set different header/footer for even/odd pages

users
#1

Hi,

I would like to set different headers and footers according to page types.

for example:
page 1: should have no footer or header as it's a front cover
page 2 is blank so no footer or header

page 3: since this page, all ODD pages should have a particular header and footer (not the same as EVEN pages)
page 4: since this page, all EVEN pages should have a particular header and footer (not the same as ODD pages)

In fact, i'm looking for something like in MS Office i used before however i don't know if it's possible in LibreOffice 4.3.1.

Any help would be great.

thx.

A.

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
For the first page the Faq gave me this link
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Writer/003
Hopefully when doing that you'll stumble onto how to do odd and even
pages. In my really brief skim through the Faq for Writer nothing leapt
out at me but i'm fairly sure it's not tough once you've started looking
into "Styles and Templates"

The main Faq is at
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq

Full documentation is at;
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
See the "Getting Started Guide", pretty much any version will do for this
but that link often lets you get the most version even before publication.
The GS guide is fully published but if you scroll down you see others that
are "works in progress". It's the chapter 3 in the GS guide that might
help the most.

An easier link for published guides is
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/
but it only lists guides once they are fully completed.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

Yes it is! Of course it is!

Tom's pointers are good. As a summary, you'll need using styles. This
style thingy is the cornerstone of LibreOffice Writer, Draw and Impress,
still very useful with Calc as well. Remember, using Writer, 95% of
questions have the "style" word as an answer.

For your needs, you'll have to create or adjust the four following page
styles:

-- one style for the first page (there's one preset that you might want
to edit to your liking). Its "next" property will have to be set to the
"blankpage" style below.

-- one style for blank pages(let's call it "blankpage") (its easy to
create one, see the docs). As the blank page will be an even page, its
next proprerty will have to be set to the "oddpage" style below.

-- one style for the odd pages (let's call it "oddpage"). Its "next"
property will have to be set to the "evenpage" style below.

-- one style for the even pages (let's call it "evenpage"). Its "next"
property will have to be set to the "oddpage" style above.

Once these exist, dealing with subsequent pages is a breeze: the "next"
properties take care of the page changes.

HTH,

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
Thanks! :))

In LibreOffice "styles" become really useful. They use a very different
system from the styles in MS Office which i always found created tons of
problems and never solved anything.

I found that just a few minutes of reading up about them saved me hours of
work collating articles from different sources and fitting them neatly into
my company's (well, my bosses company) newsletter. What used to take the
previous chap a couple of weeks with MS Office (and took me about the same)
now takes a couple of days at most and i can do other things at the same
time too. I've got a feeling that if i used LibreOffice for the content
and then moved it into Scribus for the weird bits of the layout then it'd
probably take just 1 afternoon.

The better implementation of styles in LibreOffice is partly why documents
produced by LibreOffice tend to look so much better than ones produced in
MS Office. Numbered lists don't have extra numbers or missing ones.
Bulleted lists keep the same-sized bullets. Both stay lined-up under each
other. Much less struggling against sudden weird changes in formatting.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

LibreOffice will do this. Being familiar with MS Word the method would not
be what is expected.

Four page styles need to be used for the scenario as you've describe.
page 1: a "front cover" page style
page 2: a blank page style
page 3: an "ODD pages" style
page 4: an "EVEN pages" style

I believe, based on the description of front cover and page 2 the same
could be accomplished with only three page styles.
page 1 & 2: the default page style (this includes headers and footers but
if they aren't used their presence shouldn't matter)
page 3: an "ODD pages" style
page 4: an "EVEN pages" style

Writer has several included page styles that should support this
requirement. They are "Default Style", "Left Page", and "Right Page".

Create the cover. It will be using the Default Style page style.

With the cursor at the last element on the cover page (use the keystroke
Ctrl+End to be sure you're at the last part of the cover page)...

Select from the menu "Insert | Manual Break...",
Select the "Page break" option and for Style select "Default". Click the OK
button.

The cursor should now be on the 2nd page.
Press enter once (I don't know why this is needed but it is the only way I
could make it work).

Insert another page break via the menu. This time set the Style to "Right
Page". The cursor will be at the top of the 3rd page.

The third page of the document will have the "Right Page" format. As
content is entered and it fills this page and goes onto the next the next
page will automatically have the "Left Page" format applied.

These instructions were composed with reference to LibreOffice 4.2.6.2 on
Ubuntu 10.04.