LibreOffice Page Number Bug?

Question

I am trying to insert page numbers for a document written with LibreOffice. Everything works just fine until I add an offset (so that the counting starts from 7). I add the offset of 6. Works fine, except that the last 6 pages do not have the number shown (even though the footer field is there).

This is important for me. Please let me know what I can do

Answer 1

Don't use the Offset if you want to start with a certain page number. Instead, edit the properties of the first paragraph at the first page of your document. Go to Menu Format -> Paregraph -> Text Flow -> Breaks -> Insert -> With Page Style. Now, you can specify a custom page number.

EDIT:

It seems that the "offset" feature causes heavy confusion for many users. I can hardly think of a use case where the offest feature would be really useful. Especially, it isn't suitable to modify the page numbering in a consistent way: even if you set an offset, a table of contents still will use the "real" numbering, ignoring the offset.

If you want to modify the page numbering, for example to

• make Writer start with with any other number than 1;
• use different numbering styles for different parts of your document (preface with roman numbers, main matter with arabic numbers...)
• exclude certain pages from numbering

you should use pages styles and page breaks. Notice that a page break is a property of the first paragraph "after the page break": it's this paragraph that holds the information that there's a page break before it, which page style to use after that break, and which page number to apply.

Regarding offset: You could use offset as a sort of cross reference to a page before or after the current page. But for such a scenario, the "real" cross reference feature is much more powerful than the offset feature.

Some more info on this issue:

• OOo Writer docs on page numbering;
• tips regarding page numbering by Hagar Delest from OOo forums;
• extension to handle page numbering more conveniently;
• handle blank pages;
• TOC and page offset
• Tutorial for page numbering