Restarting page numbering

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 2.x

Chapter 6: Getting Started with Writer

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• The Writer workspace
• Creating a new document
• Saving a document
• Working with text

• Cutting, copying, and pasting text
• Moving paragraphs quickly
• Finding and replacing text
• Inserting special characters
• Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces
• Setting tab stops and indents
• Checking spelling
• Using AutoCorrect
• Using word completion
• Using AutoText
• Inserting notes

• Formatting text

• Using styles
• Formatting paragraphs
• Formatting characters
• Autoformatting
• Creating numbered or bulletted lists
• Hyphenating words

• Undoing and redoing changes
• Tracking changes to a document

• Recording changes
• Accepting or rejecting changes and comments

• Formatting pages

• Choosing a layout method
• Creating headers and footers
• Changing page margins

• Numbering pages

• Including the total number of pages
• Restarting page numbering
• Changing the format of page numbers

• Creating a table of contents
• Creating indexes and bibliographies
• Printing from Writer

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Often you will want to restart the page numbering at 1, for example, on the page following a title page or a table of contents. In addition, many documents have the front matter (such as the table of contents) numbered with Roman numerals and the main body of the document numbered in Arabic numerals, starting with 1.

You can restart page numbering in two ways.

Method 1:

1. Place the cursor in the first paragraph of the new page.
2. Choose Format > Paragraph.
3. On the Text Flow page of the Paragraph dialog box, check Insert in the Breaks area.
4. In the Type drop-down list, select Page.
5. In the Position drop-down list, select Before or After to position where you want to insert the page break.
6. Check With Page Style and specify the page style to use.
7. Specify the page number to start from and then click OK.

Method 2:

1. Place the cursor in the first paragraph of the new page.
2. Choose Insert > Manual break.
3. Page break is the default selected on the Insert Break dialog box.
4. Choose the required page in the Style drop-down list.
5. Check Change page number.
6. Specify the page number to start from and then click OK.

File:Insert-break.png

Restarting page numbering after a manual page break.

The following derives from experience with OOo 3.2.1:

If the "Default" page style doesn't behave as desired when applied to both sections, create two new page styles (which could be based on Default) with names such as "BodyPage" and "FrontMatter." Apply the BodyPage style to the page you want to start as "1" in the Arabic page number sequence. Apply the FrontMatter page style to the first page in the document you want to start with Roman page numbers.

When creating either page style, make the "Next Page" style the same as the one you create. That is, a FrontMatter page is followed by a FrontMatter format--until changed by a page break and a new style, such as BodyPage, which can continue to the end of the document.

When creating a page style based on Default, check to be sure you are not creating a paragraph format based on the Default paragraph style. Select from the list of Page Styles, not from Paragraph Styles where there is also a Default.