Bug 100388 - Mail Merge Fields cause partial inability to insert spaces between words
Summary: Mail Merge Fields cause partial inability to insert spaces between words
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.3.0.4 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2016-06-15 07:42 UTC by Marco Filippozzi
Modified: 2022-04-08 07:43 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:

Attachments
The bug with the first line full of spaces (103.39 KB, image/png)
2016-06-15 07:42 UTC, Marco Filippozzi 		Details
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Description Marco Filippozzi 2016-06-15 07:42:52 UTC 
Created attachment 125660 [details]
The bug with the first line full of spaces

Steps:
Insert a Mail Merge field in a writer document.
Write something before the field until it goes near the end of the line.
Write until the field goes to the next line.
When it does, try writing more words before the field and notice how when you try to press space you are blocked and can't write anything until you write a letter or a number.
Notice also that the spaces you tried to write have now appeared.

If you fill the line before the mail merge field with spaces instead, when the field goes to the next line, the line before gets blocked in the same way it got blocked before but, pressing the Non printable characters button, you can clearly see that the spaces have disappeared.
If you keep pressing space they will eventually reappear.

Expected behaviour:
Writer should show spaces.

Comment:
 The bug itself is not critical and can be avoided but can cause confusion in the user.

Tested and present on:
Version: 5.1.3.2
Build ID: 644e4637d1d8544fd9f56425bd6cec110e49301b
CPU Threads: 2; OS Version: Linux 4.1; UI Render: default; 
Locale: it-IT (it_IT.UTF-8)
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 5.0.6.3
Build ID: 490fc03b25318460cfc54456516ea2519c11d1aa
Locale: it-IT (it_IT.UTF-8)
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 4.4.0.1
Build ID: 1ba9640ddd424f1f535c75bf2b86703770b8cf6f
Locale: it_IT
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 4.4.7.2
Build ID: f3153a8b245191196a4b6b9abd1d0da16eead600
Locale: it_IT.UTF-8
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 5.3.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: a8bd44573b75d1399257d6f5d052611439607189
CPU Threads: 2; OS Version: Linux 4.1; UI Render: default; 
TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@70-TDF, Branch:master, Time: 2016-06-13_23:46:49
Locale: it-IT (it_IT.UTF-8)
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 5.2.0.0.beta2
Build ID: ae12e6f168ba39f137fc110174a37c482ce68fa4
CPU Threads: 2; OS Version: Linux 4.1; UI Render: default; 
Locale: it-IT (it_IT.UTF-8)
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)

Version: 4.3.0.1
Build ID: 9ed0c4329cf13f882dab0ee8b9ecd7b05e4aafbb
OS: openSUSE Leap 42.1 (x86_64)
Comment 1 Buovjaga 2016-06-18 13:04:02 UTC 
I could reproduce.

For other testers: to quickly insert a MM field:
Insert - Field - More fields - Database - MM fields
Expand the Addresses - Customers.
Select ID and click Insert & close dialog.

Arch Linux 64-bit, KDE Plasma 5
Version: 5.3.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: c13f60e7cd18df6b0ab70289f5b91ee01e4ae126
CPU Threads: 8; OS Version: Linux 4.6; UI Render: default; 
Locale: fi-FI (fi_FI.UTF-8)
Built on June 18th 2016
Comment 2 QA Administrators 2018-05-11 02:32:02 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 3 QA Administrators 2020-05-11 03:45:29 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 4 Mike Kaganski 2022-04-08 07:43:36 UTC 
Unrelated to mail merge in any way. Further, this is not even specific to fields. Just type "foo bar"; put cursor before "bar", and press spacebar. See how you will end up on the second line, and additional spaces will not shift "bar" to the right anymore.

This is related to the normal processing of line break opportunities (see UAX #14 [1]); Writer is not a typewriter, and it will consume all whitespace as a single line break.

[1] https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr14/