I cannot number the pages on my dissertation as required

English
#1

I’m trying to finish up my dissertation. Part of the requirements is that the first page of each chapter must NOT have a page number, and the numbering starts with the beginning of the first chapter (Introduction). I’ve tried manually numbering pages, but they all change to reflect left-right numbering with the same numbers. I’ve tried creating a new page style “Chapter first page” but it doesn’t seem to work either. The 'page style" seems change the entire document rather than the single selected page.

Is there a way to force LibreOffice Writer to stop trying to do the page numbering and I do manual entry?
If not, how can I get around this problem?

Thanks!

#2

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Writer#Page_Numbering

#20

@Archaeometrist
Best tutorial for scientific works: http://openoffice-uni.org/
Originally written for OpenOffice - it excellently works for LibreOffice.

  • Little difference in excluding headers/footers treatment on first page (OpenOffice) of a specific page style (IMHO a better attempt for a stable layout). See here @keme1 's annotations.
#3

Learn what page styles are and how you can assign them to various parts of your document.

A page style applies to a set of contiguous pages bounded by “boundaries” created by special page breaks (not the common Ctrl+Enter).

Unfortunately you didn’t describe fully the structure of the document, i.e. whether there is some unnumbered front material before the first chapter. Also, there is ambiguity about left-right mirroring or what you want to do with it. And last, always mention OS name, LO version and save format. What follows are general guidelines which are valid only if you save .odt. Saving to external format like .doc(x) will fail to keep the formatting.

First, create a specific page style for your chapters, Chapter. We’ll use a simplified approach requiring a single page style. Go to Header or Footer tab depending on where your page number is located (this was not specified) to enable it and untick Same content on first page.

Assuming your first paragraph in each chapter is some kind of heading you styled Heading 1, modify Heading 1 paragraph style Text Flow tab to Insert a page break to your Chapter page style.

Now, every chapter heading is automatically preceded by a special page break switching to first page of Chapter. Adjust header or footer to remove page number. At end of first page, the page style automatically switches to its variant for pp. 2+. Adjust the header or footer to show page number.

You didn’t tell either if page number should start at 1 with the first chapter, leaving front material with its own numbering or no number at all. This is also possible with a specific direct formatting on the first chapter heading.

1 Like
#5

Symptom

I was happy to see this answer. Alas, I tested and this solution does not work for me. Tried it using two different versions of Writer.

  • In version 7.1 the first page setting takes effect only on the very first page of the document, which is what may be expected. First page of first chapter unnubered. First page of subsequent chapters is numbered.
  • In version 7.4 the behavior is more erratic.
    • Sometimes the “Different content for first page” has no effect.
    • Sometimes the header/footer content is reset at each chapter start, much in the style of MS Word’s “section breaks”.

I will investigate this further and submit a bug report.

Alternative proposed resolution

The “old school” approach is to create two page styles, named e.g. Chapterstart and Chapter.

  • On the text flow tab of the Heading 1 paragraph style, set it to insert page break before, using the Chapterstart page style.
  • On the main tab of the Chapterstart page style, set next page to use Chapter style.

This provides individual control of layout for the pages starting each chapter, and has always worked for me. If you have used the Heading 1 style consistently for your chapter headings, the changes should apply to your entire document immediately.

1 Like
#6

Alternatively, use the page styles called Default and First page for the first page of a chapter and the rest, respectively, and a custom page style for the title and other pages at the start that require different treatment.
Page styles are easily the most counter-intuitive concepts in Writer. You don’t just apply a page style with the cursor somewhere in a page. You apply them working from the start of the document.

1 Like
#7

@keme1
The key to correct behaviour is to make sure you force a switch to the desired page style in Text Flow. If you request a mere page break, you’ll get what you have: only the first page of the first chapter is singled out.
Requesting explicitly switch to Chapter page style effectively creates the needed boundary.
I just checked with one of my (complex and sophisticated) documents, replacing the 3-page style approach with the simplified 1-page style approach. It works as expected, provided you explicitly request the page style forced switch.

Here: LO 7.4.3.2

1 Like
#8

OK, first, I left out a lot of information because I’d almost been thrown out of the Ubuntu blogs for being too wordy and not providing EXACTLY the information (in exactly the format) they wanted and nothing else. (That and I asked people to not start insulting me - the norm when I asked for help - by saying I didn’t want the response to be “start reading, you need to learn SOMETHING!” which was the normal response to asking for help on many blogs like this.)

Writing a dissertation, according to my professor, it’s standard to write each chapter separately so my main professor can go over it. Then you put it all together, generate your Bibliography, and then add the ‘extra’ stuff before the first page (table of contents, list of figures, list of tables, abstract, etc.). Page numbering comes near the end of the process.

OS: Linux OpenSUSE Leap 15.4. LibreOffice version 7.3.6.2. Saving in ODT (will have to convert to some form of Microsoft Office when submitting it to professors).

Left-right mirroring? I’m not sure what you’re saying. It’s an extension of the standard paper format (university level). The information before page 1 of the first chapter will be numbered separately with Roman numbers. Thus, we have a Title page, introductory stuff labeled I-xx, First page (with no number), body of chapter 1 with standard numbers (first page of chapter counted but not numbered), first page of chapter 2 with no number but counted, and so on.

I greatly appreciate the help. I’ve had numerous problems with my paper including all sorts of hang-ups like this page numbering. I’d told my professor I’d try to have it to him by today, but that does not look like it will happen.

#10

The structure you describe is handled with a set of adequate pages styles each assigned to a specific part of the document. It is quite easy once you have done for one part. You get the gist of it.

But, I warn you against converting to .doc(x). This will likely ruin your carefully crafted layout. If your professors don’t intend to edit your work, send them a PDF. You’ll then be sure that everything is exactly as you wrote and formatted it. However, you can make a try to it and check in Word that your work has been preserved. It may be the case, though expect problems. And if you get edits through “track changes”, don’t work on the .doc(x) in the hope to quicken the update. You’ll damage the document beyond repair. Transfer manually the correction into your .odt.

#11

(LAUGH!) Thanks for the warning - I’d encountered that very issue (converting to MO) and had real problems with it, until I started sending in .rtf format. Now it seems that .doc works, but docx does not. Unfortunately, my school has a contract with Microsoft and they try to force all of the people to go with Microsoft products.

#4

Of course you can manually type in your page numbers. Just don’t use fields. Also, be sure to uncheck the box beside Same content on left and right pages in the Footer tab of your page style. Also, uncheck the box beside Same content on first page.

This might be your best solution for now if time is short to get the job done.

Afterwards, however, I suggest learning about how to use a variety of page styles as necessary, footers (I recommend using different page styles for left and right pages rather than trying to mirror), fields, and page breaks (automatic using page styles, Insert>Page Break, and Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break…).

#9

I don’t know what you mean by ‘mirroring’, but “left” and “right” doesn’t make sense to me - there is nothing like that in any of the papers I’ve written, including my M.A. thesis. It’s never been mentioned by any of the professors, my mentor, and even those who help with writing in my school.

I’d also not heard of it with regards to papers submitted for publication.

Funny thing is that checking and unchecking those boxes doesn’t seem to have much effect on the numbering.

I tried (after unchecking every “Left and Right” and “first page” I could find), but LibreOffice just filled “left and right” numbering with the last two numbers I typed in - on every page except the first one.

Thanks for the help! Maybe we can get this licked and I won’t be too late with submitting!

#12

OK. It seems as though your thesis doesn’t use left and right pages. (These are used when publications are bound with text printed on front and back of each page.)

For your immediate needs, place the cursor in the footer of the first page with a page number. Remove any content in the footer. This will, hopefully, remove the content from any other footers in your document as well.

Next, right click and select Page Style at the bottom of the menu that appears. Go to the Footer tab in the dialog that appears. Leave the checkbox beside Footer on checked. Uncheck the boxes beside Same content on left and right pages and Same content of first page. Click OK.

Scroll through you document to see if any other pages still have something in the footer. If so, repeat the process of removing the content and modifying the settings in the Footer tab of the page style.

Once you have done this. You should be able to go through you document from the start and type what you want in the footer of each page without any other pages being changed.

This may seem like a tedious process, but it is probably your best choice for the moment.

Before you type another paper, you should learn more about page styles, footers, and fields. If you do, you can automate much of the process of creating footers with page numbers and save yourself hours of work and frustration.

I wish you well. Let me know if this solves your problem or if you have any other questions.

#13

I’ve never had to bother with “left and right” because my printer (and the office printer in my department) does front and back printing, and I’ve never had a single problem with double-sided printing.

I tried your suggestion without luck. I made sure that all of the pages were cleared and that they were NOT set to Right and Left. Then I left the first page clear, and numbered the next two pages. Then I went to pages 4 and 5 - they had page numbers 2 and 3 (and a quick lookthrough showed that all of the other pages were numbered 2 and 3). When I changed 4 and 5 to the proper page numbers, then 2 and 3 (and all the others) were renumbered 4 and 5.

It’s getting quite frustrating. Thanks for trying - and explaining “left and right”.

BTW - I’ll have to postpone learning ‘new things’ until after I get this done. Writing a dissertation is really time and energy consuming!

#14

Oops… forgot to say that Left and Right were NOT set. Sorry about that!

#15

I’m sorry. I think I gave you bad information about being able to manually type different information in footers using the same page style.

So let’s try to do this the right way.

First, we need more information about the structure of your dissertation. How many pages are there? Is there an introduction? Is there a table of contents? On what page do you want the page numbers to start? Are there pages throughout the dissertation on which you don’t want a footer to appear such as pages beginning a new chapter or blank pages? Should the page numbers continue sequentially throughout the document?

#16

The text of my dissertation is 96 pages (including Bibliography). Chapter 1 is the introduction. I will have a Title page, a Table of Contents, a Figures page, a Tables page, a Dedication, an abstract, and Acknowledgements Before the start of Chapter 1, and all of these need page numbers in Roman numbers. The first page of every chapter must not be numbered, but the rest must be - and the first pages of each chapter counted but no page numbers. If I can get this page numbering straightened out, doing the rest should be quite easy and go fast. I don’t expect to put in any blank pages.

Thanks for being willing to help out!!!

#17

See if this makes sense to you. I hope you know how to set up page styles.

You want a Title page with no page number. Set up a separate page style (Page Style 1 – Title Page) for this page.

Set up another page style (Page Style 2 – Front Pages) for the Table of Contents, Figures page, Tables page, Dedication page, and abstract, and Acknowledgments. In the Organizer tab, set Next style to Front Pages. In the Page tab, set Page numbers to Roman numbers. In the Footer tab, set Footer on.

At the end of the Title page, you will go to Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break. In the dialog that appears, you will choose Page Break. For Style, you will select Front Pages. Be sure to check the box beside Change page number. Set this to 1. Click OK.

On the first page of your Font Pages, click in the footer area. Type the text you want, but use a field (Page Number) to automatically insert sequential page numbers for the pages using the Font Pages page style.

You will need another page style (Page Style 3 – Main Text) for the main pages with page numbers. In the Organizer tab, set Next style to Main Text. In the Page tab, set Page numbers to the numbers you want to use. In the Footer tab, set Footer on.

You will need another page style (Page Style 4 – Chapter) for the first page of each chapter. In the Organizer tab, set Next style to Main Text. In the Footer tab, be sure Footer on is unchecked.

After the last of your Front Pages, you will go to Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break. In the dialog that appears, you will choose Page Break. For Style, you will select Chapter. Be sure to check the box beside Change page number. Set this to 1. Don’t worry, this won’t print. It will just set the pages to start counting here. Click OK.

As your Chapter page text flows unto the next page, the page style of the new page will automatically become Main Text. On this page, click in the footer area. Type the text you want, but use a field (Page Number) to automatically insert sequential page numbers. The page number for this particular page should appear as 2.

You can, then, continue to fill the rest of your chapter 1 pages without having to do anything for the footers.

When you get to the bottom of the last page of chapter 1 (and the last page of any subsequent chapters), you will go to Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break. In the dialog that appears, you will choose Page Break. For Style, you will select Chapter. Be sure the box beside Change page number is not checked or the page numbering will begin over.

Continue in this fashion until you reach the end of your dissertation.

I hope I’ve given you all the information you need. Giving instructions without working through the project can be challenging. If you run into any problems, check back.

#18

Thanks! I’ll give that a try.

#19

The schema outlined by @TXDon is the most sophisticated and versatile one allowing for fanciest layouts. I’m afraid it is a bit too advanced for your present skill because it requires to link page styles. Try fist with the simplified method I gave you: untick Same content on first page to “detach” the first page from the following.

Your basic problem is to number pages. Page number is a dynamic information. You can’t type it in the footer because what you type is static and displayed the same on every page. You must Insert>Field>Page Number so that Writer knows it must update it on every page.

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