Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 14725
Allow page numbers to include text before and after the number
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
This feature is to help facilitate the use of Openoffice.org in creating documents for use by the US government and its contractors. US government documents use a specific page numbering scheme: table of contents: i, ii, iii... body: 1, 2, 3... appendix: A-1, A-2, A-3... attachment: 1-1, 1-2, 1-3... OO.o Writer supports the TOC and body numbering, but fails when it comes to creating appendix and attachment page numbers automatically. The request is to allow page numbers to include text before and after the number similar to Outline numbering used for paragraph numbers in headers. A table of contents would then include the page number in the format of A-1, for example instead of being limited to just the number token such as would occur if a person manually typed the "A-" before the page number field in a footer, for example. This capability is available on Broadvision Interleaf and Quicksilver, but few other word processors. This would allow Writer to replace the above word processors and others used heavily for creating government documents.
SBA: Reassigned to Bettina from the User Experience team for consideration.
Created attachment 9182 [details] demonstration of page numbers for appendices and attachments
Workaround for documents where all appenices share a single page-number prefix: Add "A-" (without the qoutes) right in front of the page-number (#) to the Entries-Tab of the "Edit Index/Table" dialog. (Does not work for your attaced document though since Appenix B is numbered B-# while Appendix A is numbered A-#...) Anyway: confirming.
Hello Andreas, is there a chance to get this enhancement implemented in the Q?
No, a solution would be to allow different outline numberings, that's a lot of effort. OS supposed another workaround: If you don't need more than let's say 4 outline numbering level in your main document, you could use "heading 5", "heading 6" etc. as outline numbering for the index. You could misuse these sublevels for the headings of the index, give them the wished numbering (A,B,C..), ndents and so on.
Ama's solution would work for small documents, and I considered that already. The reason that I opened this feature request was because it would not work for the large documents that I handle (with MS Word, currently using a cludge of manually typing the appendix letter in front of the page number manually, something that Openoffice.org does not permit). They can run up to 1000 pages and have 7 heading levels, with over 12 appendices and attachments.
I agree that there needs to be some way of having "Appendix A" and appropriate page numbers in the TOC (sometimes Appendices are intentionally numbered separately from the main text). At present there is no way to do that. The problem with attachments is exactly the same issue. It is especially critical in works large or complicated enough to require a Master Document format, but the inability to do it at all except manually is quite a defect.
Created attachment 14878 [details] Updated mockup with the "Remember Settings" button
Ignore the mockup. That was supposed to be for issue #28481. For some reason when submitting it to 28481, it switched to this issue :-|
There exists a workaround for such special page numbering in a page header or page footer. In the page header/footer insert the page number field. Before this field type your separator "-", Before the separator insert a chapter field with format chapter number without separator (menu Insert - Fields - Other, on pane Document choose type chapter and format "chapter number without separator" and hit the Insert button.
Sounds good, except it does not show up in a table of contents, which is what most large documents that would need this feature would also have. This issue is a companion of Issue 48487, where there would be different Outline Numbering based on page style.
cc myself
OD->aaronforjesus: There exist issue 53420 to enhance the indexes, especially the TOC, to include a chapter number of a chosen outline level. I think, the provided workaround - see my comment from 2007-01-09 - for the page numbers in page header and page footer solves your intrinsic problem. The implementation of issue 52420 will solve your remaining problem with the TOC. Thus, I think, we can close this issue. Is this OK for you?
Being the reporter of Issue 53420, I discovered why Issue 53420 would not work, and why this issue is more important. See my comments from Tue Sep 6 18:51:27 +0000 2005 on why it would not work. I believe that this issue is the real solution, whereas Issue 53420 was a kludgy work-around. I even recommended that Issue 53420 be closed, because it would not solve the problem. In other words, I need page numbers that might be independent from the Chapter number.
The file I'm going to attach is a prototype built from scratch using OOo 2.1, keeping as a model the file provided in desc3 above. The indexes were generated with a prototype version of OOo (of the 2.3 codeline) I'm using as a prototype for issue 53420 and other similar stuff for indexes. I edited the two TOC manually to accommodate the request, so this is not a definite solution, only a workaround. The document structure is consistent with a good PDF generation, e.g. the outline of the document chapters is consistent. I'm going to provide the resulting PDF as well, generated using OOo 2.2.0rc. -> aaronforjesus, Can you have a look to see if this is the result you are looking for?
Created attachment 43517 [details] example file, not entirely ODF compliant. Can be opened with OOo 2.1 though.
Created attachment 43518 [details] The PDF OOo 2.2.0 generated of the previous attached file
That definitely looks like what Ich am looking for. If this can be done, it can be a good stop-gap measure.
-> aaronforjesus. Glad I worked it out correctly. Now I'm going to attach another version of the same document, but with index generated mainly the way you used in issue 14725, desc3 above and with the OOo version I described in issue 14725, desc16 above (there I forgot to mention that it's an OOo m204 tag patched with the stuff posted to issue 53420, desc12). This document version exports a PDF file with incomplete Acrobat Reader bookmark pane (the appendix are missing there), due to the fact that currently the PDF export filter generates somehow the bookmark pane from the document outline. This new attached document is meant for discussion on the dev@sw.openoffice.org list as well. In any case I think that the first proposed solution is the better one, even though it's not fully automatic.
Created attachment 43537 [details] another version of the example document
Here is one requirement for this numbering style: MIL-STD-38784, on page 16 for an Appendix. http://www.assistdocs.com/search/document_details.cfm?ident_number=116799&StartRow=1&PaginatorPageNumber=1&doc%5Fid=MIL%2DSTD%2D38784&status%5Fall=ON&search%5Fmethod=BASIC
-> aaronforjesus. Thanks for the pointer. I'll have a look to see if the document format described in the pointed to MIL-STD can be described with the current OOo development codeline (3.0 codeline). By the way, what exactly do you mean when in #desc15 above you talk about 'I need page numbers that might be independent from the Chapter number' ? Do you mean something like 'Appendix A-2' standing for 'page 2 of appendix A' or something else?
In other words, an appendix headings could be: A.1 Text for heading 1 A.1.1 Text for heading 2 A.1.1.1 Text for heading 3 However, the page numbers need to be A-1, A-2, A-3, not A.1-1, A.1-2, A.1-3 (using a chapter header based on a Heading 1). The TOC then would be: A.1 Text for heading 1.................A-1 A.1.1 Text for heading 2...............A-1 A.1.1.1 Text for heading 3.............A-2 Issue 53420 looketh like it would give me: A.1 Text for heading 1...............A.1-1 A.1.1 Text for heading 2...........A.1.1-1 A.1.1.1 Text for heading 3.......A.1.1.1-2
-> aaronforjesus. The Writer document I'm going to attach is an example document created with the current solution for issue 53420. Actually it solves other issues regarding chapter numbering in indexes, not only 53420 alone. If you wish and if you can spare time, you'll find here: http://www.acca-esse.it/en/ooohs/start-here.html a test version of OOo 2.3.1. You can install it to play with this new feature (though it's still incomplete ATM). Please read the page there before installing. If you need assistance with that OOo version, write to me privately.
Created attachment 51575 [details] Test doc used in testing 53420 (covers part of 14725 as well)
It will be a while ere Ich can test it. Ich have dial-up internet at home, and my work doth not allow downloads of software.
Could the following be a solution to this problem?: Create pagination for sections; and let sections become the meta-level for pagination. Sections could separate the types of text. Section TOC: i, ii, iii Section Body: 1,2,3 ... Section Appendix: A-1, A-2, A-3... Changes in text (addition or substraction) in Section Body would only affect the pagenumbering within that section. Levels for Headings would still be used in the way > The location of the heading is only affected by the Section in which it is embedded. In TOC pagenumber of section would be shown. If user has no sections created > "Standard Section" is automatically used for whole document by Writer > ordinary users would feel no difference in working with OOo. ---- This way of working would be similar to that of Adobe's InDesign. See screenshot (of InDesign CS2). I have missed this feature in OOo. Note for screenshot: in InDesign you can create page-Masters and drag&drop them. This is similar to Writers use of Page Styles. In InDesign you can add a section to a Pagemaster (section-start is shown with a small black triangle on top of the page). Each section can have its own pagenumber style (1-2-3;i-ii-iii etc). It would be nice if there would be a similar GUI in Writer to InDesign which shows an overview of all assigned pagestyles with their respective pagenumbers. I would like it especially for having an overview of the locations of my landscape pages in my portrait oriented document.
Created attachment 60116 [details] Screenshot pagenumbering via Sections in InDesign (CS2)
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".