Bug 158806 - Allow copying partial text from fields
Summary: Allow copying partial text from fields
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: low enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Fields Selection
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2023-12-21 12:28 UTC by Gabor Kelemen (allotropia)
Modified: 2024-02-12 08:28 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Example file from Writer (10.87 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2023-12-21 12:28 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (allotropia)
Details
The file saved as docx (5.16 KB, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document)
2023-12-21 12:30 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (allotropia)
Details
Screenshot of the example documents in Word 2016 (after copy-paste) and Writer master (52.45 KB, image/png)
2023-12-21 12:31 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (allotropia)
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2023-12-21 12:28:32 UTC
Created attachment 191539 [details]
Example file from Writer

Attached document has some fields, a Title and a User field inserted.
In the editor the text of these can not be partially selected and copy-pasted elsewhere in the document.

1. Open attached document
2. Try to select part of the fields text
-> does not happen, only the full field can be copy-pasted.

Alternative is for the user field to double click on it and from the Edit Fields dialogs Value field can be copy-pasted - but this is inconvenient.

If the document is saved as docx and opened in Word, copy-pasting part of the fields is possible.

Version: 24.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 29b11fa3b5574dc3f42f55b0716f71054030c6c2
CPU threads: 15; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: hu-HU (hu_HU); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2023-12-21 12:30:45 UTC
Created attachment 191540 [details]
The file saved as docx

Opening the odt in Word also works, but the user field is only text that way, saving docx from Writer also makes the user field work as field in Word.
Comment 2 Gabor Kelemen (allotropia) 2023-12-21 12:31:52 UTC
Created attachment 191541 [details]
Screenshot of the example documents in Word 2016 (after copy-paste) and Writer master
Comment 3 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2024-01-04 22:33:11 UTC
Agree this would be useful. OnlyOffice also allows it.

Copying UX/Design team regarding what would be copied: should a field be copied, like when the full field is copied? Or only the text, like in MS Office and OnlyOffice?
I think copying only text would avoid us some headaches.

And do we agree that a single-click on a field should still select the whole field?
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-05 13:06:34 UTC
It's a silly custom to allow editing fields, which will be overwritten with the next update. We probably block it by disallowing partial selection. If the fields remain read-only I think normal selection is useful (use case: cross-reference to a long heading and you want to copy/paste a word from it).

I'm pretty sure that partial selection of fields has been discussed before (in some related context IIRC) but couldn't find the duplicate.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2024-02-12 08:28:18 UTC
No objection, removing UX keyword.