I have a number of files that I want to merge together and make one big one to make a big PDF. So the problem I have is that each file is supposed to have a seperate header and then the page number. But if I make one big file the page numbers are right but the header stays the same in every chapter, if I merge them after exporting to PDF the header title is right but the page numbers start over in each chapter. What do I need to change?
If you have created your files without taking measures how to merge them now (i.e., making sure that the style structure of the files allows easily merge them without problems), then I’d suggest not to try merging the original files. Instead, produce the PDFs from them, and then use any tool capable of merging PDFs (like e.f. pdftk) to produce the resulting merged PDF.
I have often used @Mike2’s method for numbering longer documents. The (merged) documents then partially had headings and page numbers on their own and then I edited the new (merged) pdf document and added page numbers (and page count) anew so that each page of the merged pdf document had two sorts of page numbering and page counts. My collaborating partners much appreciated that.
From your description I gather that each separate file constitutes a chapter.
In general terms:
- Set the chapter title to use the paragraph style
Heading 1 - With the text cursor in the chapter title, press
ctrl+1(not sure, but that may becmd+1if you are on a Mac)
You need to do this for each chapter after inserting in your merged file, or do it in each of your source files before merge. - Insert field for chapter name in the page header
- Double click inside the page header to activate it
- Select menu item
Insert-Field-More fields ... - Select tab
Document - in the left pane, select
Chapter - In the right pane, select
Chapter name - Make sure the level is set to 1 (corresponds to the heading style level selected above)
- Click
Insert, thenclose
Note that the chapter heading needs to be the first paragraph on the page. Otherwise, the page header on the first page of a chapter will use the previous chapter name. Depending on document structure and your layout preferences, other steps may be required.
I have also been tying to figure out a way that one can have two columns in the middle of a page, but not the whole page.
Insert - section. Set the column setup you need in the Section dialog.
At best, when you have a new problem, ask a new question instead of adding to the previous. That agrees better with the structure and intended workflow for this Q&A system.
That seems to work but it also seems to put weird spacing between the first and second lines of the first page of each chapter that I cant get rid of.
In the first chapter it adds an extra line at the start that also can;t be ridded.
Those “extras” may be spacing defined for the heading style. You can edit the style definition to adjust this:
- Press function key
F11to open the styles toolbox.
This may open in a separate window or the right side panel - Click the
¶icon in that toolbox to select paragraph styles - Right click the Heading 1 style and select to modify it.
- Select the
Indents and spacingtab - Adjust spacing above/below.
OK
If that doesn’t get you closer to what you want, you may need to upload a file or two for us to inspect. There may be “rogue formatting”. (This is particularly common for files which have visited “MS Word context”.)
I more or less figured it out on my own, took awhile all the files are now merged into one.
Not sure if this should be a new question or not. All these files were transferred over from Appleworks files. I had hoped to get a programme that allowed Appleworks of work on a Mac but it will not run on OS X. So they were made into RTF files and transferred that way.
The indents on all the paragraphs on the files were all made as 9 spaces and I have noticed that they are all in a differing size here. Something that is mildly annoying but cant figure out a way to fix.
I have also been tying to figure out a way that one can have two columns in the middle of a page, but not the whole page.
Indents should never be formatted with spaces or tab characters because spaces are shrinked/expanded according to justification need. “Common” text in documents should be formatted with Text Body paragraph style. Then you only need to adjust the First Line Indent in the style definition to get consistent indent all over your document.
This means you also remove the initial 9-spaces which can be done with Edit>Find & Replace.
Sort of lost me there is terms of “Common” text Body paragraph style.
I think I understand the edit find & replace as have done that type of stuff before.
Writer is based on the notion of style: a style is a collection of typographical attributes and geometric dimensions stored under a name. This style can then be applied to paragraphs, sequences of characters, pages, frames, etc. depending on its nature. This avoids the pain to repeatedly apply the same attributes to different parts of the document.
From your remark, I understand you are not familiar at all with styles. I assume your document is typed “as is” when you open Writer and do all your formatting with toolbar buttons or keyboard shortcuts.
I suggest you download and read the Writer Guide and read it to discover why styles are important and how to take benefit from them.
Then my statement about Text Body will become clear.
will do.
I just got the computer this will run on about 10 months ago and the programme I used for all the writing is Appleworks, so since that will not work on a Mac needed something that I cold get files made into PDF. A lot of, but lucklily not all, the formatting was lost in the transformation. As it went from AWP files to RTF files via Ego. So I have been having to do a lot of manual formating to keep page breaks where I would like them. Appleworks had a real neat thing called group end and group begin and page breaks could only occur between them. There was also the fact that sticky spaces seem to have not been transfered over.
I have however gotten all the files merged and the numbering and header is correct. The not so big a problem to deal with is the different size indents on paragraphs.
I thank you.