[Solved] Conditional Footer

[hwfa]

I'm printing double sided, so the last sheet of paper may have printing on both sides or it may not. I want to print "PTO" (meaning Please Turn Over) on the front of each sheet that has printing on its reverse but I don't want to print "PTO" if there is nothing on the reverse. Is this possible? How, please?

[John_Ha]

I cannot immediately think how to do it automatically but it is trivial to do it manually.

1. Put PTO in the footer so it appears identically on all right pages.
2. If the last page is blank, cover the PTO on the previous page with a white rectangle with no border. Anchor the rectangle outside the footer or it will appear in all footers.

Crude ...

... but simple and effective.

Or define a new page format for the last right page and add PTO if needed.

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[Hagar Delest]

Or set the footers to be different (in the Footer tab of the page style) and add the PTO only on odd pages.
Assuming that the reader will change page if more than 2.
Just cherry picking I guess but wouldn't something like "Continue to next page" (in a more English way perhaps) be more appropriate?

[John_Ha]

Although I have given you two methods to do this I would strongly recommend against putting PTO at the bottom of each right page.

Frankly, I think your readers, like me, would find it patronising. After all, have you ever seen any book with PTO at the bottom of each page? I haven't. I am sure there is a good reason: don't patronise your readers.

If you are really worried about the last page then cut something from the previous many pages so that the penultimate page finishes short of the bottom which makes it obvious you don't need to turn over. Trust me - nothing has ever been written which cannot improved by cutting something out.

If you want to make it more obvious, put THE END, or a flourish page divider, or - o - O - o - after the text, all things which are often seen.

And if you do nothing, what is the penalty? It's trivial: the reader turns the last sheet and sees the blank page. So what? Are they going to vow never to read anything more of yours because they turned a page they didn't need to turn?

[keme]

I have had one case where the "Please turn over" message was appropriate. We once had an exam where nearly half the students missed the last two questions. In this situation, I guess the "PTO" marking would also have been missed by most. It would need to be printed in full "More on next page, please turn over!" to get the message through.

With such a small paper (front page + slightly more than 2 pages of content) it is easy to insert the alert manually. If you have a similar situation with mostly "finalized two-page folds" and some extending "round the back", where you have many instances (forms, task sets, chapters), it may make sense to automate the task.

Otherwise, I am all with the others advising you to avoid a style which derogates the reader. I guess in an exam assignment (and possibly other contexts), patronising is not derogatory.

It should be possible to do this by way of conditionals, but in my limited experience, conditionals in header/footer are only evaluated at the start of a block of pages, so what is evaluated for page 3 is also used for page 5, 7, 9 etc. If what you have are only 2-4 pages long sections, it should be fine. If we are looking at series of multiple page spreads it requires more work, and may only be doable manually within Writer.

[Hagar Delest]

I think there are similar questions in the forum (no time to search for them right now).
Always with some convoluted answer IIRC.

[hwfa]

Thanks for all your comments. I think John Ha and keme are right: I don't need PTO except in exceptional circumstances like a 2-page document in which it's not obvious that there is a page 2. I think I'll stick to "Page n of m" in future for all but that case.

[Hagar Delest]

I think I'll stick to "Page n of m" in future for all but that case.

The best idea IMHO.
It also gives the reader an idea about the total length and where he is while filling it in.