This background, whose color can be changed (or even completely eliminated) on Menu → Options → OpenOffice → Appearance → Text Document → Field shadings is very useful during editing because it allows one to distinguish between normal and automated text. With fields it is possible to set sequences to use automatically numbered figures or tables, or even show information taken from a database.īecause the content is automatically generated, during the editing of the document Writer shows the fields with a grey background that will not print nor be exported to PDF. On this menu other fields are available (Date, Author.).įields can not only show the page number or the total page count of the document, but are also able to show cross references to a heading or a footnote, information about the document (the chapter name or its number, the template in use, editing time, number of revisions.) as well as set a condition to hide a part of the content.

As we have already seen in the section devoted to the headers/footers the page number must be inserted as a 'field' with Insert → Field.

Openoffice writer page numbering