Bug 65321 - EDITING: Excess drawing area interferes with OLE importing of drawings into other docs
Summary: EDITING: Excess drawing area interferes with OLE importing of drawings into o...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Draw (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
4.0.3.3 release
Hardware: Other Linux (All)
: low normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Draw-Images
  Show dependency tree / graph
 
Reported: 2013-06-03 23:30 UTC by Jim Avera
Modified: 2023-09-05 03:13 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:

Attachments
(ignore this) (12.28 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet)
2013-06-03 23:30 UTC, Jim Avera 		Details
(ignore this) (9.25 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics)
2013-06-03 23:31 UTC, Jim Avera 		Details
Demo file: Download to /tmp/spreadsheet.ods (12.96 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet)
2013-06-04 00:04 UTC, Jim Avera 		Details
Demo file: Download to /tmp/drawing.odg (to make the link work) (8.96 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.graphics)
2013-06-04 00:05 UTC, Jim Avera 		Details
Screenshot showing corruption after trying to edit linked drawing (102.82 KB, image/png)
2015-03-17 05:42 UTC, Jim Avera 		Details
Show Obsolete (2) View All Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

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Description Jim Avera 2013-06-03 23:30:54 UTC 
Created attachment 80250 [details]
(ignore this)

Draw docs have a "canvas" (my term) which is much larger than the page size configured under Format->Page. For example, with an 8½ x 11" page, the "canvas" extends from approximately negative 9" to positive 16½".

There does not seem to be any way to control the size of this "extra" space around the page.   While editing a drawing this is sometimes merely inconvenient.   However it is fatally problematic when importing a draw doc as an OLE object into, say, a calc spreadsheet because the "extra" space is part of the immutable opaque object, and so the drawing is pushed way off to the right when presented in the embedding document.

Attached are two files "spreadsheet.ods" and "drawing.odg".  The spreadsheet imports the drawing as an OLE object into a cell.  Even though the drawing contains only a single small rectangle, the OLE object is huge in the spreadsheet and there is no way to place the drawing in the center of the cell (or even entirely on the page).  Okay, at least I couldn't find a way.

==> It seems to me that either:

1. The "canvas" size should be configurable in Draw documents, so it can be made as small as needed, e.g., just large enough for the drawing, so that importing the drawing as OLE produces a minimal-sized object; or

2. OLE import in spreadsheets (and presumably other kinds of documents) should allow positioning the object partially off-page, so that the extra space can be put where it does no harm.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Download the attached "spreadsheet.ods" and "drawing.odg"
2. Open the spreadsheet (may have to delete and re-import the linked drawing).
3. Try to put the rectangle in the middle of the cell
(you can't)

Operating System: Ubuntu
Version: 4.0.3.3 release
Comment 1 Jim Avera 2013-06-03 23:31:56 UTC 
Created attachment 80251 [details]
(ignore this)
Comment 2 Jim Avera 2013-06-04 00:04:28 UTC 
Created attachment 80252 [details]
Demo file: Download to /tmp/spreadsheet.ods
Comment 3 Jim Avera 2013-06-04 00:05:06 UTC 
Created attachment 80253 [details]
Demo file: Download to /tmp/drawing.odg (to make the link work)
Comment 4 Joel Madero 2013-06-23 03:50:57 UTC 
Thank you for reporting this issue! I have been able to confirm the issue on:
Version: 4.2.0.0.alpha0+Build ID: b0a1666f756aa5f5315366eca9d7d02ddd55d2b
Date:   Tue May 28 08:51:01 2013 +0300 
Platform: Bodhi Linux 2.2 x64

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
As I've been able to confirm this problem I am marking as:

New (confirmed)
Normal - can prevent high quality/professional work
Low - honestly just not sure how many people this impacts. The test case shows the problem but it's not a real life test case as you can just copy/paste the actual rectangle from the drawing and paste into spreadsheet without issues - it only occurs if you want to do the entire drawing as OLE which IMHO seems rare (perhaps wrong though)


Personally I think option 1 seems best - being able to edit the "canvas" size seems like it would have other benefits as well, the default is huge and obviously at least has one side effect

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
LibreOffice is powered by a team of volunteers, every bug is confirmed (triaged) by human beings who mostly give their time for free. We invite you to join our triaging by checking out this link:
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Comment 5 QA Administrators 2015-03-16 22:50:23 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 Jim Avera 2015-03-17 05:41:36 UTC 
Reproduced the bug using daily 4.4.2.0.0+
Build ID: ce8aba4da2a287c2b51d1d34a290284b2f754dc2), similar to Joel.

I also noticed a nasty problem where if you double-click the linked image to enter edit mode, LO locks up with the screen corrupted.  To get really exciting corruption, move the editable object around a little bit with the mouse.

Please see attached screenshot.
Comment 7 Jim Avera 2015-03-17 05:42:38 UTC 
Created attachment 114143 [details]
Screenshot showing corruption after trying to edit linked drawing
Comment 8 Nick Leverton 2015-11-03 11:51:31 UTC 
Adding another confirmation of this issue, with LO 4.3.3.2 on Debian Jessie.

I have a moderately complex block diagram which I am editing and storing in a separate .odg file, for ease of manipulation.  This is then OLE embedded into the .odt document that it relates to.  I would have preferred to keep it easily editable via OLE rather than having to generate and update a statically embedded copy.

Unfortunately due to the oversized canvas, there are several centimetres of white space around the diagram, which is squeezed into the centre of the page in the outer, containing, document.  I haven't been able to find a way around this that keeps the diagram editable via OLE.  The best I can do is to stretch the embedded object over the entire width of the page, so the excess canvas coincides with the page margins.  But this still somewhat wasteful of space and makes it hard to produce a high quality document.
Comment 9 Paul-Antoine Arras 2016-02-08 17:08:11 UTC 
Confirmed with LO 4.3.7.2 on RHEL 7.2.

For me, this issue is very annoying since I work with large presentations containing tens of images that I do not want to embed by copy/pasting. The only workaround I am left with is to export from Draw into EMF and then insert as linked image in Impress.
Comment 10 Nick Leverton 2016-02-22 12:42:01 UTC 
And still the same on LO 5.0.5 :-(
Comment 11 QA Administrators 2018-02-08 03:35:33 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 12 Jim Avera 2018-02-08 05:40:20 UTC 
Still no solution in 6.0

Version: 6.0.1.0.0+
Build ID: eba4d3b5a0667185e5a51a6e9996efbdbb51435d
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 4.13; UI render: default; VCL: gtk2; 
TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@70-TDF, Branch:libreoffice-6-0, Time: 2018-01-31_23:34:32
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); Calc: group
Comment 13 QA Administrators 2019-09-03 16:11:33 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 14 Jim Avera 2019-09-04 23:18:30 UTC 
Problem still there in master as of Sept. 3, 2019

ersion: 6.4.0.0.alpha0+
Build ID: 4a63d78ded7b11c7b820d2c941a0c9aed18326fc
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 5.0; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3; 
TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@86-TDF, Branch:master, Time: 2019-09-03_04:42:45
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI-Language: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 15 QA Administrators 2021-09-04 04:01:49 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 16 QA Administrators 2023-09-05 03:13:23 UTC 
Dear Jim Avera,

To make sure we're focusing on the bugs that affect our users today, LibreOffice QA is asking bug reporters and confirmers to retest open, confirmed bugs which have not been touched for over a year.

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