Hello! I have a problem with text direction inside table in LibreOffice Writer 6.3 (Windows).
How MS Office Word 2010 and 2016 render it:
How LibreOffice Writer 6.3 renders it:
Even if I edit this table in LibreOffice it still looks awful. How to make it work in a proper way?
It is not a bug, it is a fundamental difference in features of the two office suites and their respective file formats (see my answer). In my opinion, rotation of contents in text table cells is a feature quite worth to be implemented in ODT, but so far filing any report is useless. I mean, filing to LibreOffice Bugzilla. I do not know if / how it is possible to file feature requests for the ODT format.
but so far filing any report is useless. I mean, filing to LibreOffice Bugzilla
Nonsence. Any change in ODF starts as a user request - in a bug tracker; then it must get a sample implementation as experimental feature; then it should be filed to ODF standards OASIS committee (where a reference implementation is a pre-requisite); and only then it could get into a version of the standard.
OK, it is nonsense. Then what is the procedure? Once again: it is not a LibreOffice bug or missing feature. It is about the file format. Where should I go? I am not a programmer and can’t produce a reference implementation to send it to the OASIS (and I suspect the asker can’t either).
Please file a bug report with a problematic document attached.
… some strange assertions from @gabix telling not to do what was advised …
Then what is the procedure?
You (rather OP) should go to the bug tracker, and file the bug. It’s not a user concern why does it work that way; what concerns a user is that it doesn’t work as it should: in case of features (even when they require standard change), it’s “it doesn’t allow me doing foo”; in case of interoperability, it’s a bug like this - “it imports this file wrong!”. It’s up to developers to look at how to proceed; in case of e.g. import, we could consider mapping cell property to character property as interim measure.
The matter is that a similar effect can be achieved by means totally different between the two office suites. In MS Word, it is a table cell property with no equivalent in LibreOffice Writer. In LibreOffice Writer, it is a character property (Format → Character → Position → Rotate/Scaling) with no equivalent in Word. Thus, there is no way to make it look good in both office suites (and in both file formats). Choose the side.
@ask: seeing you had accepted this “answer”, I hope you still follow my advise and file a bug report. Because - well, what @gabix said is wrong; and specifically your problem was already approached in LO 6.3, as described in the blog posts I mentioned in a comment to the question; it looks like some corner case is not yet handled properly - so it is always good to file bugs; and never follow bad advises that try to take you away from proper paths. Be it this project or any other; be it a known format limitation or unknown problem - always, always just file bugs: they drive the progress of anything, be it a standard or whatever.
Yes, I filed a bug, thank you for your support!
specifically your problem was already approached
No, it was not. I have just (i.e. 15 seconds ago) opened a DOCX file in LibreOffice 6.3.3.2. The problem is still present.
Thanks! FTR: tdf#130029
@gabix: I said approached, not “fixed”. Miklos is working on the vertical direction previously missing in LO; he pushed a number of commits; and also - already created an OASIS proposal. So - again: a bug report was needed to see corner cases not yet handled.
OK, thanks for the clarification.