The simplest approach to the most reliable way to have no page number on the first page in OpenOffice Writer

I've posted before about how to have no page number on the first page. I used the approach of creating the page styles you used. This time I'm just going to show you how to do it using existing page styles, which takes a little of the complexity out.

(There are two easier ways, but with those ways, you lose the formatting if you save the document in .doc Word format, then close and reopen. This one works when you save in Word format.)

First: Choose Tools > Options > Writer > Printing. Turn OFF the "Print automatically inserted blank pages" option. This inserts an even page between two odds. It shows up in print preview. Don't worry about it; just turn it off unless you are doing books.

 

Now: How to have no page number on the first page, and have the page number on the second page start with either 1, or 2.

1. Create or open your document.
2. Type the content you want on the first page. You don't have to do it all, but let's say you've got some there.
3. Choose Format > Styles and Formatting.

4. Click the indicated Page Styles icon, fourth from the left.

5. Double-click the First Page page style. It will be highlighted and applied to your whole document no matter how many pages you have. You can see that it's applied in the lower left corner.

6. Click at the point in your document where you want to switch to page 2.

  

7. Choose Insert > Manual Break.
8. Select Default as the style that you want to switch to, in the dropdown list.

9. If you want page 2 to have a page number other than 2, select the checkbox and type the page number such as 1 in the box.

10. Click OK. Your second page will look like this. Don't worry about the 3/3, that's related to the option that you set earlier and won't affect page numbering.

That's the basics. You now have one page style applied to the first page and a different one applied to the second page. You can modify one without changing the other.

11. Choose Insert > Footer > Default.
12. You now have a footer in the Default page style (second page and subsequent pages) where you can insert a page number. 

13. Click in the footer and choose Insert > Fields > Page Number.

14. The page number appears. Format it as desired, center it, add the word "page" in front of it, or any other changes you want. The page number doesn't appear on the first page.

 

You now have one page style applied to the first page and a different one applied to the second page, with different formatting and footer contents applied to each. 

Comments

[Sir_Ty]

Thanks, my professor likes us to use MLA style papers, but with a title page with no numbers on the first page. This seems to be the best way to do it!

[gitmo]

Bullshit. Simply go to Insert -> Field -> Other. Now select Page and Page Number. Add Offset as -1. That will start the numbering from second page. Doesn't get easier than this.

[Solveig]

Hi Gitmo,

That will work if you want the second page to start with a 1. If you want it to start with a 2 then you need to use styles. Also, if you do it with the offset and save it in .doc format, the effect is lost. And if you do a table of contents, the TOC ignores the offset and something on the 10th page, aka "page 9" is listed as on page 10.

Also, the Pagination plugin is an even simpler way.