formatting page numbers in NWP 1.4.2

[Carlisticeday]

I need page numbers in the header that are aligned as facing pages — i.e., odds at the right margin and evens at the left — and independent of the header text. There seems to be no obvious way to format page numbers in the header. I have tried opening the document in Word, which does allow this kind of formatting, but it is not preserved when i reopen it in NWP. A publishing deadline looms...

[phspaelti]

You need to set your document/section to using "Facing Pages". This can be set in the section palette. You will then have independant odd/even headers and footers. The parts that you want to be the same will have to be copied.

[martin]

Philip's answer is exactly right: to have different headers on odd/even pages, you'll want to turn on the "facing pages" option for your section(s).

As for positioning the page numbers in these headers, you can align the numbers using normal text formatting, eg: paragraph alignment, tab stops, tables, etc.

[Carlisticeday]

I'm sorry, but you clearly do not understand what i'm getting at.

Yes, i know about the "facing pages" command. I've done that already, and the header text looks good.

The problem is that i need header text AND page numbers, and the page numbers have to be independent of the header text — at the margin to the right of the header text (which is centered) on odd-numbered pages, and to the left on even-numbered pages. NWP does not seem to produce "facing pages" for page numbers when there is other text in the header.

Word will do this: in Word, page numbers are independent of the header/footer text and so can be placed anywhere, without regard for the header/footer text at all.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but NWP is not capable of this...or is it? Please tell me that i won't have to use tab stops or something like that to make the page numbers behave....

[martin]

in Word, page numbers are independent of the header/footer text and so can be placed anywhere, without regard for the header/footer text at all.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but NWP is not capable of this...or is it? Please tell me that i won't have to use tab stops or something like that to make the page numbers behave....

You are not wrong in that NWP does not allow you to insert page numbers that are totally independent of the other text in your header/footer. However, using tab stops to position your header text and page numbers to achieve the desired alignment isn't so difficult. For your odd pages you just need one centered tab stop in the middle, and one right-aligned tab stop at the right edge. It's a little more work, but not too inconvenient.

I'm attaching an example that shows both odd and even pages as you described. I hope it helps.

[Carlisticeday]

Hey! That's really cool, and the example is exactly what I'm looking for, thanks. I had developed a workaround: since the header is created with the potential for multiple lines, I found I could insert page numbers on one line higher than the header text, justified r or l for each of the facing pages. But that was less than ideal for the alignment requested by my publisher. Your solution is much better.

One last question, then: how exactly to i create the "centered", "right aligned" and "left aligned" tab stops? Never hear of those before....

[phspaelti]

The menu is on the right end of the ruler.

Tab_menu.jpg (45.37 KiB) Viewed 6596 times

You can also double-click on a tab in the ruler to change the settings of the tab.

Tab_menu_2.jpg (29.44 KiB) Viewed 6596 times

[martin]

Thanks for the screenshots Philip. There are actually a couple ways to add a new tab stop to the ruler:

1. The menu Format > Paragraph Indents > Add Tab Stop... brings up a sheet giving you all the options available for a new tab.
2. Click once anywhere on the ruler and a tab stop will be created at that location. The type of tab stop created depends on what type is set in the "well" on the right side of the ruler (see the first screenshot Philip posted).

Once you've created a tab stop you can drag it around to change its location, or double-click it to bring up the editing sheet (see Philip's second screenshot). I hope this helps.