Re: [libreoffice-users] page numbering oddity

At 16:08 15/09/2015 +0100, Mike Scott wrote:
> I'm using LO 5.0.1.2 on Mint. There's an oddity about page 
> numbering, in which differing page styles change the start page 
> number and total page count. So, I start LO and make, say, a fresh 
> 3-page document, no manual page breaks, rather just letting the text 
> flow across page boundaries. On each page, I add the page number and 
> page count fields. Comfortingly, the pages now say 1/3, 2/3 and 3/3. 
> That's good.
>
> However, I go to the first page, bring up the stylist, and 
> double-click "Left Page". The embedded page counts now say 2/4, 3/4 
> and 4/4. And the page indicator on LO's lower bar reflects this, 
> saying I have a 4-page document when it's only 3. (The pages have 
> the correct alternating Left/Right styles after this)

Professional printers always use odd page numbers on rectos (right 
pages) and even ones on versos (left pages). If your first page is a 
verso, you have left a blank recto before it. LibreOffice is 
regarding that as page 1.

o Ensure that Tools | Options... | LibreOffice Writer | Print | Other 
| Print automatically inserted blank pages is ticked.
o Go to File | Page Preview.
You should see the actual structure of your document and why the 
numbering is behaving as it does.

> If I go back to the top, and select either "Default Style" or "Right 
> Page", the numbering corrects itself.

Because there no longer needs to be a missing page secretly numbered 1.

> If instead, I try to use a First Page style, leading to Right, then 
> Left, I get numbering that looks like 1/4, 3/4 and 3/4. No page 2, 
> and just plain weird!

(Is that last page actually "4/4"?) That's not weird: you now have 
page 1 on a recto, an invisible page 2, and your second page numbered 
3 as you have asked for it also to be on a recto.

> I know it's slightly perverse starting with the left page, but I 
> have a good reason, and surely this shouldn't make the counts wrong.

Since you are keeping your "good reason" a secret, I'm not sure what 
you mean by a "left page" here. Do you mean that you want to print 
double-sided with a blank front page? If not, I don't know why you 
need to use the Left Page page style.

> It looks from here that LO has a hard-wired opinion that page 1 is 
> on the right of a double-page spread.

It's hard-wired in printers' brains!

> The killer is that I can't find an obvious way to fix things up manually ...

Can you tinker with the page styles or create your own to achieve 
what you need? What does each page style have for its Next Style? 
What do they have for "Page layout" under "Layout settings" on their Page tabs?

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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