Total Page Count

For templates that include just one copy (not a customer copy, office copy, etc) you can use the normal Open Office Insert > Fields > Page Count to insert the total number of pages in the document.

If you need to insert the total pages for each copy (e,g, total pages in the customer copy) then it gets a little trickier.  There are a number of ways to accomplish this in open office but the easiest is through the use of the Cross Reference feature.

Open Office Cross References allow you to insert a cross reference marker somewhere in the document.  You can then retrieve and display the page number where that cross reference marker exists elsewhere in the document.

The following technique can be used to create a “Total Page Count” cross reference.  Assuming that each copy within the document is expected to be the same total number of pages, then this technique need only be applied to the first copy within the template.  Since the subsequent copies will presumably be the same number of pages as the first, you can reference the same cross reference marker in the subsequent copies and you do not necessarily need to create new cross reference markers for each copy.

If on the other hand, it is possible to design each copy within the template to look quite different.  For example, the first copy in the document could be for the customer and may contain less information than the office copy and therefore the office copy may span more pages.  In this case, you will need to create multiple cross-reference markers, one for each copy so that you can track the different page counts of each copy.

Here is an example assuming a document with two copies; the first called ‘Merchant Copy” and the second called “Customer Copy.”

We insert a cross reference marker called “Total Page Count” right after the last content in the body of the page.  By putting it here, we can then reference the page number where this cross reference marker exists and that is the total page count.

Here’s the procedure:

• Open the document.
• Place the cursor just after the last content in the body of the first copy of the template (in the sample above, we inserted just after the detail table in the Merchant Copy.
• Choose from the menu Insert > Cross-reference and the following page will appear.

• Choose “Set Reference” from the “Type” field then give the Cross Reference marker a name of “Total Page Count.”
• Press Insert then Close and the cross reference marker will be inserted into the document at the point where the cursor exists. Depending on the font size at the point where you inserted the cross-reference marker, it may to may not be visible.
• Scroll to the header section of your document where you want the total pages to be inserted. We’ll assume for this example that you wish to have the text “<Page Number> of <Total Page Count> inserted into a place in the header like this:

• Place the cursor where you want the current page number to be placed then choose “Insert > Fields > Page Number”. The box will now appear like this:

• Place the cursor to the right of the page number (1 in the above example) then press space bar the “of” then spacebar. Open office may change “of” to “Of”.  You can fix it. Later.
• Choose from the menu “Insert > Cross Reference” then choose “Insert Reference” from the Type field and select the “Total Page Count” cross reference and press Insert then Close.
• Your total page count for this copy will now be displayed.