Bug 54217 - No connectors on drawing toolbar in Writer and Calc
Summary: No connectors on drawing toolbar in Writer and Calc
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 79356
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.6.0.4 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Connectors Writer-Toolbars Calc-Toolbars
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Reported: 2012-08-29 16:03 UTC by Lekow
Modified: 2022-01-19 14:20 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Lekow 2012-08-29 16:03:31 UTC
It is impossible to draw using connector lines in Wriler or Calc. They are absent on the drawing toolbar and cannot be added via toolbar customization.
Please, add them because it is very convenient to draw flowcharts directly in Writer.

LO version 3.6.1.2. 
In 3.6.0.4 it was the same.
Comment 1 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2012-09-01 09:38:27 UTC
Very old problem, before the start of LibreOffice. The Writer's graphic layer is not the same as the graphic layer of Draw.

Workaround : start to drawing connectors in Draw then copy&paste in your text document. Now you can modify the connectors in Writer even if the connectors tool is not available in the drawing toolbar.

AFAIK, a long term project is to unify the graphic layers of Writer and Draw.
Set as enhancement.

best regards. JBF
Comment 2 Lekow 2012-09-01 16:39:22 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Workaround : start to drawing connectors in Draw then copy&paste in your text
> document. Now you can modify the connectors in Writer even if the connectors
> tool is not available in the drawing toolbar.

Thank you, but it is not usable now because of the strange connectors behavior on document zoom. I have added the new bug ( bug 54355 ).
Comment 3 educmale 2012-10-23 13:20:35 UTC
1.  Can you provide a work around for -editing- the connectors after they are moved to Calc?

     I create various connectors from Draw, and copy/paste the collection into Calc.
     Then, I copy/paste the connectors to build-out the graphic in Calc
     But, there is no way to amend any connector traits, once in Calc

2.  Any idea when the long term project to unify the drawing tools will be done?
2a.  Is the plan to include/unify across -all- modules?  (this would make sense...)
2b.  Which version will introduce the unification?
Comment 4 educmale 2012-10-24 14:02:09 UTC
Note:  

Connectors copied to Writer land as paragraph anchored.   

Bug 54355 is actually narrower:  it exists when the connector and other objects are paragraph anchored; the behavior disappears (for me) when the objects are set to page anchoring.
Comment 5 educmale 2013-07-06 02:00:50 UTC
FYI -- for the bug's readers....

The missing connector button(s), and presumably the drawing layer unification, are not yet available as of 4.0.4

Some modification of the connectors appears possible when copied from Draw into Calc, using the Drawing Formatting Toolbar.   I have not figured out how to modify the endpoints (arrow formatting and etc.) in Calc, directly.   There are no arrow tools, there.

I am not modifying the version information for the bug.
Comment 6 Jouni Järvinen 2016-07-02 19:42:33 UTC
What about 5.2.0 RC1 ? http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/?version=5.2.0
Comment 7 Michele Milano 2017-03-17 20:26:48 UTC
Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon
Libreoffice Writer 5.2 and 5.3

It is impossible to draw using connector lines in Wriler: they are missing from the drawing toolbar and cannot be added via toolbar customization.

I see that this is a VERY old problem, present since 29/8/2012 and that many users are suffering for it. Therefore, I am really disappointed for it not having been resolved yet. 

Five years living with this bug is a very, very, very long time!

Please, add connectors to Writer as they are in Draw, because it is very convenient to draw hierarchy trees and flowcharts directly in documents. 

"Copy & paste" from Draw are NOT an option for me, because anything I "copy" from Draw gets unacceptably resized (i.e. magnified) when "pasted" into Writer.

Even though I love LibreOffice, this problem is so disturbing for me that I am tempted to return to Microsoft Word only to be able to get rid of it. Because,  yes: connectors are alive and working in MS Word, as much as they are expected to be in Writer. Very, very, very disappointing for me.

Any Developers interested in taking this challenge? I dearly hope so!
Thank you.
Comment 8 Jouni Järvinen 2017-03-17 20:38:09 UTC
(In reply to Michele Milano from comment #7)
> Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon
> Libreoffice Writer 5.2 and 5.3
> 
> It is impossible to draw using connector lines in Wriler: they are missing
> from the drawing toolbar and cannot be added via toolbar customization.
> 
> I see that this is a VERY old problem, present since 29/8/2012 and that many
> users are suffering for it. Therefore, I am really disappointed for it not
> having been resolved yet. 
> 
> Five years living with this bug is a very, very, very long time!
> 
> Please, add connectors to Writer as they are in Draw, because it is very
> convenient to draw hierarchy trees and flowcharts directly in documents. 
> 
> "Copy & paste" from Draw are NOT an option for me, because anything I "copy"
> from Draw gets unacceptably resized (i.e. magnified) when "pasted" into
> Writer.
> 
> Even though I love LibreOffice, this problem is so disturbing for me that I
> am tempted to return to Microsoft Word only to be able to get rid of it.
> Because,  yes: connectors are alive and working in MS Word, as much as they
> are expected to be in Writer. Very, very, very disappointing for me.
> 
> Any Developers interested in taking this challenge? I dearly hope so!
> Thank you.

Do you mean like this ? In Draw,
1) create a shape, like blue-filled 4-point star
2) create a shape, like blue-filled box
3) add a connector between them
4) copypaste into Writer

If so, it didn't change the zooming at all even when Draw had 80% zoom and Writer 100% in use; it compensated perfectly for that.

Window$ 7 x64
Version: 5.3.0.3 (x64)
Build ID: 7074905676c47b82bbcfbea1aeefc84afe1c50e1
Comment 9 Michele Milano 2017-03-18 00:09:55 UTC
(In reply to Jouni Järvinen from comment #8)
> (In reply to Michele Milano from comment #7)
> > Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon
> > Libreoffice Writer 5.2 and 5.3
> > 
> > It is impossible to draw using connector lines in Wriler: they are missing
> > from the drawing toolbar and cannot be added via toolbar customization.
> > 
> > I see that this is a VERY old problem, present since 29/8/2012 and that many
> > users are suffering for it. Therefore, I am really disappointed for it not
> > having been resolved yet. 
> > 
> > Five years living with this bug is a very, very, very long time!
> > 
> > Please, add connectors to Writer as they are in Draw, because it is very
> > convenient to draw hierarchy trees and flowcharts directly in documents. 
> > 
> > "Copy & paste" from Draw are NOT an option for me, because anything I "copy"
> > from Draw gets unacceptably resized (i.e. magnified) when "pasted" into
> > Writer.
> > 
> > Even though I love LibreOffice, this problem is so disturbing for me that I
> > am tempted to return to Microsoft Word only to be able to get rid of it.
> > Because,  yes: connectors are alive and working in MS Word, as much as they
> > are expected to be in Writer. Very, very, very disappointing for me.
> > 
> > Any Developers interested in taking this challenge? I dearly hope so!
> > Thank you.
> 
> Do you mean like this ? In Draw,
> 1) create a shape, like blue-filled 4-point star
> 2) create a shape, like blue-filled box
> 3) add a connector between them
> 4) copypaste into Writer
> 
> If so, it didn't change the zooming at all even when Draw had 80% zoom and
> Writer 100% in use; it compensated perfectly for that.
> 
> Window$ 7 x64
> Version: 5.3.0.3 (x64)
> Build ID: 7074905676c47b82bbcfbea1aeefc84afe1c50e1

Yes, that's what I mean: my experience is that, when I paste from Draw into Writer everything, including text in boxes, gets much larger. If it doesn't with you, that's fine. But it does with me.

Anyway, Copy&Paste is just an expedient, not a solution. We use it because we can't create connectors in the first place, i.e. directly in Writer. So I do NOT consider Copy&Paste an option, nor do I care that it hields different outcome for you than it does for me.

What I care and what I dearly hope is that the "Connectors" tool shows on the drawing toolbar of LibreOffice Writer. Because, if I don't, I'll be forced to address to alternative software: I write technical documents. I can do no serious work with Writer as it is now. 

Moreover, I can't help wondering why this bug has been around for so long: might the LibreOffice code be too garbled to be debugged? And, if it is, is it safe to rely on LibreOffice for professional work? What else may I discover if I use it more extensively? It's my overall trust in LibreOffice and its Developers to be in doubt. I really don't like feeling like this.

I'm writing this in the hope that some clever Developer empathises with me and manages to finally fix this bug.

Thank you everybody for your understanding and help.
Comment 10 Axel Niedenhoff 2017-03-21 15:28:40 UTC
What helps a bit with copy/paste is to perform the paste with selection of a format (Ctrl-Shift-V), especially choosing the metafile format. That inserts a drawing created in Draw or Impress quite nicely as a (vector?) image into Writer. It is still not ideal, of course, as in order to be able to edit the drawing later, you also need to keep the Draw or Impress file around.
Comment 11 Maxim Monastirsky 2017-10-22 20:41:23 UTC
This one is earlier, but Bug 79356 has better summary + blocked more META bugs.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 79356 ***
Comment 12 Elliot Rhodes 2019-04-20 12:00:26 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 13 Miriam Salpeter 2019-10-10 19:34:36 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 14 Charlie Davey 2019-11-20 16:28:44 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 15 unique submission 2020-03-18 05:50:25 UTC Comment hidden (spam)
Comment 16 Toppe Bong 2022-01-19 14:20:36 UTC Comment hidden (spam)