Page numbering with Fountain Flow

In a moment, we're going to take you through the process of setting up proper page numbering for your screenplay. The concept itself is actually pretty easy to grasp, but it's still a pain to have to go through all the steps, which is why Fountain Flow provides you with a couple of handy templates. These templates are NOT for importing styles. They are strictly for setting up the page numbering.

After you've processed your Fountain file to HTML, and hit 'enter' to send it on to LibreOffice, go to Styles and Formatting and click on the paragraph icon in the top right corner to open a few selections. You want Load Styles...

If you've already installed the templates, just select the one that matches your project, and then click the fields shown above: Numbering, Pages, and Overwrite. Click OK and you've got page numbers. Done!

If you haven't bothered loading the templates, click the bottom left button From File... and navigate to the ODF copies that we provided along with the templates. The result will be the same.

Sometimes your project may require a different arrangement, a different number of intro pages. For those circumstances, you'll have to start from scratch, so I'll go through the entire procedure, here. If it's a circumstance that you think you'll repeat, then remember the above instructions on copying over the page numbering.

So here we go.

LibreOffice has an easy solution if you want your page numbering to start after the first page. You simply call the first page "First Page". Headers are page-style dependent, so when you turn the headers on for the rest of the document, your first page, likely your title page, will be left alone.

The "First Page" page style is in LibreOffice's styles by default, and Fountain Flow invokes that for you automatically.

However, most of the time your screenplay will include a title page ahead of your script, and you don't want page numbering on the first page of your script, either. So technically, you want to start page numbers on page three, starting with "2".

If you include another page of material, like a synopsis page, that bumps the page numbering back even further.

But don't despair! The technique for arranging your page numbers in a situation like this is easier than it looks. All you have to remember is to "put one foot in front of the other, and then you'll be walkin' cross the floo--oo--oor! You put one foot in front of the other, and then you'll be walkin' out the door!"

"First Page" is already defined for you. What you want to do about the first page of the actual script--the first page that should not have a page number, is to create a new style called "First Script Page", or something like that.

Don't create it from scratch. First, look for the default style of the rest of the document. Since Fountain Flow began the conversion process with HTML, the default page style will be "HTML". Select that with one click, then move up to the top right corner, and click on the 'paragraph' icon and find the option New Style from Selection.

After clicking, you will get a Create Style dialogue, which merely prompts you to name the new style, copied after the old. Go ahead and type "First Script Page" and press OK.

Now here's where we want to start putting one foot in front of the other. We are going to walk the page numbering into existence. Back in the main list of page styles, right-click on "First Page" and select Modify. A nice, big tabbed dialogue opens which controls all aspects of the page style.

What we're looking for is the field just underneath the name, Next style. It's probably set to the default page style. Change it to the new one you just made, "First Script Page". If you want, you can then click on the Header tab, and make sure that Header on is not checked.

After tapping OK to approve the change, right-click on "First Script Page", and make sure that the next style is the default page, and that the header there also is not checked.

Now right-click your default page style, go to the header tab and check the header on.

An ordered sequence has thus been crafted. You don't have to go back and tell the individual pages what to do, it's already been done. And for the love of Mike, don't go and try to add a page break between the first and second pages of your script. Not needed, and will only cause trouble. As long as the page style sequence you created matches the sequence of project pages, you should be just fine.

Of course, you still need to add the actual page number. Put the cursor into one of the headers, then from the menu select Insert > Fields > More Fields. Now, no matter how I type the next sentence, it looks more complicated than it really is, so let me just show you.

Entering the correct value in the Offset field gives us the required starting page number of 2. Now all that's left is formatting. Back in the document, type a period after the 2, then from the menu select Format > Alignment > Right.

Your document now has the right page numbers. Oh, just one more thing, save it as a OpenDocument file (ODF) or export it to PDF directly. The page numbers mean nothing to our interim web document.

As you can see, even if the concept itself seems easy, it's still kind of a hassle to go through that with every script. Page numbering in a word processor is always a big headache, and I hope this helps.