Default blank pages on LibreOffice Writer

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[Slowpoke47]

Linux distros include LibreOffice as the office suite.  Creating a Writer document adds multiple blank pages by default as you proceed.  Possibly somewhere in the 600+ pages of the Writer user guide there is a means to remove these pages, but the guide has no index.

Here’s a solution- since most non-Linux users cannot open a doc saved in native odt format anyway, you can save your doc as a pdf and easily remove those extra pages using OnlyOffice, just need to type character(s) on the blank page, or O/O will remove the last page of your doc.

When you save the doc as a pdf, the original odt doc is retained, so if you’re comfortable with L/O you can return to that doc for editing and additions.

https://www.onlyoffice.com/

• This topic was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by Slowpoke47.

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I use LO on Windows and do not see any unwanted blank pages. Where do you see these blank pages?

cheers, Paul

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I’m running Mint.  If I start a doc in Writer, 5 or 6 blank pages are added below the page I’m typing.  As I progress through the doc, a blank page is added when i move onto the next page, so there are always those blank pages appended.

I’ve not found a menu item to defeat this or remove the pages- if such is there it may be called by a heading I don’t recognize.  and, as stated above, the user guide, while it has a table of contents, is without an index.

BTW- the L/O suite on this machine is 6.4, included with the OS.

 

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Any way for you to use Mint’s update utility to see if there are any available newer versions? They may have a fix in them that will prevent your blank page issue. After all, Paul says that he hasn’t seen any unwanted blank pages on LO on his Windows setup.

Version 6.4, as you may know, was last released in January of 2021 from what I’ve seen in the LibreOffice archives. I know they made a big jump in version numbers from 7.6.7.2 to the currently used 24 series in May of this year.

For updates, they do have a link to get the still or fresh version in a flatpak format in case the Mint updater says LO is fully up to date.

EDIT to ADD: @Sueska ‘s post below says that LO 7.3 on Mint has produced no issues with unwanted blank pages. So maybe it is a bug in your current iteration of LO 6.4 that came with your distro.

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I’ve have been using LO on Windows and Macs exclusively (no MS Office) for a long time. Currently on v. 24.8.2 but just upgraded from v. 7.6 three weeks ago. I have not been seeing blank pages. I save to .docx, .xlsx formats as default, not .odt, etc.

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Slowpoke47

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Hi SP47, Not sure if will be helpful to you or not: Shortcut keys can add a page break. i.e. pressing the Ctrl Key + Enter will add a page break. If you go to a blank page, with your cursor in the upper left corner of the blank page, press the backspace key. Does the extra page go away? I am using vr 7.3 L/O in Mint, no issues with blank pages.

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Slowpoke47

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Thanks, PK and Sueska, I expect to update this Mint OS shortly and I’ll see which L/O is included.  Used the O/O route today, if the new version still generates blank pages, will use Sueska;s suggestion.

 

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This doesn’t solve your problem, but I’m running Mint 20.3 which has L/O version 6.4.7.2 and I don’t get any ‘extra’ pages when I create a new document with L/O Writer.

Is it possible you have some sort of template chosen as a default? Can you just scroll to the last page and delete the blank pages, or does scrolling add pages as you scroll?

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Slowpoke47

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DrBonzo wrote:

This doesn’t solve your problem, but I’m running Mint 20.3 which has L/O version 6.4.7.2 and I don’t get any ‘extra’ pages when I create a new document with L/O Writer.

Is it possible you have some sort of template chosen as a default? Can you just scroll to the last page and delete the blank pages, or does scrolling add pages as you scroll?

Running the same OS and L/O as you.  I thought maybe the extra pages were normal for this app.  Didn’t really matter while the doc was saved locally, but for sending it elsewhere, the extra pages seemed sloppy.  If the pages can be deleted in the app, I have not determined how.

Rather than spend a piece of my life chasing this, I’m going to upgrade the OS to Mint 22.  Stick already on hand, used on another machine.  As a bonus, it comes with a newer L/O.

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It sounds like something you are doing. Keystrokes maybe. Keyboard shortcut maybe? I don’t think it’s the fault of  LO. I have never seen that and I have been using LO for years, updating the version periodically.

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Slowpoke47

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Thanks PK, see my previous post.  The current OS in this machine has a couple of other ongoing issues also that I expect will be cured with an update to the newest Mint OS.

The takeaway from this thread is that this instance of L/O Writer is not acting as expected, for whatever reason.

 

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