Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 78772
Request: Single page margin overrides/Automatic styling
Last modified: 2007-06-22 08:12:54 UTC
Another quirk from a legal office migrating from Corel Wordperfect: Sometimes widow/orphan control isn't enough (or convenient enough), and upon finalizing a document or letter, the easiest thing to do is 'cheat' and lower a margin to avoid an orphan on the next page. In OO.o, dragging the margin on the ruler changes the margin for the page style. This is consistent but surprising and not always desired -- reformatting all members of a style forces the user to reexamine the entire document for widows, orphans, and other formatting quirks. A very common case that widow/orphan control won't pick up without some user attention and skill: section titles in a document (_This_Is_the_Rent_Clause_of_a_Lease_) that were followed by paragraph breaks -- AKA 'hitting enter.' Ideally it would be possible, with minimal fuss (e.g. shift-drag? Or if the existing behavior is rarely intended, perhaps this should be default and a shift or control combination should be required to modify the existing style?) to emulate the Corel behavior. A couple ways this could be implemented: * Dragging the margin inserts a special override code anchored to the page. Ideally this is very visible when editing. * Dragging the margin creates and applies a new page style, inheriting the other properties of the original style and 'followed by' same original. Problem: naming conventions ("Automatic Margin Override Style 1?"); Advantage: sort of consistent with the style metaphor, could allow one tweak to be reused as needed for some consistency. Unfortunately (non-obviously) this override behavior would have to be implemented again with regard to header/footer heights, as if a header or footer is present, it should really stay anchored to the same position (fixed distance from top or bottom of page in user's mental model, defined as the top or bottom margin in OO.o) and adjusting its 'height' is then what adjusts the size of the text area of the page. I hope someone will consider this, because the current behavior (user drags margin to fix one widow/orphan, all pages of style reflow, user is too surprised at perceived loss of work -- loss of time spent formatting -- to realize that editing the style will 'fix' it, user attempts to strangle nearest IT worker) is causing extreme stress at our organization. ;)
Already tracked as issue 4624. *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 4624 ***
Closing duplicate.