How to set up a layout with marginalia and mirrored pages in Writer?

What I would like to achieve is a layout with white space on the outer sides of the page (left on even pages, right on odd pages) and use that space for marginalia frames to add icons, notes, etc.

I’ve been trying to come up with a solution on my own, but the marginalia frame doesn’t move to the opposite side of the page when it gets pushed from an even page to an odd page. I have used the Default page style for pages, in the Layout Settings I have checked ‘Mirrored’ for Page Layout and then insert a frame, and marked that as Marginalia.

What else do I need to set? I’ve been unable to find a detailed tutorial for this.

I haven’t used marginalia myself, but I noticed that there is a section on how to set them up in Bruce Byfield’s excellent book “Designing with Libreoffice”, available for download for free from http://designingwithlibreoffice.com .

Additional:
I found this: Writer: how to change position properties of margin frames?

For getting the frames to automatically change sides for left and right pages, the crucial setting is the ‘Mirror on even pages’ checkbox, in the Position section on the Type tab. This needs to be done before frames are inserted in the document. The frames can be anchored to the paragraph so that they move with any changes to the document contents.

Byfield’s book describes adding space before the text in the paragraph style. What I am not sure about is how to get this to automatically change to space after the text on right pages. You can, however, set wider margins on the outside edges of mirrored pages. Marginalia frames can then have their horizontal position set; e.g. “From inside” by “1 cm” to “outer paragraph border” (you can play around with these settings). This places the frames actually in the margins, and automatically switch sides for left and right pages.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

That’s a nice book, I’ve used actually that section to set up marginalia in my document, but it doesn’t detail how to make marginalia frames mirrored, they will always stay on the left, if added as described on p. 259.

Is there an other way to create the desired layout, even without marginalia? I thought about using a 2-col table, but I don’t think there’s a way to make the columns swap sides when they move to an opposite (left or right) page.

For mirroring, have you tried Format - Page, click the Page tab, and in the Layout settings area, choose “Mirrored” in the Page layout box?

If this answer helped you, please accept it by clicking the check mark :heavy_check_mark: to the left and, karma permitting, upvote it. If this resolves your problem, close the question, that will help other people with the same question.

Of course, but that seems to have no effect on the marginalia.

It works here on LO6. Insert a Frame. On the Type tab / Position, first check Mirror on even pages, then set Outside, Outer Page Border. To move the frame you must add lines somewhere above its matching paragraph, not merely at the beginning of the paragraph, as it’s apparently anchored to a mark at the beginning of the paragraph.