Wrong office:master-styles created

[os-cib]

A TextDocument.newTextDocument() creates a bad hierarchy of master-pages and their style:page-layout-names.

    <office:master-styles>
        <style:master-page style:name="Standard" style:page-layout-name="pm1"/>
        <style:master-page style:name="Endnote" style:page-layout-name="pm2"/>
        <style:master-page style:name="Envelope" style:page-layout-name="pm3"/>
        <style:master-page style:name="Footnote" style:page-layout-name="pm2"/>
        <style:master-page style:display-name="First Page" style:name="First_20_Page" style:next-style-name="Standard" style:page-layout-name="pm1"/>
        <style:master-page style:name="HTML" style:page-layout-name="pm4"/>
        <style:master-page style:name="Index" style:page-layout-name="pm1"/>
        <style:master-page style:display-name="Left Page" style:name="Left_20_Page" style:page-layout-name="pm5"/>
        <style:master-page style:display-name="Right Page" style:name="Right_20_Page" style:page-layout-name="pm6"/>
    </office:master-styles>

Instead of having a separate page-layout for each master-page-style some re-use the layout of others.
So if you modify e.g. the page-layout pm1 of the "Standard" style you accidentally change "Index" and "First Page", too.

[svanteschubert]

Hello Oliver, nice to hear from you. It has been a while.

The master styles are from the bundled ODF documents, created by LibreOffice.
In addition, master styles that depend seem quite okay when there is a look-and-feel is being shared across the pages.
Therefore, even uncertain whether this is not a bug but a feature.
You may therefore consider to close the issue - or provide a patch.

Some details, gathered by my friendly assistant, that might still be helpful:

1. The master styles are not generated by ODFDOM at runtime

TextDocument.newTextDocument() does not build office:master-styles in code. It loads a pre-packaged empty ODT file from the JAR:

• Template in source tree: odfdom/src/main/resources/OdfTextDocument.odt
• Referenced in code as /OdfTextDocument.odt:

// odfdom/src/main/java/org/odftoolkit/odfdom/doc/OdfTextDocument.java
private static final String EMPTY_TEXT_DOCUMENT_PATH = "/OdfTextDocument.odt";
static final Resource EMPTY_TEXT_DOCUMENT_RESOURCE = new Resource(EMPTY_TEXT_DOCUMENT_PATH);

public static OdfTextDocument newTextDocument() throws Exception {
  return (OdfTextDocument)
      OdfDocument.loadTemplate(EMPTY_TEXT_DOCUMENT_RESOURCE, OdfDocument.OdfMediaType.TEXT);
}

The resource is loaded from the classpath (i.e. from the JAR):

// odfdom/src/main/java/org/odftoolkit/odfdom/pkg/OdfPackageDocument.java
/**
 * Helper class to receive an ODF document template for new documents from the environment (ie.
 * from the JAR via classloader)
 */
protected static class Resource {
  public InputStream createInputStream() {
    InputStream in = OdfPackageDocument.class.getResourceAsStream(this.name);
    // ...
  }
}

loadTemplate() only opens that package and sets the creation timestamp. It does not touch master styles:

// odfdom/src/main/java/org/odftoolkit/odfdom/doc/OdfDocument.java
protected static OdfDocument loadTemplate(Resource res, OdfMediaType odfMediaType)
    throws Exception {
  InputStream in = res.createInputStream();
  OdfPackage pkg = null;
  try {
    pkg = OdfPackage.loadPackage(in);
  } finally {
    in.close();
  }
  OdfDocument newDocument = newDocument(pkg, ROOT_DOCUMENT_PATH, odfMediaType, Boolean.FALSE);
  // add creation time, the metadata have to be explicitly set
  newDocument.mCreationDate = Instant.now();
  return newDocument;
}

The office:master-styles XML you posted is already present in that template's styles.xml — ODFDOM copies it as-is when you call newTextDocument().

2. Shared page layouts are valid ODF, not a defect

In ODF, style:master-page and style:page-layout are separate concepts:

• style:master-page — logical page style (headers, footers, content areas, next-style chain)
• style:page-layout — physical page properties (size, margins, orientation)

A master page references a page layout via style:page-layout-name. Multiple master pages are allowed to reference the same page layout. That is normal ODF reference semantics — the same way several elements can share a paragraph or character style.

The bundled template defines six page layouts (pm1–pm6) and shares them where the physical page format is identical:

Master page	style:page-layout-name
Standard, First Page, Index	pm1
Endnote, Footnote	pm2
Envelope	pm3
HTML	pm4
Left Page	pm5
Right Page	pm6

This is intentional: master pages that share the same page size and margins point to one layout. Layouts that genuinely differ (envelope size, left/right page-usage) have their own pm3–pm6. Various master styles often share the same look and feel — bundling that into shared page layouts is a feature of the ODF model, not a mistake.

The practical effect you describe — changing pm1 also affects Standard, First Page, and Index — is the expected consequence of shared references, not evidence of broken document creation.

3. If you need a different structure, use your own template

newTextDocument() is a convenience for a minimal empty document. If you need a specific master-page / page-layout setup (e.g. one layout per master page), you should not start from the bundled default — load and edit your own file instead:

// odfdom/src/main/java/org/odftoolkit/odfdom/doc/OdfTextDocument.java
public static OdfTextDocument loadDocument(InputStream inputStream) throws Exception {
  return (OdfTextDocument) OdfDocument.loadDocument(inputStream);
}

Create an ODT with the master styles you want (e.g. in LibreOffice), then open it with TextDocument.loadDocument(...). You get full control over styles.xml without changing the toolkit's bundled empty template.

The documentation also describes newTextDocument() as loading a standard template from the JAR — not as generating styles programmatically.

4. Conclusion

This issue reports content of the bundled empty template and standard ODF referencing behavior. It is not a bug in ODFDOM's document-creation logic. Changing the default template to give every master page its own page layout would duplicate identical layout definitions without functional benefit for users who share page formats.

Please close this issue as not a bug. If you still need independent page geometry for a specific master page at runtime, create a new style:page-layout and point only that master page to it — or start from your own template file.

---

Code references

What	Where
Bundled template file	odfdom/src/main/resources/OdfTextDocument.odt
newTextDocument()	OdfTextDocument.java
loadTemplate()	OdfDocument.java
JAR resource loading	OdfPackageDocument.java
loadDocument() alternative	OdfTextDocument.java
Docs: "empty documents within the JAR"	odfdom/index.mdtext

Suggested disposition: close as not planned or not a bug.

[os-cib]

Hi Svante,
I understand your points but from a developer perspective it is a pain.
You will never ever get documents created in LO that share the page layout of page styles.
So you only have to care for them if you work on documents created by the toolkit.

So the advantages/disadvantages are:

• change margins, header/footer settings of first page, standard, index only once

• still modify all page layouts if you work on US page formats
• still modify more than one page layout if you have e.g. left/right pages
• create new page layouts if you want to have different settings on e.g. first page, standard
  So for me it is still a bug.

[svanteschubert]

As I stated before, I am thankful for PRs🤗

PS: Simply load your own template/starting ODF where those dependencies do not exist. We use the empty LO documents as default