Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 59347
WW8: export mangles multi-column layout when using "Evenly distribute contents to all columns"
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:22:24 UTC
Hi. This is a issue I encountered while making my resume. Thanks. Save a new document as [Microsoft Word 97/.../XP] format Enter some text at the beginning of the second page. Make sure it is the SECOND page. Highlight that text and goto [Format]->[Columns]->Divide to 2 columns Press enter at the end of the first column of the text in second page - to goto the second column Enter some text in 2nd column Save Quit the OpenOffice.org Reopen the file As you can see the column division is messed up. I had a fun time making my resume since all employers ask for .doc format instead of .pdf. The temporary solution involved inserting the period (.) as the first line of the second page, making it the color “white” and then making it's [font size] be like size 3. The period is there, but practically invisible. It seems OOo doesn't like the first line of the second page having multiple columns. And I do really mean the second page. I tried the same thing on page 5 and it worked. Weird...
Created attachment 32394 [details] Source document in .odt format
MRU->FLR: Export attached document to WW8 and reopen -> at the beginning of second page, the section settings are destroyed.
->MRU I was working on this at the same time that you posted (resulting in a collision), but I believe I have some additional insight. It is reproducible for me not only on page 2 but also elsewhere... if you follow the steps below. ->All I believe the issue is that when columns are formatted using the "evenly distribute contents" flag, OOo automatically distributes the contents of the two columns evenly between the columns. MS Word, however, does not have this option, so when exported in .doc format, the "evenly distribute contents" flag is dropped and the contents all go back to the first of the two columns. To reproduce from scratch (allows you to see all settings used): 1) Open a new document in Writer 2) Type several lines of text 3) Highlight the text 4) Go to Format -> Columns 5) Select 2 columns 6) Verify that the "Evenly distribute contents to all columns" box is checked (it should be by default) 7) Click ok All text is distributed evenly between 2 columns 8) Save in .doc format 9) Close & reopen All text is now in the left column only. Expected Behavior: MS Word format does not have an option (to my knowledge) to "Evenly distribute contents to all columns." Therefore, on save, OOo Writer should insert a manual column break between the column in order to preserve the look of the document when saved in MS Word format. The manual breaks should be inserted where OOo breaks the columns automatically. -> pasan Workaround: 1) Turn off the existing columns 2) Reselect the text 3) Format -> Columns 4) Uncheck the "Evenly distribute contents to all columns" and click ok 5) Insert a manual column break where you would like the column to break. 6) Repeat (5) for all columns you need to format OOo exports correctly when manual comlumn breaks are used It's annoying to go through, but it works - I checked. Moral of the story: sometimes OOo really does have nice features that Word doesn't! *Revised summary (hope that is ok) *Added MS_Interoperability keyword
Created attachment 32427 [details] File where pages 1 and 5 are NOT affected. And other columns affected.
Created attachment 32428 [details] File where atdsm's suggestion
Hi atdsm, mru, and everyone else :)... Thanks for taking a look at the problem. atdsm, I tried your suggestion man (exactly step by step), but it didn't quite work for me. I hope that we are trying to do the same thing. So I attached a couple of files. On my "resume" (2 pages) - I would just like to note that I had problems with the "top" of page 2 only. The rest of the columns in my resume was perfectly fine. I used the columns for the "Company name" and "Date division" FYI. So if it was really an attribute not getting carried over, shouldn't the other columns have been affected as well? It just looks to be location dependent in the document. The sample docs I attached have 6 and 7 pages. I attached 2 files: 1) "OOo_column_problem.odt" - ODT file with my initial problem written in it. 2) "OOo_column_problem_solution.odt" - ODT file with atdsm's suggestion. Save both files into .doc format (97/.../XP) and re-open them. The first .doc should give you "good" columns on pages 1, 5, and 7 while the columns on the other pages are bad. Some pages are empty btw. On page 7, I inserted a little period like I did in my resume to make it to work. Before I did that, page 7 got messed up as well. The second .doc unfortunately doesn't give me the results either. atdsm said it worked for him, so I am guessing there is something I didn't do properly. If you look at the attributes of the columns before converting, the "Evenly Distribute contents to all columns" is UNCHECKED - as atdsm wanted. Also when you open a ".DOC" file in OOo Writer, and check that that "evenly distribute" attribute, it seems to be "checked" for the columns that are "ok". Thanks guys. Appreciate the comments.
Due to missing resources retargetted to "OOo Later"
assigned to hbrinkm
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".