There is a frequent misconception about page offset.
It is in no way intended to change the current page number. The page number is an intrinsic property of a page style. It may occasionally be reset or restarted at any value but it remains a monotonic counter completely managed internally.
Page offset is intended to get the page number of an existing page located at offset from the current page, forward or backward. The most common request is for ±1, i.e. next or previous page. Since this returns the number of an existing page, the field value is “void” when the designated page does not exist.
Your question is probably about a procedure to force a starting page number. As mentioned above, the page number counter is a property of a page style. Consequently, you must interact with the page style. This is done with a special page break and its effect on text flow. You have two possibilities:
- manual insertion of
Insert>More Breaks>Manual Break for one-of-a-kind reset
- or
Text Flow tab of any paragraph style when this paragraph style must always start a new page (e.g. a Heading 1 to start a chapter)
However, there is a restriction here. Writer implicitly considers that document is duplex-printed. Consequently, it enforces a “parity” rule to avoid messing up traditional typography rules: odd-numbered pages always appear at right while even-numbered pages appear at left. If you are in an odd-numbered page when you request a page break with an odd-numbered forced page number (and vice versa for even numbers), Writer will insert a blank page to enforce the typography rule.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to inform Writer that document is logically single-sided so that the rule is not followed.
“Offsetting” total page count is nonsensical. Page count is the total number of pages managed by Writer. That’s all.
Though I understand that some applications could need a “modified” page count, e.g. not counting cover pages, dedication, TOC, …, there is no way to do it. What is missing in Writer is some kind of formula computation where factors could be internal variables like page count, current page number, current chapter number, … But you should first accept the inconsistencies which may result from inconsiderate use.
With a combination of page number reset and cross-references, it is possible to label header or footer with something like <page_number_in_chapter>/<page_count_in_chapter> but this can’t span several chapters unless some dirty trick is used to twist chapter outline (I’m thinking of using level-1 to create the part to measure and level-2 for chapter headings; but there may be unexpected side-effects).
Presently, page offsets work perfectly provided you use them according to their specification.
