Bug 57202 - FORMATTING: Make Header/footer font size independent from scaling of the sheets
Summary: FORMATTING: Make Header/footer font size independent from scaling of the sheets
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: x86 (IA32) All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Header-Footer
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2012-11-16 17:18 UTC by Yuri
Modified: 2023-12-12 18:35 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
ODS file containing exemplification of this bug. (16.36 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet)
2012-11-16 17:18 UTC, Yuri
Details
PDF version of the uploaded ODS file. (23.00 KB, application/pdf)
2012-11-16 17:24 UTC, Yuri
Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Yuri 2012-11-16 17:18:18 UTC
Created attachment 70165 [details]
ODS file containing exemplification of this bug.

In Calc, I created a single ODS file containing several spreadsheets (thus several sheet tabs: Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3...). Every sheet was filled with a data table with a dozen of columns and some tens of lines, each. Those tables have different widths.

I then clicked Format => Page => Sheet => Scaling mode => Fit print range(s) to width/height, and configured it to 1/100: 1 page in width, 100 pages in height. So all the tables will be resized to fit 1 page, in terms of width.

I also clicked Format => Page => Header/Footer => Edit => Custom header/footer => Text Attributes => Font, and then configured the font size to 16, for both headers and footers, thus I expect all headers and footers to have the same font sizes, despite of the different tables/sheets they belong to.

However, because of the different sizes of the tables (different printing areas), each table was resized to fit the width of 1 page. It's ok, this is exactly what I need. The problem is: on the headers and footers, the font size is being changed aswell! So the most shrinked tables/sheets have headers and footers with smaller font sizes (sizes below 16), and the less shrinked tables/sheets have headers and footers with bigger font sizes.

This is a problem, since I expected all headers and footers to have the _same_ font size: the tables must be resized to fit the preset width (fit to 1 page), but headers and footers must not.

I consider this a bug, since I set the font size to 16 but it's being resized.
Comment 1 Yuri 2012-11-16 17:24:50 UTC
Created attachment 70166 [details]
PDF version of the uploaded ODS file.
Comment 2 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2012-11-27 06:02:16 UTC
I agree, this menu 'Format -> Page -> Sheet -> Scale - Scaling mode = "Fit print range(s) to iwdth/height" should only "zoom" cells content, but not header and footer. 

This is nothing new, I also see this effect in more early versions, even back to OOo 1.1.5.

I also think it's a bug, and it's an accepted very old AOOo issue.

@Spreadsheet Team:
Please set Status to ASSIGNED and add yourself to "Assigned To" if you accept this Bug or forward the Bug if it's not your turf (and remove others in team from CC)
Comment 3 Cor Nouws 2013-05-17 21:38:54 UTC
@yuri: mind if I mark this as 'enhancement' ?
Comment 4 Yuri 2013-05-17 23:35:52 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> @yuri: mind if I mark this as 'enhancement' ?

If doing it raises the possibility of this "issue" to be solved, then yes, please!

=]
Comment 5 pb 2020-06-25 23:45:01 UTC
It would appear that changing it to "enhancement" did not make it any more likely to happen sooner.  This bug is 8 years old, and I just discovered it, to my annoyance.

I am going to change it back to "bug," and see who gets mad at me.
Comment 6 joesch04 2020-06-30 07:21:08 UTC
I am not sure if this is a bug (or a feature), but a solution would be good.

For example, I have a file where the print size needs to be scaled down to about 35% and the headers and footers are currently scaled down accordingly.
It would be helpful to fix the size of the header and footer at 100%.
Comment 7 Yuri 2020-07-01 04:01:42 UTC
To me it's pretty clear and obvious that it's a bug. I agreed that this bug report was marked as a desired feature instead of a bug report so developers could have more time to dedicate to fixing other (more critical) bugs and take the time to fix this. But 8 years is too long. I'm very impressed by such delay.

Here's the most obvious reason why this is a bug: a spreadsheet contains information, but its headers and footers contain METAINFORMATION (i.e. information about the spreadsheet's information). E.g. the page numbers placed in the headers or footers pretty much inform us how many pages (i.e. how much space) the spreadsheet's information takes up.

Another clear reason why resizing a spreadsheet shouldn't resize its headers and footers along is because international standardization organizations like ISO specify fixed font types and sizes for headers and footers in different document types (e.g. dissertations and other technical and academic documents).

Therefore, by default LibreOffice should NOT resize headers and footers: the actual "desired feature" or "enhancement" is precisely providing the end-user the ability to change such default behavior, in order to cause LibreOffice to resize headers' and footers' font sizes along with their corresponding pages. But for some weird reason LibreOffice by default behaves in such non-standard, undesired way.
Comment 8 Tom Williams 2021-10-28 03:26:24 UTC
(In reply to Yuri from comment #7)
> To me it's pretty clear and obvious that it's a bug. I agreed that this bug
> report was marked as a desired feature instead of a bug report so developers
> could have more time to dedicate to fixing other (more critical) bugs and
> take the time to fix this. But 8 years is too long. I'm very impressed by
> such delay.
> 
> Here's the most obvious reason why this is a bug: a spreadsheet contains
> information, but its headers and footers contain METAINFORMATION (i.e.
> information about the spreadsheet's information). E.g. the page numbers
> placed in the headers or footers pretty much inform us how many pages (i.e.
> how much space) the spreadsheet's information takes up.
> 
> Another clear reason why resizing a spreadsheet shouldn't resize its headers
> and footers along is because international standardization organizations
> like ISO specify fixed font types and sizes for headers and footers in
> different document types (e.g. dissertations and other technical and
> academic documents).
> 
> Therefore, by default LibreOffice should NOT resize headers and footers: the
> actual "desired feature" or "enhancement" is precisely providing the
> end-user the ability to change such default behavior, in order to cause
> LibreOffice to resize headers' and footers' font sizes along with their
> corresponding pages. But for some weird reason LibreOffice by default
> behaves in such non-standard, undesired way.

I agree.  This should be fixed, if possible.
Comment 9 QA Administrators 2023-10-29 03:13:33 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 10 Yuri 2023-10-29 22:55:20 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 11 Mike Kaganski 2023-12-12 07:08:18 UTC
This is definitely not a bug, since e.g. in MS Excel, there is an *option* named "Scale with document" (*enabled by default*); so definitely there is a use case for the current implementation as well. However, the lack of a similar option in Calc is an *interoperability* bug, and a missing feature.
Comment 12 Yuri 2023-12-12 14:46:21 UTC
Stating that an interoperability -bug- is "not a bug" looks contradictory: how a type of bug is not a bug? This is a self-debunking statement.

Well, I made my case on comment #7 and I stand by it: metainformation shouldn't be resized when the user resizes its corresponding information because these are two separate entities, and the authoritative norms about it agree with me, which means that the default LibreOffice behaviour should be to -not- resize metainformation (i.e. headers and footers) along with its corresponding information (i.e. the "body" data of the e.g. spreadsheet).

If I were a developer, I would've definitely contributed to fixing this bug. Since I'm not a developer, I can only contribute with reporting the bug and financially supporting the project through financial donations. However, even though I did use to donate to the Document Foundation, and despite the fact that I still appreciate and thank the efforts of the true developers who still do actual work on this project, since this bug came out and spent more than a decade without any fixing, I've been gradually moving to other solutions and currently don't make financial donations to this project anymore.

If something as (apparently) minor as this can't be fixed in 10+ years, then there's no reason why I should take LibreOffice, it's development and financial donations to its project as seriously as this bug has so far been taken by those who have the power to fix it.
Comment 13 pb 2023-12-12 18:35:02 UTC
(In reply to Yuri from comment #12)
> Stating that an interoperability -bug- is "not a bug" looks contradictory:
> how a type of bug is not a bug? This is a self-debunking statement.
> 
> Well, I made my case on comment #7 and I stand by it: metainformation
> shouldn't be resized when the user resizes its corresponding information
> because these are two separate entities, and the authoritative norms about
> it agree with me, which means that the default LibreOffice behaviour should
> be to -not- resize metainformation (i.e. headers and footers) along with its
> corresponding information (i.e. the "body" data of the e.g. spreadsheet).
> 
> If I were a developer, I would've definitely contributed to fixing this bug.
> Since I'm not a developer, I can only contribute with reporting the bug and
> financially supporting the project through financial donations. However,
> even though I did use to donate to the Document Foundation, and despite the
> fact that I still appreciate and thank the efforts of the true developers
> who still do actual work on this project, since this bug came out and spent
> more than a decade without any fixing, I've been gradually moving to other
> solutions and currently don't make financial donations to this project
> anymore.
> 
> If something as (apparently) minor as this can't be fixed in 10+ years, then
> there's no reason why I should take LibreOffice, it's development and
> financial donations to its project as seriously as this bug has so far been
> taken by those who have the power to fix it.

While this is not exactly the place for discussing this, I agree with the sentiment above.  After enormous amounts of time fighting bugs in LibreOffice for years, I finally realized that I had better things to do.

While it's nice to be able to report bugs, it's infuriating that bug reviewers invariably ignore the bug or claim it isn't a bug, and even if they do, the bug is never fixed.

I even have looked at the code in case I might be able to fix something myself, but there is no documentation I could find that would help me understand the architecture of the code.