When I click the page break icon at the top of Libre Office I get a line return - but no page break. This problem occurred once before in a different document - I wrote that off as a fluke. Now, it’s happening again. I have no idea why.
OS name, exact LO version (not “latest” which is not informative), save format
I have no idea which icon is “page break” (my workflow is different than yours and I very very rarely use the tool bars). Have you changed the user interface from “standard” to some tabbed or ribbon one?
Usually, a page break is inserted with Ctl+Enter and you keep your hands on the keyboard, no need to grasp the mouse.
OK, I figured it out.
You are under Tabbed UI (bad idea). And there is indeed a Page Break icon.
But, you also selected Web View in View tab. In this mode (which is intended to render HTML-like documents, page breaks, margins and other elements are not displayed because they don’t make sense in Web documents (there is no notion of physical paper page).
To return to usual display, click on Normal View in View tab.
PS: read the Writer Guide for an introduction to styles. They offer a much more reliable and “comfortable” way to format documents. Drop the Tabbed UI which is a poor surrogate for Word workflow, which is not applicable to Writer because the underlying concepts are different. Make sure you save .odt otherwise your formatting gets progressively corrupted by the repetitive format conversions.
I’m not sure what you mean by “save format” - it’s just the default setting. The extension of the Libre Writer document is odt.
I’ve changed very little with the installation of Libre. I’m not technical so I’m not changing every last thing. That said, I have added 3 or 4 icons on the top (have no idea what the to bar is called) for convenience. I don’t remember how I got the icons there - but it was likely the easiest method possible. I’m not technical.
I don’t know if I have changed the user interface from “standard” to ‘some tabled or ribbon one’ - I just added a few simple icons. Nothing hyper complex, usual, or bizarre. Just a normal user here.
I hardly believe adding 3 icons for commonly used commands would completely stop functionality of something so basic such a page break.
If I create a new document or open another document the page break icon will work. I really need a functioning page break - I use page breaks constantly.
Problem is that Libre Writer’s page break function randomly stops working - after you’re deep into creating a document. That’s just messed up.
Ctl + Enter produces a line break as well.
This problem is absolutely maddening.
I hope I’m not making things worse - but I deleted all of my “solutions” posts and reinserting these as replies. Actually, I’m okay with deleting older posts and leaving the more relevant posts. For example - I’ve narrowed the problem down to an image causing the issue with pages breaks not working. I’m dancing around a solution - but I’m not there yet.
Below are my incorrectly designated replies (before I realized an image seems to cause the issue with page breaks)
But, that doesn’t explain why I CAN use page breaks 80 % of the time. If there is some mode I’ve accidentally entered - I seriously don’t see it. I mean - the UI remains identical - its just that sometimes page breaks fail. Maybe 10% of the time.
I just checked I am in Normal view (as I suspected) yet page breaks are not functional. Not once was I ever in web view. I know that because the UI changes massively when in web view. I can create a video if you don’t believe me.
I’m leaning toward a real software bug on this one.
Attach a faulty sample file. This will make analysis easier. The “Attach” tool is the icon looking like a mail basket with an up-arrow.
More discoveries.
This one is important and a little confusing - so pay close attention. Just now I installed LibreOffice on another machine - lets just call this other machine “Computer 2”. “Computer 1” will be the computer described in this post. Up until 5 minutes ago - I only had one copy of Libre Office installed on (and only on) Computer 1. I had simply installed Libre Office on Computer 2 to check my Libre Office document before posting here.
This is when I made the following observation:
When opening the Libre Writer document attached to this post using Computer 2, immediately I saw the mis-aligned rectangles located where the embedded image and Caption sits. This is NOT the case using Computer 1 - that is, these objects (the mis-aligned rectangles) were invisible. Had I seen these rectangles earlier may have never posted about page break issues here - because I would have recognized the issue stems from a problem with the embedded image.
However, before installing Libre Office on Computer 2 - I was in the middle of troubleshooting the page break issue on Computer 1. I pressed the paragraph icon to see the non printable characters. It was then, on Computer 1 with non-printable characters displayed, I could see the mis-aligned rectangles on Computer 1 with non-printable characters showing. The annotated screen captures if rom Computer 1.
Annotated Screen Capture
I created an annotated screen capture using Computer 1. I labeled many objects with numbers specifically for discussion here.
- The miss-aligned rectangle has been annotated with numbers (1) and (2) in my screen capture.
- The cluster of carriage returns located at (4) is where the page break did not work (recall that I couldn’t see the mis-aligned rectangle on Computer 1 - otherwise I likely never would have posted here about page breaks).
- (3) is where you can place a page break - however anchoring was set to paragraph - resulting in the image following each carriage return (instead of staying in one place)
- Both (4) and (5) are multiple carriage returns, very likely, added while attempting to manipulate the embedded image. I’ll try to explain my (dysfunctional?) workflow with images. I’ll embed the image then hit a bunch of carriage returns either above or below the image (depending upon what I want) and then grab & drag the image (usually upward) so that the image sits between the newly created cluster of carriage returns. I do this because, mostly, the image constantly (and annoyingly) drags along with the cursor with every hit of the Enter key - not staying put until I perform what I’ve just described above. I have tried different anchor settings as well as other setting. Currently, I’ve settled on using the anchor with paragraph and setting the image to occupy a space between lines of texts.
In summary the root cause that exhibits the symptom described in this post: page breaks not working (page breaks result in a line break only) is because I am operating within the rectangle annotated in my screen capture as (1) and (2). That is; inserting a page break in area (4) only gives a line break and you don’t seen another page generate - as would normally be the case. You can, however, add a page break to area (3) and the page break indeed works - however the stupid image goes to the next page - because it’s coupled (anchored) to that particular paragraph character.
Now, let’s not forget something - I couldn’t see the mis-aligned rectangles AT ALL on Computer 1. I probably should have taken a screen capture of what I see on Computer 1 for clarity - but for whatever er reason Computer 1 just shows absolutely nothing below the image. Computer 2 clearly shows the mis-aligned rectangles. Is that a setting?
So, the real problem to chase is how to deal with embedding images in Libre Writer - without causing all of these problems.
Embedded Images & Captions + Cross References
I had gotten to the point of waiting to add Captions and Cross References - only adding images using the paragraph anchor and image setting that forces text to only be above and below. This method seems a little more well behaved - staving off the morass described in this post. Adding Captions to the embedded images seemed to exacerbate these issues I’ve had with embedded images - because now there are two anchors - one for the image and one for the Caption. However, my documents are multiple pages - and usually, somewhere in the middle of writing these documents I just need to add the Captions and Cross References so I can move on with publishing.
So, anyway, this is where I’m at. Sorry this message got so long. But, at least my own troubleshooting has pointed me back to the embedded image problems.
I need to get back to work now.
ReadMe_251203_troubleshoot.odt (81.3 KB)
Sigh. How do you make a paragraph look normal in this forum? Most people prefer to see a space between a paragraph. I can’t achieve this. It shouldn’t be no more difficult than hitting return a couple of times - but the html system won’t allow it. Adding a couple of < / br > didn’t work either.
Actually the platform uses markdown and html works, but while your characters are right, the sequence is wrong.
I used a malformed <br> here.
and this is a well formed <br />
.
Most times I’m lazy and use a dot.
Funny: paragraph p-Tag creates less space than br ??
More funny: You can also use p with ` />` but I can not show both inside backticks and it seems to be interpreted even inside triple backticks... That bug will be on discourse-platform, not LibreOffice.
The “1” in your screenshot is a bottom border of a frame; and the “4” are paragraphs inside that frame. That is the reason of your problem. You can’t have page breaks inside an on-page floating things like frames.
Please @zmorgan, don’t use Suggest a Solution for anything which is not a direct answer to your question. Thius site is not a forum. It is a Quaestion & Answers one: on question, several possible solution. If question or answers need clarification or explanation, use the Comment link/button to attach your request to the ad hoc post.
By ignoring the rules, you are confusing other users and deterring possible contributors.
Sorry for pressing the “solution” button. I wasn’t able to find the reply Button. I searched for the reply Button multiple times - but the word “reply” wasn’t found when looking for that link. I didn’t see an icon with a curly arrow (often used to mean reply). It turns out that a text bubble (with no word or words) is the reply icon. Jesus. Anyway, sorry about that,
Well, it’s something in the document that seemly disables the page break function. This isn’t the first time page break mysteriously stopped functioning.
Deleting all objects in the document restores page break functionality. Not very useful if the intention is to create meaningful documents. My guess would be that there’s an issue with embedded images and/or use of Captions and Cross References.
There are two main contexts in document usage: reading and writing.
Reading is the final stage where the reader fully takes into consideration what you’ve written and weighs your arguments. In this stage, it is nice to see only text without disturbing artefacts like boundaries and other formatting marks.
On the contrary, while writing, it is important to display all structure information to gather awareness about what is really present in the document. This is why it is recommended to activate all hints and clues selectable from the View menu in the standard UI.
With these clues, your document shows a real disaster in formatting. This has been probably aggravated by your use of the tabbed UI which completely (or so) ignores styles and encourages direct formatting DF (i.e. manual formatting).
Contrary to common belief, DF is not “easy” nor “intuitive”. It requires super expert skills to achieve the desired results. And when it comes to “complex” documents, it opens the door to formatting hell as is exemplified by your sample file.
The sample is already “complex” because it includes an image, which in addition has been captioned. Achieving predictable and stable positioning of such images despite edits requires to drop DF and go for styles exclusively.
You started with an image insertion. There are several ways to do it; they are usually equivalent and don’t bring in their lot of problems. I hope you didn’t already move or resize the image with the mouse because this introduces a very pernicious form of DF which can’t be cleared with common commands (because this DF lives in a different layer).
Then you captioned the image. The caption command creates a frame which size is computed to contain both the image and the text. The image is then anchored to the caption. So far, so good.
A frame is a portion of a page set aside from the main topic to host images or side notes. It can’t extend beyond a page limit. Therefore page breaks inside frames are ignored.
But, as the boundary clues were not displayed, with the cursor at the end of the caption you added text which remained inside the frame and extended it downwards. This text has nothing to do with the caption (or the image) and is part of your main topic. You unknowingly evaded from the main flow to add text to a jailed part which anyway will be clipped at page bottom. And since this is inside a frame, your page breaks are ignored (because a frame never extend beyond page limit).
Also you were not satisfied with your image position and you moved it (upwards) with your mouse. The image is now outside the caption frame. Frames cannot be nested: they don’t interact with each other; they interact only with main text. The caption mechanism gives the illusion of nesting frames only through computation of the outer (caption) frame size and constraining the relative position of the image and anchor. By moving the image, you invalidate the positioning constraint and your image conflicts with your text because it has not the required wrap properties. To compensate for this you added empty paragraphs to flush text below the image.
How to fix?
There are so many issues that I don’t know where to start.
Certainly, first advice is to read the Writer Guide, chapters dedicated to styles, and Bruce Byfield’s Designing with LO available from the same link after clicking on More… and scrolling down a bit. Bruce clearly explains the benefits of styles and the formatting predictability, reliability and robustness you gain from their use.
The second one is to drop tabbed UI to revert to standard UI. There, enable all formatting clues in the View menu.
Practice styles. Forget about DF. I see you sample is Default Paragraph Style with DF overlay except where you use built-in services (e.g. captioning and header). Abstract your document in semantic terms. Don’t use spaces or empty paragraphs for layout. Writer expands spaces and moves empty paragraphs during rendering; you can’t rely on them for stable formatting.
Styles record the properties of your paragraphs, characters, pages and lists. There are also frame styles but they are difficult to tame because DF has catastrophic effects on them and this form of DF is very difficult to get rid of.
There is a precedence rule between styles operating on text:
- paragraph styles create the reference state
- character styles override “locally” the appearance of text
- direct formatting overrides everything and has precedence over paragraph and character styles
1 Like
A Word document or Pages document works just fine without the requirement to obtain a degree in computer science.
In this particular case - there’s a certain fussiness with Libre Writer and embedded images.
So, the root cause of the problem is pretty clear now. I’ve added the embedded image, the imbedded image ‘sticks’ to the paragraph - and annoyingly moves downward with each click of the enter/return key. To fix this I’ve been adding a bunch of carriage returns so that I can drag the embedded image upward and out of the way. This is why you see all those carriage returns in my annotated screen capture - I’ve numbered these (4) and (5).
Mostly, that works - but things get exacerbated when I add the Caption. Now I have two rectangle-frames (that are invisible on Computer 1). When I try to move the embedded image upward by dragging the image - the image slides out of the field - and rectangles get mis-aligned (as shown in my screen capture). Since I can’t see the rectangle (on Computer 1) - I might inadvertently add page breaks inside the frame - and hence the symptom described in the title of this post. (i.e. page breaks not working)
This is not a big deal. I don’t need a lecture on the morally correct way to write C code. Now that I know these objects exist - I can move on to an actual workable solution - whatever that may be.
Moving forward
Finding a workflow to easily position the embedded images as I write a document is now the goal. I don’t have this solution at the moment.
Once I plop an image into Libre Writer and then add a caption to that image how can I move both objects together and upward without mis-aligning those rectangles?
As mentioned earlier, while composing your document, make sure the boundary clues are enabled. You can see the bounding boxes of both the image and caption.
Since the image is correctly positioned relative to the caption (after captioning), don’t touch the image any longer. Select and move the caption. The image will follow it.
But, I repeat it once again: it is a very bad idea to move manually a frame. You instantly lose automatic repositioning in response to text edits. You should work with styles.
And how do they react to text edits causing reflow? Can you predict the position?
It is not a matter of CS degree but rather understanding typography concepts. And Writer and Word are based on different principles. You must accept it and make the effort to learn the differences so that you can fully take benefit of what each offers.
The problem with image positioning is mostly because we don’t understand how Writer works with images. the difference between the different anchors and we want to do everything with the mouse.
A recommended reading is chapter 11 of the Writer guide in the LibreOffice Bookshelf
The safest option for positioning an image in a document is to use a paragraph for the image.
- create an empty paragraph
- with the cursor in that paragraph insert the image
- Select the image and choose the anchor As character.
- after the image insert another paragraph.
- Center the image if necessary. (recomended the use of styles)
The image will occupy the entire space of the paragraph
The legend:
When selecting an image and choosing Insert Caption from the menu, a frame is created that moves the image within the frame but this operation changes the anchor of the image to the paragraph so the anchor of the image must be changed again As character.
- The image should also be in a separate paragraph from the caption paragraph.
The problem in the file you attached is:
- The image is anchored to the paragraph and to position it you have used paragraph breaks.
- You have inserted a legend but then you have dragged the image outside the legend frame, so you have on the one hand the image and on the other hand a frame with the legend.
- This makes it very difficult to reposition the image and the frame whith the caption.
ReadMe_251203_COPRRECTED troubleshoot .odt (79,0 KB)
You can raise or lower the paragraph that contains the frame with the image and the legend By selecting the paragraph and cutting and copying or by holding down the Ctrl+Alt keys and using the up or down arrows on the keyboard