where everything works fine, but I am in process of reformatting in LibreOffice the Scrivener export files. I want to load styles from the working odt files, but a few styles need editing after loading the styles, whether I use Overwrite or not.
Thanks for your help. I will read through the Manual (again).
Strange. Your page numbers increments as expected in the sample file.
This is a word of mine to designate the page style you expect after the break. In the Text Flow associated with your very first Chapter Title paragraph, this is set to Front Page and you effectively start on a Front Page. Transition to GenesisPages occurs automatically at end of Front Page as a consequence of the Next: property you have set in Front Page.
BUT, due to the different metrics for the substituted fonts here, this switch occurs too early, in the empty paragraphs you have inserted to vertically space. I then get an empty GenesisPages before the Part Heading paragraph which should probably be the first in the Genesis Pages.
This illustrates the danger of using empty paragraphs to vertically space your text.
Direct formatting is any modification to the appearance of your text done outside styles. E.g. adding italics or bold, changing font face or size, modifying paragraph indents or spacing, adding colour, inserting a page break (when it is not "systematic, i.e. associated with a certain type of paragraph), …
In short, direct formatting is any action applied either with the toolbar buttons or menu Format.
Direct formatting is your worst enemy when you write a document larger than 3 pages. It prohibits final tuning of formatting and layout playing only with styles. It forces you to modify your text to check every occurrence of direct formatting.
Direct formatting will always play nasty tricks on your back sooner or later.
Wrong! I see that you emphasise some words by applying italics directly instead of using Emphasischaracter styles. Suppose you want to emphasise differently, e.g. by using a different font face or colour. With character styles, you only modify Emphasis and magically all your occurrences are updated. With direct formatting, you must chase your occurrences and change them individually, perhaps forgetting one.
Some names are emphasised with a change of font face and italics. You could create a custom character style Biblical Name and give it typographical attributes. If you’re not satisfied with the look, you only play with the style until you find the “ideal” combination. With such a styling, you can separate the writing phase from the formatting optimisation phase.
Regarding list styles, you indeed don’t need them formally if you have no list. However, chapter/heading numbering is based on list style (it is an internal one). So, understanding the basics of list styles can help you better design your chapter numbering scheme. The chapters will be automatically numbered. Therefore you don’t risk to duplicate numbers and if you “shuffle” your chapters, they will be consistently renumbered automatically.
You probably do it in an “overused” paragraph style causing the application of the page break to every such paragraph. You should understand the very important and fundamental difference between direct formatting and styling. Styling is based on styles (sorry if it seems obvious) and direct formatting is independent of styles. If you mix both (i.e. change some paragraph attributes, thinking this will be “single-use”), you’re heading into trouble.
It is a paragraph containing no text. Visually, with formatting marks display enabled, they show up as a single pilcrow. Since they contain no information (they are semantically void), they must be banned when rigorously styling your document, all the more if you follow the “semantic styling” method.
Yes. Insert>Page Break is a specific text flow request. It can be done either with Insert menu if it is a one-of-a-kind “accident” in your text or by modifying Text Flow for some paragraph style if any paragraph so styled must be preceded by a page break.
No. If you insert both, you get two page breaks. This is probably not what you want.
Insert>Page Break inserts a page break without changing the page style.
Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break has more possibilities, like changing the page style after the break or restarting the page number.
It is likely that Scrivener has no notion of character styles (and other advanced Writer features). Therefore your export results in less-than-optimal Writer text with a lot of direct formatting. Does Scrivener export paragraph styles (since this concept is more or less common to existing office suite, albeit under different names)? At least this part of the work would be done automatically. But all others have to be manually tuned (page and, sorry to insist, character).
They can then be loaded into your existing .odt files. However, Writer has a feature called template (.ott). A template file contains styles and initial contents (which does not interest you because your files already exist) to be shared by the various files composing your document. When an .odt is (correctly) based on a template, styles are automatically updated whenever they are modified in the template. This is extremely reliable and spared you the pain of reloading (or forgetting to) the styles in every document.
Also, I suspect you have split your final document into smaller ones (hence your request to start manually your chapter 4 at page 124). Writer provides the master+sub-documents concept. The master document contains the cover, TOC and a few pages plus links to the sub-documents for the chapters. You no longer have to care for starting page numbers in the chapters because this numbering is made “from” the master which knows how many pages are contributed by the sub-docs. And if you edit a sub-doc, changing its number of pages, the master takes care of renumbering (and also adjusting the cross-references if needed).
This is a sign of direct formatting presence. There is a formatting precedence rule in Writer: paragraph style is overridden by character style which is overridden by direct formatting. So importing modified styles does nothing against direct formatting. I already mentioned that direct formatting always plays nasty tricks on your back when you expect it the least.
*PS: you mentioned use of 7.6.4, but what is the fourth digit? Here, 7.4.6.2 is installed.
ajlittoz,
Thanks much for your patience. I understand more now, but should clarify a few questions. I have Cleared Formatting (left dropdown menu) and started over.
In Format->Paragraph->Text Flow, I should put destination page style as Front Page because that is where the predefined page number should be (after I tick the box). Additionally, I can Insert->Page Break instead of empty paragraphs, which counter-intuitively, is what a person would do to make space before more text.
Direct formatting: I understand DF. I guess I should have asked: what tool sets/resets because there are so many ways to do the same thing but some are styles, and some are direct. You answered this question: Format menu or toolbar buttons apply DF. The Styles bar on the right and the dropdown menu on the left apply styles. Why do the two have different lists. For example, Normal is often not on the left, but is always on the right (when paragraph styles are displayed). Single use: Why have a toolbar for single use if styles should always be used?
Character styles and List styles: I am in process of reformatting (or refining the format from Scrivener) and I do use both styles (e.g. Emphasis for italics; verse references use auto-numbered lists). I just didn’t get to that in the sample at the time of the question.
Vertical space: How do I add some space at the bottom of a page, to handle unique kinds of widows. Insert->Page Break every time; or Insert->Manual Break for page style changes? Thank you for providing the distinction.
I notice that I can load styles from Templates, but not from earlier documents (although the function does work in a limited way); or is there a way to do that? Should I make an older document into a template. (I have about 400 pages in this book: front matter, introduction, chapters, back matter of appendices.)
I am writing this in parts, and Scrivener required a single document, which is partly why I left Scrivener. I am writing this in parts for the beta reviewers. I don’t want the complexity of making one mistake and corrupting the entire work, which has happened to me countless times.
LibreOffice 7.4.6.1. I attempted to update to 7.4.6.2 but the Updater said it was already up-to-date. (?)
Thanks for your patience and clarity.
OK, I feel like my problems are back at start. I have the text formatting ok, but I cannot get page number 124 on the first page, although the next page is 125.
In Format-> Paragraph->Text Flow->Insert Break (page), I have destination page (Front Page style) and page number 124 checkbox selected. Nothing.
Even worse, I cannot insert a field (page number) either. The Insert button on the Field->More Fields->Document->Page number does nothing when clicked.
As far as I know, I am not using any direct formatting (except that Text Flow is an option only for Format->Paragraph), which I understand is a direct formatting meny item. How else can I set it up?
I don’t see how inserting a page break allocates more space above some paragraph (apart from leaving space at bottom of preceding page). Space above a paragraph is a property of the paragraph style in Indents & Spacing tab. This is where you configure some extra space above all paragraphs styled the same (this is why it is important to name your paragraph styles according to the semantic significance of paragraphs, so that you immediately grasp the role of the paragraph).
Don’t trust “intuition”. “Intuition” is a namesake for routine and reluctance to change it for another one. Apparently, you’re switching to Writer which is based on different principles which are new to you. They’ll become “intuitive” once you become familiar with them. This needs reading the available documentation (rather poor because it does not expose the founding principles; but this is a personal opinion) and practicing on disposable documents.
The dropdown menu is initialised with a few built-in styles, thought to be “universal” like Body Text of Heading n. It is progressively populated with your used paragraph styles so that the dropdown list remains relatively short.
The list style on the right is the full list of styles: built-in and user-created. However there is a way to organise or structure this list by selecting a crierion from the bottom menu:
Applied Styles lists only the styles used in the document (you need another view to apply a not-yet-use style)
Hierarchical (my preferred) presents a tree-like structure sorting the styles into families
This mode shows the relationship between styles and makes explicit why a modification on some styles propagates to the dependent ones.
All Styles lists them all in alphabetical order
As always, any rule has exceptions. You should strain yourself to use styles exclusively because styles are really your friends. They allow separation of look from contents. Formatting can then be controlled from the styles without the need to act on the text any more.
However, there are perfectly legitimate single-use DF “accidents”. These must not be font face, name, size, weight, … which are handled by character styles (because this is a translation of some semantic change). The same apply for indents, alignment, tab stops, … which are handled by paragraph styles (because such changes in “geometry” betray a change of significance).
The legitimate DF uses are those related to one-of-a-kind text flow controls, mainly a page break to cause an initial change in page style, applying a list style (without associating it permanently with a paragraph style), resetting list numbering, turning a numbered/bullet list item into unnumbered so that it aligns neatly with the rest of the list, …
By configuring the window/orphan properties.
You problematic paragraph has a specific paragraph style (I should say all the paragraphs you wish to format have a specific significance which requires a spacial handling of page break occurring inside them). The Text Flow tab has parameters for orphan/widow. By default they are set to 2 lines. If you need to group paragraph lines in a larger “block”, increase the parameters.
Thanks to widow/orphan control, the automatic page break will be either deferred or anticipated. This is much better than a manual break which requires manual adjustment in case of edits. This quickly becomes unmanageable because of the cumulative effect across pages. The automatic management is the solution.
You may be confused by the (recently changed?) menu item wording. It opens a dialog pointing on templates but there is a From File button allowing to import from any document.
Writer is versatile and accepts several workflow.
But if you opt for several parts contributing to a single book, you face the problem of formatting consistency. There are two features to solve it:
use of a template
A Writer template is a document with extension .ott containing mainly styles. The parts are then based on this template so that they inherit (“import”) the styles from the template.
Formatting will be consistent only if you refrain from creating styles in the parts. Styles should be defined and configured only in the template. Otherwise you quickly create a mess because styles modified in a document take precedence overs those in the template for ever.
binding all parts with a master
A master document acts as a binder for your parts. It manages global page numbering (so that you no longer need to care for the starting page number in the parts), collects the full TOC, alphabetical index and other table of figures, …
But a master introduces new subtleties and you need to practice a bit before feeling comfortable with it.
It is straightforward to start from scratch with template, master and sub-documents. However existing documents can be based on a template thanks to a very handy extension. But the existing documents must be fully checked to make sure there is no direct formatting applied above the styles. Templating works from style names. If your documents are already consistent with style naming (identical names in all documents), the step should be quite easy.
I finally got it working. I cleared all formatting, used styles (all kinds) everywhere I could but still handling a couple exceptions with direct formatting. I set the predefined page number at the first line of the first page (in the title) using Front Page style. Insert->Manual Break at the bottom of the first plage switched page style to GenesisPage style on the second page (and forward). Insert->Page Break after that moved the next text section to page 2 (125). This was an exceptional widow.
After setting Text Flow->Insert Break page number = 124, the page number did not show up. I added the page number field in the footer and then it updated from blank to 124. The following page incremented to 125.
I am familiar with the Template concept, and used it in Scrivener, as a storehouse of styles. I will use that moving forward.
Thanks so much for your help. I could not have done it without you.
