I have two charts in Calc (which may or may not have the same data range); assume for the sake of this particular bug that they have the same number of data series and the same Chart Type - so that essentially all of the formatting and layout aspects of the charts are translatable from one to another. If I select one chart, click the "Clone Formatting" (the formatting paintbrush), then click the other chart - nothing happens. Nothing! Not even the series area colors are copied. :-(
Created attachment 196447 [details] Spreadsheet with two charts of same type and different formatting A spreadsheet for trying out cloning the formatting of one chart to another.
Created attachment 196448 [details] Screencast for using the formatting paintbrush The formatting paintbrush works on the properties of the graphical object on the draw page which holds the view of the OLE-object; and a chart is an OLE-object. For how this works see the attached screencast. When you edit a chart then you are no longer in Calc, but you are in the chart module. There do you not even have a formatting paintbrush. You are likely looking for styles for charts. That is tracked in bug 62925.
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #2) > The formatting paintbrush works on the properties of the graphical object on > the draw page which holds the view of the OLE-object; and a chart is an > OLE-object. For how this works see the attached screencast. That is "not the user's problem". The user does not know, or care, about OLE, when creating a chart. > When you edit a chart then you are no longer in Calc, but you are in the chart module. There do you not even have a formatting paintbrush. While implementation-wise that is true I suppose, as a user - that does not matter. The user creates a Calc chart, in Calc, formats it, in Calc, and expects to be able to copy and paste that formatting for other Charts, in Calc. It is up to the developers to make that work. If making it work means querying an OLE object about its formatting - so be it. > You are likely looking for styles for charts. That is tracked in bug 62925. Styles-vs-DF for charts is interesting, but even without Chart Styles - the Clone Formatting brush should be usable with charts.
Clone Formatting [1] copies attributes at the cursor, like the chart object's border To as shown in comment 2. If you expect all internal object properties, this means to dig into the OLE object. And that's obviously not the way this tool works. => WF (If you describe a use case rather than a solution, it becomes a duplicate of bug 62925.) [1] https://help.libreoffice.org/24.8/en-US/text/shared/guide/paintbrush.html
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > Clone Formatting [1] copies attributes at the cursor, like the chart > object's border To as shown in comment 2. If you expect all internal object > properties, Every user expects this. Just like if you have a square or circle where you've set the fill or the typeface - properties of the inside of the object - they get copied. > this means to dig into the OLE object. That is just an implementation detail and is of no consequence to the user. It's a Calc Chart. The fact that it was more convenient for developers to implement charts differently than other objects in Calc is no reason to frustrate users' legitimate expectation to clone formatting of Calc entities using the brush. If it were an object the user copies from another application, say Inkscape, or an independent chart-maker - then you would have a point. > And that's obviously not the way this tool works. => WF That's how this tool is supposed to work, that's how users expect it to work, and that's how it works, when it works. It doesn't work for charts => bug.
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #4) > (If you describe a use case rather than a solution, it becomes a duplicate > of bug 62925.) By this argument, we should get rid of clone formatting altogether, since one can always define a style based on the formatting being cloned, and just apply that style. Clone Formatting is for copying direct formatting as well; perhaps even - direct formatting first-and-foremost. It is true that the availability of Chart styles would mitigate this bug somewhat, as the amount of manual work to be done would decrease, but they're not the same thing.