Logic of headers (and footers) or my lack of it!

users
#1

My intention was to use the header function to describe each page of a
29 page document separately, with a couple of exceptions where two
pages may have the same header.

I thought that it would just be a simple question of telling the header
of each page to copy (or not) the header of the previous page. How
mistaken could I be?!!

No matter what I tried, I was totally unable to find the trick for such
a simple feature...so that I am beginning to question my sanity. :wink:
The final result was that the first header was all right, but all the
subsequent headers oscillated between the one for page 29 and page 26.
J-)

I'm using LO on Linux.

Version: 6.4.2.2
Build ID: 40(Build:2)
CPU threads: 2; OS: Linux 4.12; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3;
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI-Language: en-GB
Calc: threaded

So what's the trick? I am sure that other users have been down a
similar path.

Greetings
Harvey

#2

Hi,

The header is attached to the page style you are using. For a given
page style, the header will be the same. I think you are looking for a
function similat to MS-WORD where you can link consecutive headers and
footers to have them "copied" from one section to the other, when pages
are separated with section breaks. LO does not operate quite like that:
LO provides page styles that contain the complete definition of what
your page should look like, along with header and footer. So, for a
given page style, the header will be the same when it is applied to a
page, what ever the page is.

So, to have the same header on pages 1-5, use Page Style 1
To have a different header on page 6, use Page Style 2
To have the same header on pages 7-10 as on pages 1-5, apply Page Style
1 to those pages
Etc.

To quickly see the page style, look in the middle of the status bar at
the bottom of the screen. You can right-click to set the page style for
the current page (actually from the last manual page break to the next
one). If you want to insert a page break and jump on a new style, then
go to Insert -> Other Breaks > Manual Break and on the dialog, select
page break and set the name of the style you want from the drop-down.

To create a new style, go Style -> Manage Styles and when the thing
opens on the right, go to page styles and create what you need (right
click on a style and then New...)

I hope this helps.

Rémy.

#3

Thanks, Remy. I think this could be close to the solution I am looking
for, but that means I have some 20 page styles for 29 pages of
document....but...OKIs the MS-Word solution patented? If not, could it
be implemented here?
Cheers
Harvey

#4

My intention was to use the header function to describe each page of a
29 page document separately, with a couple of exceptions where two
pages may have the same header.

What do you mean by "describe"? There exists some variables like chapter number and text, that will adapt automatically to the content of the page.

I thought that it would just be a simple question of telling the header
of each page to copy (or not) the header of the previous page. How
mistaken could I be?!!

?? You really need to describe more detailed the desired content of the "header".

Kind regards
Regina

#5

Hello Regina,

Thanks for taking the trouble to offer help.

Perhaps if I describe my 'case' it will help to see where I am coming
from. I wanted to define a header for each page that is either a
copy of the previous header or a new one.

The application in my current case is collection of handwritten court
papers (from 1813) that I want to transcribe. The originals are in
jpeg. Some are just single sheets, some sheets are left and right pages
together, some are just snippets. Obviously the order is
important, and the source names of the jpeg files serve very well as a
header that should not of itself belong the the transcription text.
hence my simple requirement.

It was a deliberate choice to try to use the header feature (rather
than headings within the body of the text) because it made sense to me
to keep the metadata (i.e. file names of each sheet) separate from the
actual content of each sheet. In the end, I would have a complete LO
text document in which each page was headed with the file name to
identify its source and a page full of text showing the textual content
of each sheet. The resulting document would evidently contain 29 pages
with about 20 different headers.

I was expecting some simple implementation but, to my surprise, did not
find such. In the meantime Remy has made a suggestion that show how
much more complex it could be, than expected.

Greetings
Harvey

#6

Looking at your requirements I was curious if using captions for the
images could give you what you want.
If the caption was the name of the document then you can handle the
different cases of single image documents vs multi-image documents in
a straight forward way;
Single image caption is just the name of the document.
A document spanning two images would have the name of the document and
which page it is.
There is perhaps a bonus also in that you could generate a table of
images at the front of the document which uses the caption text and
offers the option to create an internal link to the page with the
image.
Just a thought.

Best wishes,

Drew

#7

Perhaps you're being proactive, but the time on your post is still a couple of minutes from now. :wink:

#8

Hi Harvey,

Hello Regina,

Thanks for taking the trouble to offer help.

Perhaps if I describe my 'case' it will help to see where I am coming
from. I wanted to define a header for each page that is either a
copy of the previous header or a new one.

The application in my current case is collection of handwritten court
papers (from 1813) that I want to transcribe. The originals are in
jpeg. Some are just single sheets, some sheets are left and right pages
together, some are just snippets. Obviously the order is
important, and the source names of the jpeg files serve very well as a
header that should not of itself belong the the transcription text.
hence my simple requirement.

It was a deliberate choice to try to use the header feature (rather
than headings within the body of the text) because it made sense to me
to keep the metadata (i.e. file names of each sheet) separate from the
actual content of each sheet. In the end, I would have a complete LO
text document in which each page was headed with the file name to
identify its source and a page full of text showing the textual content
of each sheet. The resulting document would evidently contain 29 pages
with about 20 different headers.

I would go with true headings of style 'Heading 1' or other styles with outline level 1.

Start each transcribing of a document on a new page and put the heading as very first paragraph on that page.

Then you can add a field to the header. It will show this heading until it comes to a new page with a different heading. That way you only need one page style for all.
To get the needed field open the Fields dialog by Ctrl+F2. In tab "Document" select item "Chapter". You likely need format "Chapter name".

If you do not like having a file name as heading, you can fake hiding it. Set the font size to 2pt and the font color to white.

Using true headings has the advantage, that you can generate a table of contents and you can generate a tagged PDF.

To get "Table of contents" in the header, set the outline level of style "Contents Headings" to "Level 1" and make sure, that the table of contents starts on a new page.

From content, I would not use a file name, but would use a short text, that describes the source. I like the idea from Drew to insert a caption to each image. Such caption would be a good place for the reference to the source of the image and - as Drew mentioned - allows to generate a "Table of Figures". Here you would need to set style "Figure Index Heading" to outline level "Level 1" to get the correct text into the header.

Kind regards
Regina