Autocorrect help file does not address

English
, , ,
#1

This is about … that is, “three periods in a row”, but this is no longer a question, it’s an ANSWER! I spent (wasted?) so much time trying to figure out how to stop LibreOffice from auto-correcting three consecutive periods like … into a stylized collection of three tiny periods. I went through ALL the help files covering ALL the Tools - Autocorrect - Autocorrect Options and nowhere was this adequately addressed. Finally it occurred to me that the following “word”, i.e. “.*…” was the culprit. Yeah, the * makes it more powerful, I can infer that, but the help file doesn’t even address these wildcards at all. For goodness sake, this ought to be addressed somewhere, eh? Sorry, but I’m really frustrated over how much time I spent trying to fix/change a feature that was not what I wanted, and now after it all it seems so strange that this basic formatting functionality (how this * wildcard is working) is not addressed so people (newbies) can successfully find the offending autocorrect choice that they need to edit or delete.

Please add something about both … and the use of * wildcards in the Autocorrect Help Files! Thank you.

ps - It’s unfortunate (telling?) that I’m unable to add “…” as one of my Tags to this question.

#2

If you like to address an enhancement to the help files, please file at https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/. This Q&A site is not the right place to address your request.

BTW: What you called … a stylized collection of three tiny periods is called “ellipsis”

#3

Replace says exactly this:

Enter the word, abbreviation or word part that you want to replace while you type. Wildcard character sequence .* in the end of word results the replacement of the word before arbitrary suffixes, too. Wildcard character sequence .* before the word results the replacement after arbitrary prefixes, too. For example, the pattern "i18n.*" with the replacement text "internationalization" finds and replaces "i18ns" with "internationalizations", or the pattern ".*..." with the replacement text "…" finds and replaces three dots in "word..." with the typographically correct precomposed Unicode horizontal ellipsis ("word…").

#4

Unless you have good semantic reasons, ellipsis should be used instead of 3 individual full stops. Ellipsis is an atomic sequence, meaning it must never be split by justification (line break). Thus the necessity of the replacement.

If you need a dotted leading line, don’t type it manually, but use a tab with an associated fill character.

#5

ajlittoz - Thank you, I’d forgotten the name ellipsis.

Mike K. - Thank you for the link to the correct help info - that clearly is the answer and is what was needed. I do believe though that it needs to be linked to more effectively. Here’s why I say this:

I searched for Autocorrect in Help and it brought up 9 help links, all including “AutoCorrect function”. Unfortunately for me, coming from an MS Word background, I passed on the first link: – text documents, b/c to me this means the most basic, “unformatted” kind of document. I’m working on a fully formatted document. The help link that appeared most appropriate to me was: – turning off. Unfortunately, although this took me to a page that showed instructions for using each of the different AutoCorrect Options tabs available, including “Replace”, none of these tabs were formatted there as actual links. If “Replace” had been a link there I would have used it and gotten to your page.

#6

“I tried to look in help, and among several suggestions for my search I checked one link, which didn’t help” is not the same as “I went through ALL the help files covering ALL the Tools - Autocorrect - Autocorrect Options and nowhere was this adequately addressed”…

I filed tdf#126007 for a real problem.

#7

opaque - Thank you for clarifying this. I first considered/tried doing this, but it seemed entirely directed towards “bugs”, not enhancements. It wants me to search first… I haven’t a clue what to search on since this is not a bug. Search “help”? “Enhancement”? Well, I just tried to log in, same password and login I use here but it says it’s invalid… (ah, an ellipsis!) Well, anyhow, for future reference I understand now and thank you. I’ll try to submit my observations stated above (to Mike K.) about how I believe the help file could be improved when I’m less exhausted by all of this and have more free time. Thank you again.

#8

I know how frustrating it can be at first. But when you’re new you don’t yet know the lay of the land, and the jargon that goes with it. There is so much to learn at first to get the smallest thing to work. But I think you’re on the right track. Stay with it. It will get easier. It always does. That’s why it’s called the learning CURVE. Steep at first, but then lets up with time.

#9

Thank you for everyone’s comments and feedback. I’m learning and appreciate everyone’s help and opinions. This is a big, impressive software package of which I’ve only scratched the surface. It must also be a big, impressive community which enables it to thrive and grow. Thanks again, you’re all amazing. Now I guess I’ll hit the “X Close” button… which seems like what you do when a question is answered and done? I’m really not sure! Thanks again.

#10

Mike, thank you again for your help, but I don’t want to push this into an argument based on semantics. To an extremely frustrated newbie who had spent the better part of an hour trying to figure this out, what I already told you about how I interpreted “text document” in my mind equated to “I went through”. You can easily parse this out to prove I’m nothing but a lazy, lying, hothead jerk - so be it. Once again, thank you for your help. I apologize for my inadequacies. I do stand by the point I made about how the help file could be improved. Perhaps that might redeem me a small bit in your eyes? Or perhaps you reject the point I made as a suggestion for improvement. I’m a frazzle now, I want this to end and have little enthusiasm now for pursuing how to submit a suggestion correctly. I was actually thinking I was contributing something when I first posted my problem. Thank you again and goodbye.

#11

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.