Further to @LeroyG comment, if you are printing Letter size paper I would guess that you need to set your locale to English (US) or English (Canada). Click Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages and in the Locale field change to the correct locale and OK out. When you have done that new documents will be Letter size rather than A4.
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@LeroyG’s suggestion was similar my first thought, too.
Page numbers are typically placed in a footer or header, which falls much closer to the page boundary than other text. When I used to work in a store that did minor print work, we frequently had to be careful of things like this, since our machines couldn’t print closer than a 0.25-inch margin.
My guess is that your page numbers are falling outside the printable area for your specific printer.
If you are unwilling or unable to post a document, try these questions:
- What’s the page size of the document?
- What’s the paper size loaded in your printer?
- How far from the edge of the document is your page number?
- What make/model printer are you using? (Alternately, what’s it’s minimum print margin?)
The other thing you can try is saving as a PDF (File->Export As->Export as PDF). Then when you go to print from the PDF, try two things:
- Choose “Actual Size” from the print dialog. See if your numbers are missing.
- Choose “Fit to Page” from the print dialog. See if your numbers are present.
If the numbers are missing from try # 1 and they’re present in try # 2, then your page numbers are too close to the edge of the page for the technical limits of your printer.
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Thanks for the suggestions. Here are the answers to your questions:
- Whatever the default setting is. (Letter, not A4)
- Regular letter size computer paper (8.5 x 11)
- I used whatever came up with the default settings when you insert>page numbers. On my previous version of LibreOffice/Writer, I did not have this problem and I am inserting the pages in the exact same way. When the document prints, there is a bottom margin of nearly 1.75" that is blank.
- HP DeskJet 3755. According to the specs on HP’s site, 0.5".
I tried the pdf things you suggested and still got no page numbers when the document printed.
I am wondering: Is there some way to “hide page numbers” so that although they appear in the document, they don’t print? If there is, perhaps I could go wherever that would be formatted and check (or uncheck) that box to make the page numbers appear.
I checked all that. The language things are correct, and I also see “letter”, not A4 in the print dialog window. Thanks for your help.
I am new here. How do I attach a document?
Here is the document:
Document A.odt (27.0 KB)
When I printed this document, I then made a scan of it so you could see what it looked like, but I do not see that scan when I press the download button in this window. (It is on my desktop, though.)
Is there an updated printer driver for your printer? HP Linux Imaging and Printing according to HP site
BTW There is an option for hidden text but your Footer paragraph style doesn’t have that enabled. Click in Footer, open Sidebar > Styles (make sure paragraph styles is selected) right click on Footer and select Modify… , select the Font Effects tab and you can see Hidden attribute is not ticked.
Is there an option in the printer driver to realign or improve printing?
When you say (in the BTW) “Click in footer”, what do you mean? I can go to Insert > Header and Footer > Footer but the only thing after Footer is “default style”.
Or, in that menu thingie to the right of the document, if I select the thing at the top that looks like a paragraph symbol, footer comes up below that, but nothing about sidebar.
So, I have no idea of what you are trying to show me although I do appreciate your trying to help. Really.
Y’know, I spent three hours on Thursday and another five (yes five) hours today reading articles and forum topics, just trying to find some way to get page numbers to show up on the printed page with this new printer, all to no avail. I am so very worn out. In my previous version of LibreOffice/Writer with my previous computer (that totally imploded 4/16/22) I had absolutely no problems at all with creating and printing perfect-in-every-way documents, some very complicated with extreme tables, all with page numbers appearing on each page. Now, with this new computer and new printer, where I have changed none of the default setting (all 4 margins are at the default setting of 0.79") I get these garbage print outs with a tiny top margin of 3/8" and a giant bottom margin of 1 3/4" (one and three-quarters) and no page numbers (even though the document looks perfectly normal in LibreWriter with even and correct margins and page numbers.) I am really sick of the whole thing at this point and want to chuck it all out the window. It’s after 11 PM and I am so wired that I know I’ll be up for hours.
EarnestAl
April 30
MarieW:
When the document prints, there is a bottom margin of nearly 1.75" that is blank.
Is there an updated printer driver for your printer? HP Linux Imaging and Printing according to HP site
BTW There is an option for hidden text but your Footer paragraph style doesn’t have that enabled. Click in Footer, open Sidebar > Styles (make sure paragraph styles is selected) right click on Footer and select Modify… , select the Font Effects tab and you can see Hidden attribute is not ticked.
How do I check that? Where is it?
EarnestAl
April 30
Is there an option in the printer driver to realign or improve printing?
Thanks, @EarnestAl, for that excellent set of instructions. I only struggled a little bit with “open Sidebar > Styles” but eventually found it and the rest of your instructions were obvious.
For @MarieW there is a toolbar on the right edge of the Writer window. Look for the icon showing a capital "A" and a paintbrush. Click on that button to open a sidebar for managing Styles. Once that sidebar opens then the rest of the instructions from @EarnestAl will be obvious.
Your sample document exports correctly to PDF (here: LO 7.2.6.2 under Fedora 35). But contrary to what you state in it, although page format is Letter, margins are uniformly set at 2 cm or 0.79". If they really print at 0.38" top and 1.69" bottom, then you may have a problem with either the driver or the printer itself.
However, if the sample file is representative for your real document, there are a few problems (not related to the absence of page numbers in print).
- You mistake line break for paragraph break. The 1984 excerpt is exclusively divided with line breaks Shift+Enter making it a huge single paragraph. You should have used Enter to separate paragraphs.
- You use empty “lines” to vertically space paragraphs instead of incorporating the vertical spacing in the paragraph style. This will cause you difficult time when it comes to formatting tuning and disables all automatic alignments and page synchronisation.
- You have spurious space characters at end of every paragraph.
- You follow a (bad) US-cultural habit of typing two spaces after a punctuation (but apparently not in the 1984 citation which makes me think you copied it from internet or the like). This may result in wrong line wrap and anyway confusion the justification algorithm.
- You don’t use the styling system. Everything is typed under Default Paragraph Style with direct formatting overlayed everywhere. Once again, this will prevent you from achieving easy nice formatting and layout. The standard style for text is Text Body. Default Paragraph Style is reserved for setting defaults shared by all other styles and, because of this, should not be assigned to any text in the document…
I don’t have a laser printer nor is my Linux box working any more. If there is an option in printers to improve printing then try it.
If not, then try printing a full page pdf or a full page .txt document. If the margins still print with 3/8" top and 1 3/4" bottom margin then I think you will need to contact HP support to get printer aligned
It’s Saturday morning now, and I am at it again. The good thing is, due to a clue from another commenter, I was able to see what you meant in the BTW. Thanks again.
@ajlittoz Yes, that document had some “cut and paste” text so perhaps there were some “issues.” (I was just trying to fill the page with text for a test document.) I am now going to create and attach a new document, created totally in Writer with the default settings (i.e., I have not changed anything when it comes to margins or anything else.) It is a one-page document filled with the letter B, that is, if I typed any more Bs, they would go to the second page. I have inserted page numbers using the procedure I explained near the beginning and I see “1” at the bottom left of the document. (Yea, I know this is no doubt obvious, but I just want to make sure you’re seeing what I am seeing.) I am going to print it now. In my “print” dialog box, for “paper size” it says "Letter 8.50 in x 11.00 in.
I have just printed the document. The top margin is 3/8 in. (0.375", which is less than the specs listed on the HP site for this printer of 0.5"). At the bottom, the last line of text is 1.75" from the bottom of the page. And… there is no page number. Grrrrrr.
Any ideas as to what is going on with the margin issue and the no page numbers issue now?
The “B” document.odt (16.0 KB)
FYI: I am running Linux Mint 20.1 and the version of LibreOffice is 6.4.7.2
Thanks again.
Everything fine here. Margins are everywhere 2cm. I didn’t try to print because my printer only has A4 and it isn’t an HP model.
Just to make sure, is print preview OK? All margins equal and page number visible? You said that printing a PDF version of same document exhibit the same problem.
This really sounds like a printer configuration issue. I don’t know how you installed your printer. I gave a look at my CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) administration page but I couldn’t find this exact 3755 model. However printers from the same provider usually share the same software driver. I recommend you check printer installation and configuration. By the way, does this printed offset occur also with other applications?
@ajlittoz has a great idea. Test your printer using a different application and see if you still get the strange margin problems. Try something as simple as NotePad, filled with text. Does it print all the way to the proper margins?
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@ajlittoz Bless you! Bless you, kind sir (or madam)! There were a few clues in your last response that led me to a solution to the problem Here’s what I did:
In the box that comes up when you click print, near the bottom of that box on the right hand side, under Page Layout, there is Paper size. The default setting is: Letter 8.50in x 11.00in which makes perfect sense since I am printing a letter-type thing on paper that is 8.5 x 11.
Only problem is— That does not work and results in all the margin/absent page number problems I was having.
But, if, using the drop-down menu I change that to: A4 8.26in x 11.69in (You mentioned A4) , the page prints with absolutely perfect top and bottom margins and the page number is there!!!
My only question is: Why? Any ideas? And, as I said, this is my first post here. Is there a way to say that a solution has been found so that all who are interested will see it?
Thanks for your help!
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@LeroyG Your reply of a few days ago was so brief that I did not catch what you were saying. This is what I did to fix the problem:
In the box that comes up when you click print, near the bottom of that box on the right hand side, under Page Layout, there is Paper size. The default setting is: Letter 8.50in x 11.00in which makes perfect sense since I am printing a letter-type thing on paper that is 8.5 x 11.
Only problem is— That does not work and results in all the margin/absent page number problems I was having.
But, if I change that to: A4 8.26in x 11.69in , the page prints with absolutely perfect top and bottom margins and the page number is there.
Thank you for your help.
If (and I emphasize “if”) your print configuration on your new computer is correct, you should experience no discrepancy/distortion when selecting the paper size corresponding to your tray. The fact that you need to select A4 to print to Letter is a sign that something is wrong.
You said somewhere your new computer in under Mint Linux. Find a skilled friend or colleague to check your configuration. IMHO LO 6.4.x on a new computer looks to me a bit old. Your should verify the adequateness of your OS level with your hardware and upgrade to a more recent/up-to-date version. Current LO version is 7.2.x-7.3.x depending on distribution.
If you are under Windows, the advice to check your configuration is even more crucial. And update to a current LO version is a requirement.
Of course, before doing such a fundamental upgrade, backup your documents. Just in case.
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