Writer: tabs, sections and page layout

This page covers the tools for longer and more structured documents in Writer: document tabs, section breaks, columns, line numbers and watermarks. For page size, margins, headers, footers and page numbers, start with Pages, pageless and page setup.

Document tabs

A document can hold several tabs, each with its own pages — a handbook with one tab per chapter, or a project document with separate tabs for notes, plans and decisions. Everyone with access sees the same tabs.

Open the tabs panel with View ▸ Show tabs & outlines (Ctrl+Alt+A). It lists every tab under Document tabs, with the headings of the tab you're in listed under it — click a heading to jump to it. Click a tab to switch to it.

Editors can:

Add a tab with the + at the top of the panel;
Rename it — double-click its name, or use its menu;
open its menu (⋮) for Choose emoji (an icon shown before its name), Add subtab, Duplicate, Move up, Move down, Demote (make subtab), Promote and Delete.

Tabs nest up to three levels deep. Deleting a tab deletes its subtabs too — you're asked first, and you can get it back from version history. A document always keeps at least one tab.

How tabs work with the rest of Writer:

Comments belong to the tab they were made in.
Word count counts This tab or All tabs.
Downloads — in a document with more than one tab, File ▸ Download offers Current tab only or All tabs. With all tabs, each tab starts on a new page, headed by its name.
Variables and citations belong to the whole document, so they work in every tab.

Section breaks

Sections let one part of a document be laid out differently from the rest — a landscape page for a wide table, say, or a chapter with its own header.

Insert ▸ Break has three kinds of break:

Page break (Ctrl+Enter) — the next line starts on a new page.
Section break (next page) — starts a new section on a new page.
Section break (continuous) — starts a new section on the same page (useful for switching the number of columns part-way down a page).

View ▸ Show section breaks shows or hides the breaks as dashed lines in the text.

Section options

Put your cursor in a section and choose Format ▸ Section options:

Break type — Next page or Continuous.
Portrait or Landscape, and the section's top, bottom, left and right margins (in inches).
Different header and footer from the previous section — tick it to give this section its own header and footer; leave it off and the section uses the one before it.

A continuous section keeps the page size and margins of the section before it, so orientation and margins are only available for Next page breaks. In the first section (before any break), Section options changes the document's own orientation and margins, the same as File ▸ Page setup.

Sections apply in Pages mode, when printing and in PDF, Word and OpenDocument downloads.

Columns

Format ▸ Columns lays text out in 1, 2 or 3 columns, with the Spacing between them (in inches) and an optional Line between columns. It applies to the section your cursor is in, or to the paragraphs you've selected. Choose 1 to go back to a single column. Columns are balanced, and they continue across pages.

Line numbers

Tools ▸ Line numbers (in Pages mode) numbers the lines down the left margin — handy for contracts, scripts and anything reviewed line by line.

Show line numbers turns them on, then choose Continuous, Restart each page or Restart each section.
Count by shows every line's number (1) or only every nth — every 5th line, for example.
Suppress for current paragraph leaves the paragraph your cursor is in unnumbered (Number the current paragraph undoes it).

Line numbers show in Pages mode, when printing and in PDF, Word and OpenDocument downloads.

Watermark

Insert ▸ Watermark (editors, in Pages mode) puts text or a picture behind the content of every page:

Text — the words (up to 100 characters), their Size and Color.
Image — upload a PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP picture and set its Scale as a share of the text width.

For both, set the Transparency and Rotation (a text watermark starts at a diagonal −45°). Done applies it; Remove watermark takes it off. The watermark prints and appears in PDF downloads.