OpenOffice page styles and page numbering

I just learned how to use page styles AND page numbering in OpenOffice (actually in NeoOffice, but this should apply to OpenOffice as well). When I tried to use page styles for the first time, it changed the page style of entire document and that was not the thing I wanted. The problematic part with page numbers is when you have create cover pages or a tables of contents and you do not want your page numbering start from the actual first page (eg. cover page).

The thing with the page styles seems to be that you have to break your document in parts using a thing called manual break. Here is how to use different page styles in one document:

1. Select “File > New > Text document” to create a new document
2. Open a tool box called “Styles and Formatting”:
   
3. Create a new page style called “Cover page”:
   
   Here you can define custom layout settings for your cover page.
4. (Double click the created style to apply it to the current page)
5. Write something on the cover page (do not use built-in heading styles)
6. Select “Insert > Manual break…”, leave the “Type” radio button to “Page break” but do not leave the “Style” selection to “[None]“. In this example I select page style “Index” because the next page will be the table of contents.
7. Select “Insert > Indexes and tables > Indexes and tables…”, select type “Table of contents” and click OK.

Ok, now we have a two paged document with a cover page and a table of contents, each page using different page styles. You can change and modify your page styles using the “Styles and Formatting” panel.

Now, to make the actual document page numbering to start from the next page, do the following:

1. This is the most important step to make our page numbering to work! Select “Insert > Manual break…” after the table of contents and use following settings:
   
   It is very important that you select a page style for your next page and check the “Change page number” selection. You can leave the number field to default.
2. Select “Insert > Header > Default” (or Footer) to add header on every content page
3. Activate header and select “Insert > Fields > Page nuber”
4. Now, write few pages of something structured (ie. using built-in heading styles)
5. Update your page of contents and enjoy the correct page numbering!

I hope this helps someone :)

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