Bug 167632 - Writer: Add additional columns when converting text to table
Summary: Writer: Add additional columns when converting text to table
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Writer-Tables-Enhancements
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-07-22 08:39 UTC by Franklin Weng
Modified: 2025-08-05 06:52 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Franklin Weng 2025-07-22 08:39:41 UTC
Description:
This is a feature request by users in Taiwan.  Right now users can convert text to table by
- select texts to be converted
- Menu Table - Convert - Text to Table
- assign delimiter to split text into table cells

And certain number of columns and rows would be created according to the text selected.

But sometimes (many times) users would like to add additional columns.  Right now they can only add columns after the table is created.  So they request to add certain number of additional columns when converting from text to table.

Actual Results:
Users can't create additional columns when converting text to table.

Expected Results:
Let users can assign how many columns to add (0 means no) when converting text to table.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Right now developers in OSSII has implemented this feature.  I create this ticket to let them provide their patches.
Comment 1 Mike Kaganski 2025-07-22 10:19:03 UTC
IMO, this is a very strange requirement. Users may want billions different tasks after some specific action. Adding more columns is one of them; but why not "add specific text to every third row", or "create a title for the table", or even "copy it and paste into another document"?

Trying to create a dedicated function for each thinkable continuation of a specific workflow is something wrong for an office suite. Some workflow could benefit from a macro, or maybe a custom extension...?
Comment 2 Franklin Weng 2025-07-22 12:23:47 UTC
(In reply to Mike Kaganski from comment #1)
> IMO, this is a very strange requirement. Users may want billions different
> tasks after some specific action. Adding more columns is one of them; but
> why not "add specific text to every third row", or "create a title for the
> table", or even "copy it and paste into another document"?
> 
> Trying to create a dedicated function for each thinkable continuation of a
> specific workflow is something wrong for an office suite. Some workflow
> could benefit from a macro, or maybe a custom extension...?

This is not a random request.  

First, it was requested by users (specifically in our government, who keeps promoting ODF and migrating from MSO to LibreOffice in these ten years). They reflected this request to our professional trainers, then those trainers reflected to us.

Second, this is then requested by our government.  That's why OSSII implemented it.

Third, for my own case, I could use this feature as well.  I host the general assembly of our association every year, and I have to create a table for members who attend the GA to sign their name.  Every year I have to copy the number and name from our member data list (in an ods spreadsheet) since I only need those two columns from the member data, then copied it to a Writer document, then transfer those into a table.  Then I have to manually add some additional columns like the place to let them sign, and some remarks which is not in member data list.  With this feature implemented it could save me some time.

Plus, I didn't have any MSO to check but I tried to search it on line.  It seems that MS Word let uses decide how many rows and columns they want when converting text to table.  If that is the case I can imagine why our users ask for this feature.  We're facing users who use MS Word for a long time. Of course we can't satisfy every request from them, but this one is not that ridiculous since I myself can use it too.  That's why I agreed to open this ticket.

Finally, I'm not sure how this feature could be implemented using extension or macro.  There are already several features, for example to insert multiple images into Impress *AND* Writer (which have been requested for years as well), being implemented and achieved by extensions.
Comment 3 Mike Kaganski 2025-07-22 12:37:23 UTC
Great that you explained it now - makes much more sense, when you know the request rationale. Thanks.
Comment 4 Dev 2025-08-05 06:52:19 UTC
Hi,

We've sent a patch at: https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/188311 
Could one please review it? Thanks.