Bug 158312 - Perhaps changing the orientation in Page Layout does not work conveniently for Calc
Summary: Perhaps changing the orientation in Page Layout does not work conveniently fo...
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 144004
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Printing and PDF export (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.2.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2023-11-22 08:33 UTC by Vladislav Tarakanov
Modified: 2024-02-10 19:05 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Checkbox (37.63 KB, application/zip)
2023-12-04 13:51 UTC, Amin Irgaliev
Details
Checkbox (37.65 KB, application/zip)
2023-12-04 14:09 UTC, Amin Irgaliev
Details

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Description Vladislav Tarakanov 2023-11-22 08:33:11 UTC
Description:
In the "File -> Print..." menu, Page Layout section, landscape/portrait orientation can be changed manually. But, if an orientation different from the original one is selected in the menu, only the part of the page that falls into the intersection of the old and new orientation will be in the print area. At the same time, if 2 (or more) pages per sheet are selected, the entire pages will be placed in the print area.

This behavior is understandable in Writer, where page orientation is better set by styles, since there is a clear division into pages, but for Calc it looks a little strange:
- Firstly, before opening and closing the print menu or print preview, the current page orientation is not displayed anywhere in the interface (at least we were not able to see anything similar). For users who don't work with styles, this may look strange because they might expect that changing the orientation in the print window will change the orientation of the page, not just the print area, thereby hiding some of the data.
- Secondly, the behavior of outputting 1 page per sheet differs from outputting 2 or more pages per sheet. For 1 page, some of the data is lost after changing the orientation, while several pages are positioned without losing data.

Is this behavior originally intended? Maybe it should be changed at least for Calc, where there is not such a strict division into pages as in other modules?

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a new document in Calc and fill the table with data
2. Open "File -> Print..." menu
3. Change orientation from "Automatic" to "Landscape"

Actual Results:
Some data located outside the intersection of portrait and landscape orientation is not visible.

Expected Results:
It might be worth changing the pagination and displaying the data as if landscape orientation was specified in the styles.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 24.2.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c82498978f122ce660c250935c64e248f97fa729
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 6.1; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: ru-RU (ru_RU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Mike Kaganski 2023-11-22 08:59:40 UTC
View->Page Break shows it. Also, Options->Calc->View->Page Breaks shows dotted lines even in normal view.

If something could be changed, it's only some way to open respective page styles from the print dialog ... or at least point there.
Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2023-12-01 15:03:08 UTC
In a nutshell you expect Print > Page Layout > Orientation to trigger Format > Page Style > Paper Format. Makes the Automatic option pointless, which follows the page style. And if Sheet1 is supposed to be portrait and Sheet2 should be landscape, you need to apply a proper page style. And this style is taken into account with Automatic (we have many tickets about this, eg bug 133717). 

The confusion is not new and has been discussed in bug 144004 and bug 135687 before (wonder why the latter is a duplicate of 153773). I doubt we can make it easier. Rather we should consider to remove the orientation option since things getting worse for landscape page styles printed in portrait. But there might be use cases.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 144004 ***
Comment 3 ady 2023-12-01 20:19:20 UTC
The whole set of confusions regarding changing between portrait and landscape in Calc (and there are a variety of them) is all related to how (not) intuitive the necessary actions are.

Page orientation in Calc is related to (or influences):
* repeating items (e.g. header/footer, but also either rows or columns)
* print preview
* actual physical printing
* exporting to other file formats (e.g. pdf, or xlsx)

In Calc, changing the page orientation depends on changing (or creating) the page _style_ (sometimes on _each_ worksheet).

Users of other spreadsheet tools that have a different workflow (e.g. don't rely on page styles for a simple page orientation change) are naturally having difficulties in Calc with such trivial action such as modifying page orientation on worksheets.

Such users are trying to follow a commonly used workflow, not only used on other spreadsheet tools but also in many other types of software.

For Calc users to be able to know how to do it "correctly" in Calc, they first have to be aware of the existence of "Page Styles", and then understand and learn what actions are dependent on "Page Styles" (and on each area of Calc that mentions something about page orientation, including also OS' Printer settings). This learning curve for Calc is not intuitive, nor simple. I guess this is not limited only to this report, but rather to anything in LibreOffice dependent on Style (page, cell format, paragraph, and so on).
Comment 4 ady 2023-12-01 20:22:51 UTC
I should add that I mentioned Calc instead of LibreOffice not just because of my own personal experience, but because the problem is usually even less intuitive in Calc in comparison with other LO modules such as Writer.
Comment 5 Amin Irgaliev 2023-12-04 13:51:59 UTC
Created attachment 191226 [details]
Checkbox

What if we add a checkbox that will be available for selection if the "Portrait" or "Landscape" orientation is selected. For starters we can rename "Orientation" to "Layout Orientation", and add name the checkbox "Change page orientation".

If portrait orientation is selected and the checkbox is activated, then all page styles will be forced to adopt portrait orientation, also for landscape.

The new name for Orientation will make it clear that parameter does't apply to the page, but only to the layout. The new checkbox will allow users who have moved from other offices to more easily adapt to LO, while they have't using the styles.
Comment 6 Amin Irgaliev 2023-12-04 14:09:05 UTC
Created attachment 191227 [details]
Checkbox
Comment 7 Heiko Tietze 2023-12-04 14:11:44 UTC
(In reply to Amin Irgaliev from comment #5)
> What if we add a checkbox that will be available for selection...
Doubt this checkbox flattens the learning curve. It might be the intuitive choice, if toggled on by default and named "[x] Adjust page style", but wont the power users be annoyed?
Comment 8 Amin Irgaliev 2023-12-04 15:11:09 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #7)
> (In reply to Amin Irgaliev from comment #5)
> > What if we add a checkbox that will be available for selection...
> Doubt this checkbox flattens the learning curve. It might be the intuitive
> choice, if toggled on by default and named "[x] Adjust page style", but wont
> the power users be annoyed?

We can try make the checkbox initially enabled, but so that its changes are saved for the device. In this case, if someone often needs a feature with changing layout, then it will be enough to turn off the checkbox once (but for new users this checkbox will be a useful functionality).
Comment 9 Mike Kaganski 2023-12-04 16:02:06 UTC
Please, *NO* additional magic that seems like making things easier, but is a pandora box of new bugs, because of x2 new states.

Again: if wanted - add a button to the Print dialog to open Page Style dialog. Point people to the *correct* place, do not introduce new ways of doing same things - which would then *at best* result in questions like "what is the relations between these settings and those settings".
Comment 10 Heiko Tietze 2023-12-04 16:31:55 UTC
Some previous discussion in bug 94091.
Comment 11 Amin Irgaliev 2024-02-10 12:24:29 UTC
This feature was added (https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/162845). 

This is exactly, that we wanted to see in this case and, that we did locally for our LO users, since the idea was not approved here. Since the functionality for changing orientation is now added to LO, perhaps it makes sense to also add a change in the displayed range of cells when changing the page format? So that in the print dialog, when changing, for example, A4 to A3, the range of cells also changes to A3 size.
Comment 12 ady 2024-02-10 16:15:38 UTC
FWIW, ATM there is no explanation in tdf#155218 of what exactly was done/changed; I mean, in terms that could be understood by common users.

For example, the change _might_ mean that:
* page styles are not modified by modifications in the Print dialogue (or related Print actions or Views in Calc).
* Changes to the Print dialogue might override Page Styles settings for that specific Printing action allowing to print according to Print settings, but (as mentioned in the previous point) the Page Styles remain as they were previously defined, not changed.

I can think of _many_ variations on that made-up example, including up to the complete opposite case. And I don't discard RFE (or "bug reports" depending on users' expectations) at all. Please do not misunderstand this comment as an opposition to the change.

The point of this comment is that, whatever the patch changes, it has to be more clear for common users (and clearly explained and announced when the times come to 24.8.0).
Comment 13 Vladislav Tarakanov 2024-02-10 19:03:14 UTC
(In reply to ady from comment #12)
> FWIW, ATM there is no explanation in tdf#155218 of what exactly was
> done/changed; I mean, in terms that could be understood by common users.
> 
> For example, the change _might_ mean that:
> * page styles are not modified by modifications in the Print dialogue (or
> related Print actions or Views in Calc).
> * Changes to the Print dialogue might override Page Styles settings for that
> specific Printing action allowing to print according to Print settings, but
> (as mentioned in the previous point) the Page Styles remain as they were
> previously defined, not changed.
> 
> I can think of _many_ variations on that made-up example, including up to
> the complete opposite case. And I don't discard RFE (or "bug reports"
> depending on users' expectations) at all. Please do not misunderstand this
> comment as an opposition to the change.
> 
> The point of this comment is that, whatever the patch changes, it has to be
> more clear for common users (and clearly explained and announced when the
> times come to 24.8.0).

Since we created almost the same patch locally, we can describe its effect for users:

Users often encounter some misunderstanding about changing the layout orientation in the print dialog specifically in tracing tables. This may be due to habits from MSO where the orientation was changed right before printing and a lack of skill in applying styles. In other modules, this problem is not so noticeable, since pagination is immediately visible, but in tracing paper it is not visible without enabling the desired setting or without turning preview on and off. Based on this, it was made so that changing the layout orientation also changed the orientation of the pages in Calc, immediately before printing.

The change in tdf#155218 does not change the styles, keeping them original. However, now, after additional tests, one small side effect of the proposed implementation is noticeable: after changing the page orientation and closing the print dialog in Calc, you can still see incorrect print boundaries in some cases, despite the fact that the original orientation is preserved in the styles. But we’ll probably move the discussion of this bug into the report with the patch, attaching a video.
Comment 14 Vladislav Tarakanov 2024-02-10 19:05:02 UTC
(In reply to Amin Irgaliev from comment #11)
> This feature was added (https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/162845). 
> 
> Since the
> functionality for changing orientation is now added to LO, perhaps it makes
> sense to also add a change in the displayed range of cells when changing the
> page format? So that in the print dialog, when changing, for example, A4 to
> A3, the range of cells also changes to A3 size.

It also looks like page resizing behavior, such as A4 -> A3, has already been implemented as well. We apologize for not noticing this.