Bug 165275 - "Merge adjacent line styles" label in table properties should be made more informative
Summary: "Merge adjacent line styles" label in table properties should be made more in...
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.2.7.2 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Tables
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-02-16 13:17 UTC by Barry L. Kramer
Modified: 2025-10-28 15:49 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
file with a table exhibiting vertical padding problem (19.66 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2025-02-16 13:17 UTC, Barry L. Kramer
Details

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Description Barry L. Kramer 2025-02-16 13:17:56 UTC
Created attachment 199230 [details]
file with a table exhibiting vertical padding problem

Documentation states:
"Padding specifies how much space to leave between the border and the cell contents. Spacing can be specified individually for the left, right, top, and bottom borders. Choose Synchronize to have the same spacing on all four sides."

Use the attached document.
Click within the text of "NAME FIELD" in Row 4.
Table-->Select-->Cell
Table-->Properties (Borders tab)
Observe that Padding.Synchronize is off and Padding.Bottom is 0.00.  Dismiss Properties dialog.
Actual behavior: there is some bottom padding visibly applied to text in this cell (compare to row 1) even when the Properties dialog has it set to 0.00.
Expected behavior:the text "NAME FIELD" should have no bottom padding and be aligned with the bottom of the cell.

Continue:
Click within the text of "123.45" in Row 4.
Table-->Select-->Cell
Table-->Properties
Observe that Padding.Bottom is 0.06.
Actual behavior: there is some bottom padding visibly applied to text in this cell [correct], but also aaplied to the cell in Col. 4, even though column 4's cell Properties dialog has it set to 0.00 [not correct].
Now change Padding.Bottom from 0.06 to 0.00 and press OK (or: tab to OK and press Enter).

Actual behavior: both the text "NAME FIELD" and "123.45" cells are set to 0.00 bottom padding.

Expected behavior: the text "NAME FIELD" should not be affected by a bottom padding change in "123.45" cell.  Changes to top and bottom padding should be applied only to the selected cell(s), not the entire row, just like changes to left padding correctly do.

Also expected behavior: For all 4 Padding settings: the padding of text in any selected selected cell(s) should match that cell's settings at all times, and changing a setting for one cell should not change it in any other cell.

Comment: changes to Padding.Left in one cell do not affect other cells [correct behavior].  Problem seems limited to Padding.Bottom and Padding.Top (visible when text is formatted vertical alignment Bottom and alignment Top, respectively).  Horizontal padding behaves correctly and vertical does not (copy/paste error in code?).
Comment 1 LeroyG 2025-02-16 16:51:01 UTC
Reproducible with:

Version: 24.2.7.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: ee3885777aa7032db5a9b65deec9457448a91162
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: es-MX (es_ES); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded

But problem is solved if you unmark "[ ] Merge adjacent line styles" (in Borders tab).

So, maybe Not a but.
Comment 2 Barry L. Kramer 2025-02-17 15:49:29 UTC
(In reply to LeroyG from comment #1)
> But problem is solved if you unmark "[ ] Merge adjacent line styles" (in
> Borders tab).
> 
> So, maybe Not a [bug].

Yes, I observe that too.  However, that doesn't explain why the horizontal and vertical padding are treated differently.  It is my opinion that horizontal padding is treated correctly (padding as a cell attribute).

"Merge adjacent line styles" appears to be a global setting on the entire table, not a cell specific attribute.  Changing it in the attached file also completely changes how it appears (grid disappears, very obvious in Dark Mode) although I'm not sure exactly why since I have the borders removed and the Tools.Options color for Table Boundaries set to Light Yellow 4 in Application colors.  I digress.

"Merge adjacent line styles" is defined in the manual as:
"If Merge adjacent line styles (under Properties) is checked, two cells sharing a common border will have their borders merged, rather than being side by side or above/below each other."

It doesn't describe if it applies to the whole table, so I'm not quite clear on that setting, but it does not seem to be applied to the selection whereas, like Text Alignment, Padding (at least Left and Right) does -- which makes sense to me.

Furthermore, Padding is not a line style and neither a border nor part of the border (rather, padding is part of the cell content) so it shouldn't be merged to adjacent cells that share a border unless of course multiple cells are selected when changing padding.  And certainly, Left padding should not act differently from Bottom padding in that regard.  That would be inconsistent.

As an aside, if the Merge property *is* a Table attribute, perhaps the text in the Borders tab ("Properties Merge adjacent line styles") should add "across entire table" and/or clarified in the manual.
Comment 3 LeroyG 2025-02-17 16:26:06 UTC
(In reply to Barry L. Kramer from comment #2)
> "Merge adjacent line styles" appears to be a global setting on the entire
> table, not a cell specific attribute.

After a few test I can confirm that it is a table attribute.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2025-10-28 15:49:47 UTC
(In reply to Barry L. Kramer from comment #0)
> Observe that Padding.Synchronize is off...
It's on for me.

> Actual behavior: there is some bottom padding visibly...
> Expected behavior:the text "NAME FIELD" should have no bottom padding...
Well, observe is not apply. If you change the value to 0.1, apply per okay, and change it back to zero it works as expected. Now the question is how you got there - a padding when values are zero. Unclear to me, and I cannot replicate with a simple table.

> Observe that Padding.Bottom is 0.06.
It's zero. And looks like the same issue as above.


In a nutshell: border padding on the table properties is applied to all cells, and "[ ] Synchronize" does not change the attributes (as we don't know which of the four should be taken into the other fields). I don't see much room for enhancement, or does ODF allow cell level properties in Writer?

As an alternative workflow you might consider to use paragraph properties. Each cell has its own paragraph with indentation and spacing.