I recently posted a similar message to discuss so this is slightly a cross post.
Currently there is no page layout option such that a blank page never gets produced when changing page numbers. See: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3910 In our Formatting Pages document (to bring it back on topic :-) ) there is the following incorrect tip on pg 29: "Do not set a starting page number that is an even number or you will end up with a blank page before the first page when you print the file or save it as a PDF." The issue is not whether it is an odd or even number but whether it follows in the odd/even pattern from the previous page number. Currently there are the following options: Right and left Mirrored Right Left For "Right and Left" and "Mirrored" an odd numbered page is always a right page and thus a blank page maybe inserted to make sure that is. With Right and Left you explicitly state which is which. And thus it is possible to have an odd numbered left page. You then need to setup that right follows left which follows right by using the organizer tab on the page style dialog and setting the next style. Thus you can remove the blank page, but if the document prior to this point changes by a page you will need to go back and change it. I can't even write a macro to get around this problem. I am currently writing a wizard for page numbering and this "feature" makes it extremely difficult, to give a user a reliable result. I have recommended in issue 3910 to add a new "page layout" called "None" such that changing to a page style with a page layout of "None" never produces a blank page. "swisher", who I assume is Janet (?) suggests that "None" may not be the best name for such a property value, as it implies that there is no page layout, rather than that there is no forcing of left and right pages. I am hoping that we can get some discussion going about either changing the name of the field from page layout to something that reflects it true nature about left and right page numbering and/or to have a better name than "None" for a property value that means no forcing of left and right pages. Once we have a name, then maybe more of us could vote for this issue and see if we can't get this changed for 2.0. I outline some related issues below. I appreciate that this would mean a change to the API as the property "PageStyleLayout" of the service com.sun.star.style.PageProperties belongs to an enumeration (com.sun.star.style.PageStyleLayout) and enumerations are not supposed to change. To me this issue is sufficiently important to warrant a change to the API and it should happen before OOo2.0 is released. The required change to the user interface would be to include this new option for page layout. Existing files would not be affected as they would have the old settings. With the change of file format and version number *right now* seems like a very good time to implement this. I suggest that saving a file in .s?w format (as opposed to .o?t) that contains this new setting for page layout would save the setting as "Right and Left". I like the idea of having a way of specifying what goes onto a blank page, for those styles with a page layout (i.e. all the current page layouts) that produce them, but see this as a lower priority. This could include an option for suppressing printing them. If OpenOffice.org Writer were to change to include the ability to show facing pages on the screen, then the page layout setting (including the new property for "None") would need to be taken into account. Thanks, Ian
