Bug 114467 - EDITING: Allow repeating of table caption if table crosses page
Summary: EDITING: Allow repeating of table caption if table crosses page
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsDevEval
: 129039 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Tables-Enhancements ODF-spec Caption
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2017-12-14 14:25 UTC by Thomas Lendo
Modified: 2023-03-01 16:39 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Example of a repeated caption for a table (22.12 KB, image/png)
2017-12-14 14:25 UTC, Thomas Lendo
Details

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Description Thomas Lendo 2017-12-14 14:25:02 UTC
Created attachment 138447 [details]
Example of a repeated caption for a table

For objects that are bigger than 1 page (for example: a table with hundreds of rows, filling several pages), it would be neat to allow captions to be repeated on every page.

For a table that begins at page 1 and ends at page 2, the identical caption should be shown at every page. The only difference between the caption occurrences could be a suffix like "(continued)" at every caption iteration.

See the attached example.

For this feature, the caption dialog needs a new item with that the user can activate and change the suffix. Default setting could be "[None]" if desired. But I recommend a suffix like mentioned above.
Comment 1 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2017-12-22 09:22:07 UTC
As captions arent a feature directly linked to the object they are associated with and simply adds text below it, there wouldnt be any means to do this, even if we thought it was a good idea, and i dont think it would be a good idea.
Comment 2 Cor Nouws 2017-12-23 13:37:07 UTC
I would not object the idea - though I think spreadsheets are better for larger tables  and do give the possibility. Of course that is not a table in a text document..

(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #1)
> As captions arent a feature directly linked to the object they are
> associated with and simply adds text below it, there wouldnt be any means to

I doubt if that wouldn't be possible. easy is another thing.

I would set New
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2017-12-27 09:30:16 UTC
Guess many users faced the issue of missing caption continuation for a table spawning over multiple pages. At least it's a frequently discussed topic.

A suggested workaround is to have the cross-reference to the caption in the first row with the addition of 'continued' and repeat at least this first row (table properties > text flow > repeat heading). The only dirty solution is how to hide the top-most row on the first page.

Devs could introduce a function for '[ ] Repeat caption' that inserts a special row, which is hidden on the first page and automatically taken into to repetition thing (repeat header shouldn't get mixed, so 1 row is one row - plus the caption). More difficult is how to bring 'continued' into the reference since English may work with the addition on the end but other languages not that well. At least some edit field like '[ ] Repeat caption using [(continued)]' would be necessary.
Comment 4 Yousuf Philips (jay) (retired) 2017-12-27 20:57:17 UTC
Regina: whats your take, as this seems to be something that would have to be implemented in ODF and something not interoperable with OOXML.
Comment 5 Regina Henschel 2017-12-29 14:47:55 UTC
I support to implement such feature for tables and would like to discuss a suitable representation in ODF file format with developers, who want to implement it.

I would restrict this issue to tables because other objects (e.g. linked frames) are technically different. 

If you search for existing solutions in other applications you will notice a "longtable" package for TeX, solutions with CSS for HTML-tables and some workaround and fakes, especially for Word and InDesign.

Problems to be solved:
For captions above a table or in table header rows, the content of the first page is different from the following ones.
For captions below a table or in table footer rows, the content of the last page is different from the previous ones.
ODF 1.2 has no concept of repeating footer rows.
In contrast to XSL-FO or HTML, ODF 1.2 has no dedicates "caption" element, but uses a sequence field to detect a caption for the index of tables.
The solution has to give a proper index of tables.
Watch, whether the OOXML extensions of MS Word provide a solution.

Workaround for LibreOffice (as for MS Word):
Write the caption into a header cell. Write the word "continued" into a different paragraph, e.g. into another cell of the same header row. Use a shape to cover the text "continued" on the first page and anchor this shape to paragraph or character in a nearby cell, which is not in a header row. Set the position of the shape using the Position&Size dialog for to not move the anchor and fix position.
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2020-03-02 15:11:57 UTC
*** Bug 129039 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 andis.lazdins 2020-03-14 15:50:51 UTC
Hi!

I fully support implementation of such feature. I also agree that requirement to write these "continuations..." is something ugly, reminding 19th century and typewriting machines, but some organizations / standards are still lining in 19th century.
I can't imagine, how to implement this enhancement considering that captions are not linked to certain objects; however, implementation of such feature would be great advantage of Libreoffice against ms word.
Comment 8 massa.kassa.sc3na 2021-10-22 08:15:11 UTC
Hello everybody,
It would be really nice if this would be supported. I've encountered the issue with needing to add "Table xx - continued" before the table continuation on the next page as a formatting requirement from my university.

It would be really good if this would be supported natively.