One of the major improvements, in the upcoming LibreOffice 5.3 (scheduled to release on January 30, 2017), is the Page Deck for Writer. The deck hosts four panels - Page Format Panel, Page Style Panel, Page Header Panel, and the Page Footer Panel - to bring you the most commonly used page properties. This post aims to describe all the aforementioned panels and the features they provide.

The entire enhancement report can be found here. I myself have been working on this, with the help of my mentors - bubli (Katarina Behrens), and jay (Yousuf Philips).

Page Format Panel

• Size dropdown to easily select standard page sizes.
• Width and Height spinboxes to customize page size.
• Orientation listbox to choose between Portrait and Landscape mode.
• Margins listbox to select preset page margins. Available presets are -
  • None
  • Narrow (1.27 cm all around)
  • Moderate (lr: 1.91cm, tb: 2.54cm)
  • Normal 0.75" (2 cm all around)
  • Normal 1" (2.54cm all around)
  • Normal 1.25" (lr: 3:18cm, tb: 2.54cm)
  • Wide (lr: 5.08cm, tb: 2.54cm)
  • Mirrored (inner: 3.18cm, outer: 2.54cm, tb: 2.54cm, page layout: mirrored)
  lr = left + right
  tb = top + bottom

Page Styles Panel

• Numbering dropdown to select numbering format of the pages. Corresponds to the 'format' option under Layout settings in Page Format Dialog.
• Dropdown to change background of the page. Currently 5 settings - None (no background), Color (Solid Fill), Gradient, Hatching, and Bitmap
  • Pattern Setting
  • Color Setting
  • Gradient Setting - Make a gradient with two colors, which gives added customization compared to presets
  • Hatching Setting
  • Bitmap Setting
• Layout Setting to select Page Layout - Right and Left, Mirrored, Only Left, and Only Right.
• Columns setting to select frequently used page column layouts.

Page Header Panel and Page Footer Panel

Both these panels provide similar functionalities, so I'll be describing them in one go

• Checkbox to enable header (or footer).

  

• Margins setting to set the left and right margins of the header (or footer).
• Dropdown to change the spacing of the header (or footer) from the top (or bottom) of editable area of the document.
• The Margins and Spacing presets are similar, and currently 8 presets are present:
  • None
  • Extra Small (0.16 cm)
  • Small (0.32 cm)
  • Small Medium (0.64 cm)
  • Medium (0.95 cm)
  • Medium Large (1.27 cm)
  • Large (1.9 cm)
  • Extra Large (2.54 cm)


• Setting to set same content for headers or footers on different pages of the document. There are four settings which are available -
  • All Pages - Sets the same header or footer on all the pages of the document
  • First Page - Sets a common header or footer to all pages except the first page of the document
  • Left and Right Page - Sets separate headers or footers for Left and Right sided pages.
  • First, Left and Right - First page has a unique header (or footer), followed by separate headers (or footers) for Left and Right sided pages