Page Numbering out of control

English
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#1

OS: MacOS 10.13.6
Version: LO Write V.6.4.6.2
File format: .odt

This is my plan: Front material will have no page number. First chapter begins with page 1 and all subsequent pages will be numbered in sequence all the way to 312. When a chapter ends on a left page, a Blank page style fills the space. The left side page opposites the first page of each chapter will be a blank page where i add images and notes about the next chapter. Page numbers will be in Footer right or Footer left paragraph style on all numbered pages.

This is what I have: Chapter 1, First Page style, the page is numbered 1. Remainder of the chapter, Default style, all pages are numbered in sequence until the page break. Then the left side page opposite the first page of Chapter 2 is numbered 0, and the first page of Chapter 2 is numbered 1. The first page of Chapter 3 is numbered 1; the first page of Chapter 4 is numbered 0. Throughout the 21 chapters, numbering is chaotic.

I have read the Writer Guide 6.0 about page numbering at least 6 times. Rewrote the section to make the directions clearer and easier to read. Possibly I’m doing page breaks wrong. I can’t find another way. And, there must be something else wrong as well.

Thanks floris for your response. I agree that I seem to have reset the page numbering to start over at each new chapter. That is how I started numbering the pages to begin on the first page of chapter 1. I have copied the book to a separate file and deleted the content of all pages after chapter 4. The pages remain, blank but numbered. The file is too large to attach (4.3 MB) so I will need to remove the blank pages to make it small enough. I don’t know how to do that.

Yes, I always begin a chapter with a pic page (my name for it) and it is always a left page. Or, I always end a chapter with a pic page, which is always a left page. So I break the continuous loop of Default style pages to insert a pic page that is always a left page and is followed by a first page style which is always a right page. I have never heard or read or experienced that if I break the loop to go to a left page, that an extra page will be inserted automatically. I will review the book to see if I can find what you mean by direct formatting. I did not use Heading 1 as the paragraph style for the chapter number. I think that may be a source of my problem and I suspect (don’t know yet) that not using Heading 1 paragraph style will interfere with making the Table of Contents. So I’ll get on that tomorrow. Have to take my wife to a doctor soon.

3/24/2021: Thank you so much for your comments, answer and further comments. I have printed all of these and I’m sure you know I have lots of work to do. It is still my top priority so I’ll be devoting 4 hours/day and may be through it all by Monday. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

#2

It seems that you reset the page number when you really want to page numbering to be continuous. It might help if you attach a small document with random text but with the page style and paragraph styles intact, so that we can see where you went wrong. This is, after all, one of the tougher parts of word processing. Edit your question (button below the text area), don’t add an answer. Answers are reserved for real solutions, not for discussion. Use comments for that.

#3

If you always start a chapter on a right page, use the Right page style for the first page of a chapter instead of First page. It will automatically insert a blank page when necessary. Don’t reset page numbering to 1 at each chapter, that’s confusing for the reader.

Check out http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=44607 for more help with handling page styles. Seems to be a tough read, be warned.

#4

It is a matter of mastering page styles. The unusual fact in your scheme is the images and notes at left of first chapter page. IMHO, this requires a more sophisticated page style sequence than the one you describe, i.e. Note/image followed by ChapterFirst followed by Default. There should be a page break to left at the beginning of the Note/Image page, a page break to ChapterFirst (forced to right) in Heading 1 paragraph style (used for chapter heading).

Take special care for page number reset. It should be brought by direct formatting in such a case, so that it doesn’t apply to all chapters.

#5

Follow these steps:

Make a new page style for the opening pages. You may have to modify margins if you modified the margins for the default page style, you don’t need to modify anything else. Apply it to the first page of the document. It will take effect on all pages of the document, but don’t worry. If you want the left page opposite to the first page of a chapter to be editable, You will need to use a separate paragraph style that automatically inserts a page break and sets the page style to Left page. You won’t have to modify the Left page style a lot, unless you have custom margins and the like. You can use Heading 5 if you don’t use that level and modify it accordingly. Then at the bottom of the end of a chapter, just press Ctrl+5 to set that paragraph to Heading 5 (no need to enter any text) and it will force your blank but editable left page.

Here comes the dirty part, the only act of direct formatting that is permitted here. Scroll to the start of chapter 1, put the cursor in the heading (first line of the page, that’s essential), then Format - Paragraph, Text Flow tab, tick Insert, With page style, (select Right page there just to be sure), and Page number, set it to 1. Don’t do that anywhere else. See attached example for reference.

To show the community that your question has been answered, click the ✓ next to the correct answer, and “upvote” by clicking on the ^ arrow of any helpful answers.

mixed page styles.odt

#6

@anon87010807: you aren’t consistent: your example uses Heading 5 instead of Heading 9 :wink:

Since the page for images and notes is rather special, I’d use a dedicated page style because using Left Page like in a chapter will result in header/footer identical to those of the previous chapter (because of Heading 5/9 being used). This page style can’t have the same header/footer than the rest of the chapter because there is no way to capture the future Heading 1. In principle this does not matter because the page is opposite to the beginning of the chapter.

Also I don’t recommend using a Heading n to switch to the image/note pages because it has hidden (but predictable) effects which could surprise a newbie.

#7

@ajlittoz: I found that Ctrl+9 doesn’t link Heading 9 (it stops at level 5), so I opted for heading 5 instead, I should have added that. You can in fact use any paragraph style, but I opted for a heading because of the predefined key binding. You don’t even need a paragraph style, inserting a manual break with page style change would work as well, but it would be a bit more work. The nice thing about the separate page style is that you can suppress page numbering without any effort.

I just realized that the Right page page style should have Next page set to Default.

#8

Updated attachment.

#9

Since I would like your comments. I’m placing my tentative solution in comments section. There were two comments that were very helpful. One was the paragraph beginning, “Here is the dirty part. .” The other was "If all of this seems very abstract, just start a new document, enter enough dummy text to fill a few pages . " The file attached is the new document. It only took 4 weeks I filled each page with the formatting decisions so I can follow this path with my real book. It is a book within a book, so I will have to do this twice.PRACTICE BOOK.odt

#10

Is the “Practice Book” representative of the real book, style-wise? I notice several styling errors: Heading 3 used as book title (incorrect outline hierarchy), no Heading n for chapters, headings split into several paragraphs, inconsistent page style use (First Page as cover and chapter initial page), text in Default Paragraph Style (instead of Text Body and dedicated styles) with direct formatting (instead of character styles).

As there are many issues to address progressively, I think it is rather a problem of Writer style understanding than a question of general interest. Contact me on ajlittoz (at) users (dot) sourceforge (dot) net for private advice…

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