Bug 167382 - Table of Contents: Multiple columns are not retained in .doc/.docx
Summary: Table of Contents: Multiple columns are not retained in .doc/.docx
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.2.0.3 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-07-04 18:57 UTC by K
Modified: 2025-12-30 18:54 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
ODT files with multi-column table of contents (14.84 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2025-07-05 01:37 UTC, Takenori Yasuda
Details

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Description K 2025-07-04 18:57:31 UTC
Description:
After setting a table of contents to have multiple columns, then saving in .doc or .docx, closing, and reopening the document, the table is reverted to single column.

In .odt, it retains multiple columns. I have not tested other formats or non-Table of Contents tables.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Set table of contents to have multiple columns
2. Save as .doc or .docx
3. Close the document
4. Open the document

Actual Results:
The table of contents was reverted to single column

Expected Results:
Retained multiple columns


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 25.2.0.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: e1cf4a87eb02d755bce1a01209907ea5ddc8f069
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (10.0 build 19045); UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2025-07-04 22:04:11 UTC
Please attach a sample file, reduce the size as much as possible without private information.
Comment 2 Takenori Yasuda 2025-07-05 01:37:12 UTC
Created attachment 201661 [details]
ODT files with multi-column table of contents

Reproduced.
Version: 25.2.5.1 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 484541f705153d4ff78284873b0153c3e5a280db
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: default; VCL: win
Locale: ja-JP (ja_JP); UI: ja-JP
Calc: threaded

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I've attached the original .odt file. Please save it again as a .docx file.

Also, when I opened the original .odt file in Microsoft Word, it displayed in a single column. I couldn't find any settings in Word itself that would enable multiple columns. 
I suspect that the OOXML format might not support multi-column tables of contents.

Note:
It is technically possible to create a multi-column table of contents in Word. However, this closely resembles the LibreOffice workflow of creating a single-column table of contents within multi-column sections.
Comment 3 m_a_riosv 2025-07-05 16:55:52 UTC
Apparently, Word does not support multiple columns in the way Writer does.

The closest thing in Word is to select the entire table of contents and apply columns to it, as a general option, not specific to tables of contents.

But seems LibreOffice doesn't support that way.
Comment 4 Buovjaga 2025-12-30 18:54:10 UTC
Closing as notabug as it's a limitation in Word. See also bug 138650