If a writer document has graphics anchored to later pages, the earlier pages, even if empty, cannot be deleted. I understand that this is because graphics are anchored to a certain page, but it seems intuitive that the graphics would move up to fill empty pages. Is there a way to ‘move up’ the later pages, graphics and all, to fill the empty space?
It is normally not a good idea to anchor graphics to pages.
If you change the anchoring of your graphics, e.g. anchoring at the paragraph, you will have the possibility to position the images and you will be able to arrange your text flow again so that there will be no more empty pages.
You can also preset the anchoring of your graphics.
Choose Tools>Options>LibreOfficeWriter>Formatting Aids from the menu.
For “Image” you can choose “At Paragraph”.
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Version: 7.2.4.1 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 27d75539669ac387bb498e35313b970b7fe9c4f9
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19044; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: de-DE
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Thanks, @Hrbrgr , I thought that was going to be the answer. However I have these files with a lot of images anchored to page, and it would be useful to manipulate them. I am particularly grateful for your tip to change the default anchor point, which I had never noticed.
You must understand the semantics behind anchors. Anchor mode translates the logical relationship between the “object” (image, frame, …) and main text flow.
The most basic mode is As character making the object part of text flow. It is then managed just like any other (huge) character, subject to line wrap, line spacing computation, etc.
The “common” mode if To character or To paragraph (the latter being equivalent to first character in paragraph). The object is not inserted into the flow but aside it. It is laid out “close” to the anchor, in the same page as the anchor. If the paragraph is moved further to text reformatting to another page, the “object” will follow it, keeping the same relative position against the paragraph.
(FYI, To character and To paragraph make a difference only when the paragraph straddles a page break.)
To page is provided to partially bridge the gap with DTP. In this mode, the “object” is not linked at all with the text flow. Whatever happens to your text will have absolutely no impact on your “object”. However, Writer will maintain the only constraint known to it, i.e. absolute page position, through eventual blank pages. Since these blank pages result from a consistency constraint, you can’t delete them.
Of course, you can change the anchor mode. The most convenient way is through style assignment (eventually first with a change to another frame style to get rid of direct formatting before reapplying the present style if still relevant). But the anchor position will not be where you desire it. This can be fixed by dragging manually the anchor to its target position.
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