Hello,
How to have the document header only on the first page and how to have the footer only on the last page of documents?
Thank-you,
Guillaume
Headers and footers are part of page lay-out, and that’s controlled by page styles. You need a separate page style for each different page format, so one for the first page with header enabled, one for the last page with footer enabled, and one for the pages in between. While there is a nice way to move from one page style to a different page style for the next page, so that the text flow doesn’t get interrupted, there is no “soft” style break to move to the last page in a document.
In your case, you can use the Default Page style for the first pages, with different content in first page header, then First Page for the last page, but you need to make that change using Insert - Break - Manual break, and select First Page from the list. For more information on using page styles, see Creating and Applying Page Styles and Tutorial on page styles, headers and footers.
Headers and footers are attributes of page styles. Page styles denote different geometries (or layouts) for pages. Generally, this corresponds to different usages of pages.
Your question is not descriptive enough to suggest a correct solution.
- We could understand it as “my document has a front and a back cover which contain a different matter than the other pages”.
In this case, define a specific page style for the front cover. Built-in First Page is an adequate choice, as it is configured to automatically switch to Default Page Style after the first page break. Define also a specific page style for your back cover (there is no built-in style for it).
At end of your discourse, Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break and select your back cover page style to force layout in this geometry (without footer). Type your back cover after the break.
- Your question could also be understood as “I want the first page of a chapter with a header only on the first page, nothing in running pages and a footer on the last page”.
This requirement can only be handled partially. With Format>Page Style, the page style can be modified in Header and Footer to make the first page somewhat different regarding header and footer. This is the role of Same content on first page check box.
There is nothing for the last page because qualifying something as “last page” requires a multipass scan of the document (which is not implemented in Writer nor in any document application I know of – and this strategy may lead to infinite loop which is even worse): you must first determine that some block of text precedes a “strong boundary” (such as a manual or forced page break or the end of file) and scan back until you find a page limit. This is essentially dynamic and beyond the reach of current apps.
If you have no idea about styles and what they can bring to you, read the Writer Guide for an introduction and practice a bit to discover the pitfalls.