I have running headers throughout my book - book title on the left page and chapter name on the right page, both with page numbers. I can’t find instructions or YouTube tutorials that teach how to hide a running header only on a page that is either blank or is the start of a new chapter. Is that possible? Is
Win 11, LO 7.6.4.1, .odt file
Yes, it’s possible. Just make certain these pages are each using a page style that does not have “Header on” selected in the Header tab of that page style’s dialog.
You can do that through judicious configuration of your page styles. But, due to (inconsiderate?) restrictions on some built-in page styles, you must add a custom page style.
Basically, Left Page and Right Page page styles will be used for running pages. You’ll insert fields in these headers for book title and chapter name as explained here.
I assume your chapters always start on a right page. Create a Chapter Start page style with following properties:
Header tab, ensure Header on is unticked to disable headerPage tab, set Page layout to Only Right
Organizer, set Next Style to Left Page
Modify Heading 1 (the paragraph style applied to chapter headings) so that Text Flow requests a page break Before with page style Chapter Start.
Now your chapter headings (styled Heading 1) automatically force a page break to Chapter Start which has no header and chapter text then alternates between Left Page and Right Page with their headers. If a chapter ends on a right page, Writer will jump to Chapter Start which is constrained to a right page. This is possible only after insertion of a blank page. And a blank page is … well … blank, i.e. displays absolutely nothing, which is what you want.
Since the same Heading 1 had been used in the front matter (Preface, etc.), it causes those pages to become Chapter Start pages. I modified the original Heading 1 as instructed, but I’ve created a sub Heading 1-Front Matter that doesn’t insert a page break so as to keep the front matter coherent though segregated. But your instructions are spot-on.
This questions your “logical structuring” of your book, but layout choices are nearly infinite. Effectively, if you want the same formatting for these “in-page” (=no break) headings, the solution is a custom paragraph style. I remind you that inserting your “in-page” headings in the TOC requires a further adjustment of the paragraph style: assign an outline level in Outline & List tab.
Having followed these instructions, the CHAPTER START page style is the next page and is also on the right hand/recto side. Thank you! However, when a chapter ends on the right page and I insert a blank page to account for a LEFT PAGE, the header shows, which I need to remove. Since there is not heading or other trigger that would allow me to create a BLANK PAGE style that would act like the CHAPTER START style does (using Heading 1 as the trigger), I don’t see how I can remove the header from just the blank page. I tried creating a BLANK PAGE style with the same types of settings as CHAPTER START (no header showing and the Next Style: Chapter Start), but when I assign the BLANK PAGE style to that blank page (created by manually inserting a page break with CTL+ENTER), it forces the preceding page to become a LEFT PAGE. Then deleting the blank page does not undo the reversal. Obviously I’m missing something rather straight forward. What is recommended for making a blank page (with no header showing) that precedes a CHAPTER START?
Any page inserted by yourself is a “real” page and won’t be blank (it contains at least a paragraph, even if empty and this causes allocation of header and footer). Only pages automatically inserted by Writer to account for left/right parity are completely blank because they are fake pages with no contents at all.
Don’t worry for these fake pages. As long as your Chapter Start page style is constrained as Only Right in its configuration, Writer will insert a blank page if the previous chapter ended on a right page. This is automatic. Don’t interfere with it. You might end up with 2 “blank” pages, yours and the Writer one, when you edit a chapter. Automation is always more reliable than manual adjustment.
And double-read @EarnestAl’s very important comment below. I completely forgot that blank pages are not shown by default (to save screen space in an author’s interest to make him/her focus on contents) because I configured for Book View systematically.
Setting Book View (icon at bottom right, next to zoom slider) will show automatically generated blank pages that you could only otherwise see in Print Preview.
Thank you for this suggestion. It has helped me see an additional problem that I wasn’t quite understanding.
All is well now with my layout, but when I export to PDF, the BLANK PAGEs are skipped in the resulting PDF, putting several chapters starting on the left side, though the running header page numbers are odd/right side pointing. Even if it prints out correctly, this is an issue because of the need to submit a PDF to the printer that is complete and correct.
You must File>Export As>Export as PDF to have access to the options dialog. In the General tab, tick Export automatically inserted blank pages (in the lower right Structure part). Otherwise, there is an “optimisation” to save paper or file space.