Especially in scientific papers or documents with a title page and a table of contents, the counting of page numbers should often not start on the first page, but on a later page. This can be set quickly. We show where it works.

In the standard setting, the page count starts at 1. However, there are other requirements, especially for bachelor’s, master’s or other scientific papers.

Page number from 3: Format page

So that the page numbers do not appear on the cover page of the work, the first page must be marked accordingly in OpenOffice:

1. To do this, open yours document.
2. Click on End of first page.
3. Press the word “right”standard“ in the area below the document, where the number of words and language are also displayed.
4. A menu opens. Choose here “First page” out of.

Insert table of contents

This is usually followed by the cover page a table of contents. In order for the page numbers to be displayed correctly, the page with the directory must also be marked.

1. Click in the area below the text on the page.
2. Goes to Insert → Manual break → Page break.
3. Select “ as templatedirectory” out of.
4. The cursor jumps to a new page marked as a table of contents.

Format body text and insert page numbers

Now you can format the entire remaining area with the body text to display the page numbers correctly:

1. Click on the below the text Directory page.
2. Goes over “Insert” to “Manual break“ and choose there “Page break“.
3. Select “ as templatestandard” out of.
4. Put a tick at “Change page number“. Here you choose which number the page numbering should start with, for example with page 3.
5. Click on “Insert” → “footer“. Selects the text area in which the page numbers should be visible. If you want to start with the body text first, select “Standard”.
6. Goes to Insert → Field command → Page number. The page numbers are now displayed in the document.
7. Click in any footer and highlight the page number to format it for font, font size, and justification.

OpenOffice – display page numbers from page 3 onwards

To ensure that page numbers only begin on a later document page, it requires some discussion of format templates. So the preparatory work takes a few minutes. But once you understand the principle, you will quickly reach your goal with the following documents. Working with format templates is always recommended for longer documents in order to make it easier to change the layout later without destroying the document structure.

Here you can find out how to make page numbers in Word only start from page 3.