Comments on: Reset Page Numbering in OpenOffice Writer

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:38:02 +0000

Ah, the decision to go to college at age 37 has made it necessaary for me to write research papers in both MLA and APA formats. Just figuring out styles and numbering tricks has been fascinating, to say the least.

I just wanted to point out that I always use notepad (you can use any other basic editing app for this if you wish) as a paste buffer. Pasting something into notepad clears the formatting. Then you recopy from notepad and paste it in its final destination. Not sure if that will simplify Swift Arrow’s instructions but it’s worth a shot.

By: cheeze

cheeze — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:06:20 +0000

Thanks for the comments Arrow.

That’s one thing about word processing that always bugs me. Copy-and-paste always brings some unwanted (and invisible) artifacts from the old document to the new. But I’m puzzled why you had to save a blank file with the styles applied?

Have you tried pasting the text into the blank file using the “Paste Special” command? You can choose to paste the plain text version of the document which I think will remove formatting of any sorts.

Anyway, I’m glad you managed to solve your problem. Cheers

By: Swift Arrow

Swift Arrow — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:47:13 +0000

Edit that… I had just about given up hope!!!
Anyway, here’s a solution. Hope this helps people in the future:

When transitioning to Open Office in the middle of the project (like I did):
1. Open the .doc file in Open Office, and save as .odt
2. Open the new .odt file and select all text and clear formatting.
3. Go through the text and apply STYLES.

This much I had already done… now here’s the hard part.
Everything might seem fine, until you try to stitch everything together in one big Master Document, when you find out that it is behaving strangely.

4. Save everything, close.
5. Open your .odt, and create a new blank .odt. create all your styles in this new one, save it, close it.
6. Create another new blank .odt, in the styles and formatting window (press f11 to get it) select “Load Styles”, Check all that apply, check overwrite, click from file, choose your blank .odt with all the styles from step 5.
7. Now MANUALLY TYPE (not cut and paste) the first line of text into your new blank .odt.
8. Press ENTER to get new line.
9. Apply the appropriate style to the line that you typed (something like chapter title).
10. Copy and paste the REST of the document.
11. Save. Use this final .odt for all your master documents, and from now on.

This process creates a “Clean” .odt file, without hidden defects from it’s Word lineage. It should give you no trouble.

By: Swift Arrow

Swift Arrow — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:09:42 +0000

I’m also writing a book and have run into page number trouble. I’ve gone over everything in your article… Well written, btw.

Here’s my problem:
I converted .doc files to .odf. Before the conversion, the .doc had a page number offset. Now, I cannot for the life of me get rid of the page number offset. It messes up page numbering in the Master Document. I’ve tried:
1. Putting in an offset (it doesnt even notice my offset)
2. Copying the entire text to a new fresh odt (no change)
3. Copying paragraph by paragraph and checking the page number field for some reason made it so that the page numbers in the new document were not displayed; just a grey box for the field.
4. Reloading the styles, overwriting the styles from a properly behaving document, and any combination of the above.

grateful for any help,
Godspeed and Many Thanks
Swift Arrow