Bug 170680 - Add 'Auto-format Table Styles' to the Table Properties dialog
Summary: Add 'Auto-format Table Styles' to the Table Properties dialog
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
26.8.0.0 alpha0+ master
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2026-02-09 11:35 UTC by Telesto
Modified: 2026-02-10 06:51 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Telesto 2026-02-09 11:35:01 UTC
Description:
Add 'Auto-format Table Styles' to the Table Properties dialog

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open Writer
2. Insert a table (say 2x2) without any style
3. Menu -> Table -> Autoformat Styles. Pick some style
4. Menu -> Table Properties -> Border Tab

Actual Results:
Kind of squeezing multiple issues into one (sorry)
A) You can only apply AutoFormat Styles from Menu -> Table. No context menu or other dialog (low discoverability). Table styles where so so to use, so in the past a feature not a bug, IMHO. However it got addressed recently 
B)  The table properties doesn't express a table style being 
C) Table style properties can't accessed from table properties dialog, while being table property
D) Table properties Border Tab is affected by Style. So it appears to be DF overruling the Style (without communication) Or the style is actually kind of direct formatting. Anyhow: there is interaction between both features, which is a reason to 'combine' both in single dialog

Expected Results:
Add 'Auto-format Table Styles' to the Table Properties dialog in one way or another. No I have no concrete idea of how it supposed to look or function. It's more a vague notion of perceived UI design flaw


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 26.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64)
Build ID: 680(Build:0)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10 X86_64 (build 19045); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: nl-NL (nl_NL); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Eyal Rozenberg 2026-02-09 16:13:04 UTC
So, I am generally hesitant and slightly-biased-negatively when it comes to requests regarding table "styles" - because they are the wrong thing. They are the stub feature that's waiting to be replaced by _real_ table styles: Bug 152711. 

I sympathize with the desire to make table styles accessible from more places, but... aren't the sidebar and the menu entry enough?
Comment 2 Telesto 2026-02-09 20:07:20 UTC
(In reply to Eyal Rozenberg from comment #1)
> So, I am generally hesitant and slightly-biased-negatively when it comes to
> requests regarding table "styles" - because they are the wrong thing. They
> are the stub feature that's waiting to be replaced by _real_ table styles:
> Bug 152711. 

There where couple of commits in this direction on gerrit recently (merged). Unsure if it's feature complete. Accessibility only from
Menu Table -> AutoFormat Styles -> Click Edit Style

prerequisite: cursor in table

> I sympathize with the desire to make table styles accessible from more
> places, but... aren't the sidebar and the menu entry enough?

Hmm, I think I have to rethink this. In the sense that some logic would apply to the Paragraph/ Character properties. So probably wrong direction anyhow.

So the bugs is by title already invalid.   

Some preliminary remarks
* Regarding sidebar: the table style implementation sidebar in Writer is rather bad. Hidden and lacking a preview. I hope it will be implemented like the one in Impress

* AutoFormat Styles Menu item: It does with current implementation two things. It's a styles manager and a dialog to apply/change the style of an existing table. Which results in the oddity being unable to access the 'Styles Manager" without the cursor in a table. And the selected style being applied to the table. So you can't independently access styles dialog even if you only want to create couple of template table styles in advance
Comment 3 Eyal Rozenberg 2026-02-09 21:04:01 UTC
(In reply to Telesto from comment #2)
> There where couple of commits in this direction on gerrit recently (merged).
> Unsure if it's feature complete. Accessibility only from
> Menu Table -> AutoFormat Styles -> Click Edit Style

I should definitely have another look at where we're at in this respect - it looks like there has indeed been improvement.

However, I'm pretty sure there is no style linking: table style having different row and column styles for header and body columns (unless the header cell is within the row or column style), or odd and even styles, and those row and column styles being linked to cell styles, and those cell styles linked to paragraph styles (which finally are linked to character styles).

Anyway, getting off-topic here. Never mind.


> * Regarding sidebar: the table style implementation sidebar in Writer is
> rather bad. Hidden

Hidden? In what sense?

> and lacking a preview.

You  mean, a preview when you click once instead of twice? or during hover? Or do you mean you want to see a small dummy table at the bottom of the sidebar with the preview? Anyway, sounds like a separate bug.

> * AutoFormat Styles Menu item: It does with current implementation two
> things. It's a styles manager and a dialog to apply/change the style of an
> existing table. Which results in the oddity being unable to access the
> 'Styles Manager" without the cursor in a table. And the selected style being
> applied to the table. So you can't independently access styles dialog even
> if you only want to create couple of template table styles in advance

I also feel the whole arrangement is kind of kludgy. There should be more consistency in the behavior of other styles. But again - that's a different bug.

Why don't you ask for an agenda item for a design meeting about these issues, and we could have a chat about them?
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2026-02-10 06:51:45 UTC
(In reply to Telesto from comment #0)
> Add 'Auto-format Table Styles' to the Table Properties dialog...
We could show the content of the current AutoFormat dialog in this tab.