number my pages, dammit!

April 26, 2009 6:48 AM

How do I put in page numbers in OpenOffice?

What's the deal with OpenOffice? Sure it's free, but man it has some wierd quirks! I'm trying to put in page numbers, which has always been totally easy in Wordperfect and Word, the other two programs with which I'm familiar. The only way I can figure out to put page numbers in OpenOffice is to insert a header and then type in each page number individually. Surely there must be an easier way to do it. I've searched the help files, I've done everything. It's really pissing me off. Help!

posted by crazylegs to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Insert > Header (or Footer) > Default

Then with the cursor inside the special header/footer region do,

Insert > Fields > Choose a Page Numbery type of field (or date, or doc title, or whatever).

I'm fairly certain you can only do it inside a header/footer, but I could be wrong!

Aside from the names of the menu options it's really very similar to how it has worked in MS Word (well till very recently, I know new Office is way different).
posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker at 7:01 AM on April 26

I'm fairly certain you can only do it inside a header/footer, but I could be wrong!

Nope, wrong! You can go Insert > Fields > Page Number in the body text too.

crazylegs, I'm not quite sure why this didn't show up in your help files. In mine, I just typed "page numbers" and the answer came up.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:12 AM on April 26

Hi again - I can insert the header and put the page number in it, and I can also insert the page number using Insert > Fields > Page Number, but the problem is that both these options only insert the page number on the current page, thus I have to do it on every page. How do I insert page numbers so that they just automatically appear, in sequence, on each page? Every other program I've used does this easily, there must be a way to do it in Open Office!
Thanks for the help...
posted by crazylegs at 8:24 AM on April 26

Huh? When you insert a page number in a header using insert > fields > page number, it automatically shows up on every page.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:47 AM on April 26

The only way I can imagine it's NOT doing the above, which is the default behavior in OpenOffice, is if you've defined a custom page style for the page you're putting it on, and a different style for every other page, but I find it difficult to imagine that you've done fancy style formatting if you're having trouble inserting page numbers (no offense . . . ).
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:50 AM on April 26

OK, this is sort of non-intuitive and I'm not entirely sure how it works...

Format > Styles & Formatting (F11)
Select 'Page Style"
Right click in the list area, and make a new style. I called mine 'Numbered'.
Under the 'Header' tab, check the box to turn on headers.
F11 to exit Styles & Formatting
Click in your header to set the cursor.
Insert > Fields > Page Number

I've run through it a few times now, and it works for me numbering every page in the header and/or the footer and/or wherever.

Also, if you set up page numbering before you go onto multiple pages, the program will automatically format subsequent pages with the header/footer and appropriate page number. (Then you can use the 'Page Style' trick on individual pages if you need them to be different from the rest.)
posted by carsonb at 9:05 AM on April 26

Hey, I must be having an off day. I just tried it again in the header and it worked! Now I feel stupid, but the problem is solved so thank you!
posted by crazylegs at 9:07 AM on April 26

When you insert a page number in a header using insert > fields > page number, it automatically shows up on every page.

This is true of you set up page numbering on a brand-new document that doesn't already extend to multiple pages. So to clarify, the list of steps I provided above is if you already have multiple pages in your document when you want to put in page numbers (which seems to be your situation). I s'pose another way around this would be to create a new document, set up the page numbering, then go back to your original document, select all, copy, and paste into the new, properly formatted document, but I haven't tried it.
posted by carsonb at 9:09 AM on April 26

But since I have your attention, I'll ask something else... Is there any way to change already inserted footnotes into endnotes? I have a 30 page article full of footnotes, and a place I want to submit it requires endnotes. Is there a way to do this without changing each one individually?
posted by crazylegs at 9:10 AM on April 26

Hm, weird. It looks like I'm wrong and PhoBWan is right—it wasn't working for me on the first try either, crazylegs....
posted by carsonb at 9:13 AM on April 26

Is there any way to change already inserted footnotes into endnotes?

Try
Tools > Footnotes..
Then in the 'Position' field select 'End of Document'
posted by carsonb at 9:18 AM on April 26

This is true of you set up page numbering on a brand-new document that doesn't already extend to multiple pages.

Perhaps things are different on OOo3.0 on Linux, but when I insert pages into a header on a document that's already 7 pages long, it adds them to all of them.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:52 AM on April 26

Yeah, for some weird, unknown reason I had the same problem as crazylegs at first. Then I tried it on another document and the easy way worked fine. The universe is a wacky place.
posted by carsonb at 12:45 PM on April 26