Writer won't print whole document in one go

[JamesRichards]

I have a document which when I go to print it offers a dialog where only the first page is available to print. As soon as I have set that page to print a further print dialog automatically appears with the remaining pages ready to print. This unfortunately messes up double-sided and brochure printing. The problem does not occur in NeoOffice Version: 2022.7 Professional Edition.
MacOS 15.4 (24E248),
LibreOffice Version: 25.2.2.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 7370d4be9e3cf6031a51beef54ff3bda878e3fac
CPU threads: 8; OS: macOS 15.4; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: osx
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
AND
LibreOffice Dev Version: 25.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: bac279b83d498ed54bb64a6faeafc6ef96bbfb95
CPU threads: 8; OS: macOS 15.4; UI render: Skia/Metal; VCL: osx
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Printer: EPSON XP-960 Series-AirPrint, Driver version 4.0

There is no private or personal information in the document, so I am uploading it as is in case replacing the text masks or changes the issue.
Dramatic Passion Gospel - Luke.odt (30.3 KB)

[Kyodake]

LibreOffice Writer often handles the content of a large document as if it were multiple separate print jobs, primarily when there are differences in page layout, a different page style for the first page, or for sections such as covers or appendices. In these cases, each job generates its own print dialog, breaking any double-sided or booklet-format printing settings.

This occurs when: the document uses different page styles, there are manual page breaks with different styles, or there are sections.

For the document to print smoothly double-sided or as a booklet, the entire document must use the same page style and there must be no breaks that change styles.

Check the page styles. Unify the page style. Remove special page breaks.

If despite this, you still can’t print correctly, try exporting to PDF with the Create a single PDF file option enabled.

[ajlittoz]

@Kyodake

LibreOffice Writer often handles the content of a large document as if it were multiple separate print jobs, primarily when there are differences in page layout, a different page style for the first page, or for sections such as covers or appendices. In these cases, each job generates its own print dialog, breaking any double-sided or booklet-format printing settings.

Are you sure? I never experienced this kind of trouble. My documents, except day-to-day letters, always have multiple page styles and they print in one shot.

@Kyodake

For the document to print smoothly double-sided or as a booklet, the entire document must use the same page style and there must be no breaks that change styles.

This statement appears to me suspectedly wrong.

[JamesRichards]

It’s not a very large document only 15 A5 pages and under 3,000 words. I’ve never come across the page styles thing before, and it seems to me to make a nonsense to have a standard ‘First page’ style if you can’t actually use it to print a document. And, as I say, the NeoOffice version I’ve (got which is based on an earlier iteration of LibreOffice) doesn’t have this problem.

[EarnestAl]

I have not had this issue before, even printing documents with mixed Landscape or A3 pages, but that might depend on the printer.

Could you please copy the document and replace all the text with random text, save as .odt and upload the sample. There are many variables, including the printer itself, so a sample would really help.

[JamesRichards]

I’ve added an upload to my original post, also details about the printer I am using.

[ajlittoz]

Nothing special in your document, except Writer is used like a prehistoric mechanical typewriter (absolutely everything is direct formatted).

Th manual page break at end of page 1 does not play any role in the problem (nor the line breaks instead of paragraph breaks).

The only anomaly I found is the use of an offset (-1 here) in the page number field. An offset does not change page number; it changes the referenced page. In your case, the field displays the page number of the preceding page. It indeed gives you what you expect but it is “logically” wrong.
(The reason why there is no page number on the first page is simply there is no page before the first one. Since this page does not exist, so does its page number which turns out as “void”.)

Are you sure you ticked All pages in the print dialog? Otherwise, Pages is pre-loaded with whatever default for your OS.

[JamesRichards]

I agree with you about the formatting, but as I inherited the document there has been no mileage in editing it to use a more up-to-date approach.

Here is the first print dialog that appears:

and as soon as I click ‘Print’ the first one closes, and this one automatically opens:

I have tried formatting another document with a ‘First page’ style for the first page, and ‘Default’ for the rest - in case that was the issue - but it prints without difficulty.

[ajlittoz]

Very strange: the first dialog says “Page 1 of 1” and the second “Page 1 of 14” while your document definitely has 15 pages. And the pages are homogeneous: they all are Default Page Style.

Adding a manual page break is a standard common innocuous operation present in virtually every document. It should not “split” the printing operation in two steps.

[EarnestAl]

For me the document print dialogue always shows 17 pages.
.

I think it is the bug mentioned in this link, Printing Booklet Problems - #5 by EarnestAl . Fixed for 24.8.5
.
The good thing is that the workaround for that bug is easy, make the settings in the print dialogue, close the print dialogue and open it a second time.

[JamesRichards]

That doesn’t work for this issue. As far as I can tell, whatever you do, the print dialog comes up with “Print all pages“ selected, but showing only the first page of the document. It is only after sending that page to print that a second print dialog comes up showing the other pages of the document.

[ajlittoz]

I don’t meet this behaviour on my Linux machine.

[EarnestAl]

I was trying to force errors, after the last test which was converting First page style to DL envelope while keeping the remaining pages as A4 and printing as brochure, that was the only bug that appeared in the print dialogue. It always showed all pages to print.

Is the printer properties set to CD/DVD? There can only be one “page” for that setting.
If you copy everything to a new document does the issue not occur for the new document?