I do all of my school papers in OpenOffice.org (for more on OpenOffice, look in Wikipedia) these days, specifically in OpenOffice Writer (the open source equivalent of Microsoft Word). I come upon the same problem fairly frequently, so I am posting my solution here for everyone.
Many paper formatting guidelines call for no header on the first page, with a header that includes the page number (and possibly other information, including name and professor) on subsequent pages. While it may seem difficult to do this in OpenOffice Writer, it is rather easy.
Create a header as your normally would; usually this is by clicking Insert -> Header -> Default and then Insert -> Fields -> Page Number. You should see your header on all pages of your document, including the first page.
Now, place the cursor within the first page of your document (ie- click within the first page of the document and then make sure you see a blinking cursor on the first page), and then select from the menu Format -> Styles and Formatting. Select the fourth icon at the top of the dialog box (if you hover over it, it says “Page Styles”). Now, double-click on “First Page”.
Once you double-click on “First Page”, the header on the first page will magically disappear, while keeping the header on each subsequent page intact.
For even more customizability, you can create an entirely different header for the first page instead of leaving it completely off.
To do this, again make sure your cursor is inside the first page of the document. Then click Insert -> Header -> First Page. Now, a header will appear on the first page of your document and you can place any text or fields (page number, etc.) within this first page-only header.
If you have any problems with this quick fix for headers in OpenOffice Writer, please leave a question in the comments section below and I will try my best to answer your query.
Also, look forward to more of these How To’s (for Open Office and other applications) in the near future.
Lastly, if you would like to try out OpenOffice, you can download it for free from the OpenOffice website or your can download a portable version here which you can unzip locally and delete after trying out this amazing piece of community-produced software.
Thanks a heap! I should have probably figured this out myself, but to be honest, I didn’t, even though I use styles a lot.
Just one doubt remains — what if I want to remove the header in a page in the middle of the document (for example, a chapter’s first page)?
Right now, if I place myself in any page in the middle of the document and double click on “First Page” style (or any self-defined style without headers) it removes the headers from the whole of the document. Any cues?
Thanks again for the help,
Gato.
Gato,
I haven’t had this problem myself. As long as the cursor is only placed in one page, the defined style should only apply to that page.
Chris
I am having the same problem as Gato in the above message. I would like to delete the header and footers from Title Pages ONLY in the middle of my document. I have searched the internet,to no avail!!! IF this is possible, how do you accomplish it.
Thanks,
Word Newbie
Word Newbie,
I really don’t know how to do what you are asking in Word, as I use OpenOffice.org.
Chris
You can create as many page styles as you want, and then use any style on any page. Page styles can have or not have headers/footers, different margins, background graphics. Just right-click on any existing page style shown in the styles dialogue, then select either “new” or “modify.” From there, the sky’s the limit.
Thanks for the tip. I have to use this about once 2 months and I always forget how to do it. I think this is the 2nd time this post has saved me
OpenOffice could definitely use a more intuitive interface though.
Sat, thanks for the comment. Making that header go away seems like a pain compared to MS Word, but if you think about it for a while (a while), OpenOffice’s style system does make sense.
PS – I love the theme for your site, and the idea of integrating two people into one site.
Chris, THANK YOU for the simple-enough-that-even-an-old-lady-can-do-it explanation on how to get rid of the header on the first page in OpenOffice! Bless you!!! It worked!
Sharon, glad I could help.
WOW! Thanks SO MUCH! I thought this might be an impossibility in OOo! Thanks again!
John, glad I could help.
Hi, I was interested in creating different footers for different parts of my documents with open office… But I can’t find how and I don’t seem to have the “First Page” style in my style list. Any thoughts?
On a side note, all of this is super easy to do with Lotus Word Pro, but it’s getting old. No new version and all. I’m switching to Mac and so I’m trying open office. (No mac version of Lotus) But I want to be sure I can do everything Lotus did…
thanks!
Oh, I just saw, “First Page” is in the Insert- Manual break section in the menu. But if I just “First Page” in two different sections of the document, the same header appears. That means I have a total of 2 different headers in my document. Is there a way to add other styles in that menu? Because it’s not the same list as in the Format -Style and Formatting menu.
thanks
Jesus H. Christ THANK YOU. I have a paper due at 5 pm today and couldn’t figure out how to change my headers to save my life. The last time I had this problem I ended up going back to MicroWord, somehow making it work, then forgetting how I did it.
Now to get back to Historical and Future Trends of Sexism…
Wow!!! Gracias, gracias, gracias, You have been a blessing. My motions and pleadings to court will be a different story now. God Bless U!
Aimée, de nada!
Thanks a lot for the tip for getting rid of header on the first page
Great tutorial, I was wondering if you knew how to have OO Writer automatically start with todays date in the header?
Thanks! Sometimes the simplest things can be so difficult to find in OOo!
Oh my goodness, thank you! I was really worried that it was going to take forever to figure out how make the header go away on the first page, so you are a lifesaver. Thanks!
thanks for this tip ma man. Gb
Openoffice seems to have problems with different first pages, when you save your documents to microsoft office word *.doc! The extra information about the different styles for the different pages is not saved (or cannot be saved to microsoft office format?).
For instance, suppose you have a (OOO)template for a letter, with different style for the first page and the rest. On the first page you want your company logo, but on the rest of the pages and just page numbers or whatever. If your letter is only one page and you save it as microsoft-word *.doc, information about the different styles for the headers is lost. Therefore if you open the microsoft word doc and add a second page, it will have the “first page” header with your logo on every page, which is obviously not what you want!
I worked around this by creating a openoffice template that is “microsoft office” resistant
I used only one header/footer for all pages (the default one that you do not want on the first page). For the different layout of the header on the first page, I just obscured the items I didn’t want by a white frame or a picture.
This way you can generate openoffice templates that work well even if you save your one-page-document as microsoft office *.doc and send it to someone who is using microsoft office and wants to expand on your letter.
Also sometimes an overlapping picture plus textfield in the header/footer will have the wrong order when converted to microsoft office. This happened to me when I wanted a textfield in front of a picture in my logo.
The letter should start start under the logo, so I selected “no wrap” for the picture and textfield. This template worked fine in openoffice, but when I saved my document as microsoft *.doc, the textfield appeared behind the picture, and I could not get it to the front again (Somehow this strange result only occured when textfield and picture were in the header/footer!)
I worked around this by putting the picture in the background, behind the textfield. This of course means that the regular text would also be placed in front of the picture, overlapping my logo, which was not what I wanted.
To solve this, I placed a transparent frame with “no wrap” at the same location as the picture. When converting to microsoft *.doc, this frame is placed in the front, but since it is transparent, this is not a problem. The picture now appears behind the textfield, and the transparent frame makes sure that my text does not overlap the logo.
Wilco,
Thanks for the information. If I need to send an OpenOffice file, I usually save as a pdf so I’ve never run into this problem. Thanks, I’m sure this will be of use to readers!
Chris…
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I really appreciate you for creating this tutorial. I usually don’t post comments on websites but I had to this time.
This was awesome!
I had read other sites that had tutorials on how to do this, but they all left me confused and bewildered. This was clear and to the point. You explain in a couple of paragraphs what some other websites can’t explain on several pages.
I know you will do well in the future. I wish all the best in your studies and career. Take care and thank you again.
Joseph B.
Joseph, I’m glad I can help!
Lesson of the day! Thanks a lot!
Hi
I have tried many times but failed to change the header and footer on the first page whenever I double click the first page in page styles the header on the first page disappears. Once I save the file and exit and reopen the file header andfooter is missing on all the pages. Plz help me
Thanks! your short article really saved me a lot of time.
Wow, thanks! This was a big help to me!
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Thank you for this tip!
Perfect! Thank you very much
This helped me, except now my first page margins seem to have been shifted all around.
An easy fix, of course. It just seems like having to go through the rest of the paper and manually changing the margins is too much work.
Hey, thanks a tonne, buddy! This was exactly what I needed to get OpenOffice to do. I was starting to pull my hair out trying to make it work. At least OOo is still easier (and cheaper) to use than MS Office.
i think i love you…
Thanks! This was exactly what I needed. Like Jonathan, I was also starting to pull (what is left of) my hair out trying to make it work.
Thanks man! Was almost going to start pulling my hair too