Bug 152151 - Writer: section in table cell disables text flow properties
Summary: Writer: section in table cell disables text flow properties
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.3.6.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Tables Section
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Reported: 2022-11-21 09:26 UTC by ajlittoz
Modified: 2022-11-25 17:30 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Cell A1 no longer splits when containing a section (29.19 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2022-11-21 09:26 UTC, ajlittoz
Details
screenshot of selected overflowing text in section (LO 7.4.3) (52.05 KB, image/png)
2022-11-25 17:09 UTC, Stéphane Guillou (stragu)
Details

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Description ajlittoz 2022-11-21 09:26:30 UTC
Created attachment 183690 [details]
Cell A1 no longer splits when containing a section

Version: 7.4.3.2
Build ID: 40(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.0; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Example use case (a bit contrived): creating a choir programme
Data is by essence tabular regarding the singers: 4 categories S A T B, leading "naturally" to a 4-column table. Each cell contains a heading (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass) followed by the list of singers. Some voices may have more participants than others. In order to give a more balanced aspect to the table, some voices may be listed 2-column.

The solution of a nested table is not optimal because 1) this data is not "tabular", it is an alphabetical sequence, 2) splitting must be done manually which complicates changes in the list.

A 2-column section is inserted below the cell heading for the list. The list is automatically balanced.

But, the cell size no longer automatically expands once it has reached bottom of page though text flow property has been set at "Allow row to break". The section is still laid out as expected in some intermediate buffer and its columns are clipped to cell size. This is visible in cell A1 of the sample file.

Worse: implementation could limit clipping and break disabling to the "sectioned" cell but adjacent cell B1 which contains a long comment does not split either without containing a section. The red overflow triangle is not shown in both cells.

Cells in row 2 have no section and behave as usual.

Additionally, manual column break is ineffective though menu Insert>More Breaks>Manual Column Break is not disabled. A cell is a variable-sized sub-document where the equivalent of page break is both the cell limit (when row height is manually set) and the "split-break" caused by the underlying page break. Then a manual column break should be possible.

The bug has two visible consequences:
- column break is computed as if the cell could expand indefinitely (probably up to page height) and section contents is then clipped to cell real size
- section disables row split (probably because the concept of column break is not well defined in the context of a "container", table or frame)
Comment 1 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2022-11-25 17:09:16 UTC
Created attachment 183789 [details]
screenshot of selected overflowing text in section (LO 7.4.3)

Reproduced in:

Version: 7.4.3.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 1048a8393ae2eeec98dff31b5c133c5f1d08b890
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Two-column section's text overflows and is "hidden" outside the table cell, which does not split to the next page to accommodate text.

Changing Format > Sections > Options > Columns to 1 single column does split the contents across two pages. Undoing the operation two go back to 2 columns results in a split section that looks different to the original.
Comment 2 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2022-11-25 17:11:03 UTC
Already an issue in:

Version: 6.3.6.2
Build ID: 2196df99b074d8a661f4036fca8fa0cbfa33a497
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3; 
Locale: de-DE (en_AU.UTF-8); UI-Language: en-US
Calc: threaded