I merge the cells in the table in LO Writer and try to orient the text from bottom to top. When I leave the table and click on the merged cells again and try to type or change the text LO Writer displays “Write - protected content cannot be changed”. Is this happening to someone else or just me and how to fix it? I’m using LO 6.3.5 on Linux Mint OS 19.3.
Works for me: Fedora 31, LO 6.3.4.2
good for you 
Maybe version 6.4 will help me, waiting for it to appear in PPA.
I have the exact same problem on LO 6.4.2.2. As soon as I change text orientation in a cell that has been merged, I can’t insert text anymore because of “write protection”. I hope this gets fixed, I need this feature!
Reproducible with 6.4.1.2: create a table (say, 6x4); select B2:C3; Table->Merge Cells; Table->Properties; on Text Flow tab, select “Vertical (bottom to top)” Text orientation.
Now if you point anywhere in the cell except its left top corner, you will get a vertical cursor in left bottom corner, and it will be protected. If, however, you point carefully to top left, you will see the mouse turning into horizontal bar, and clicking there would give you expected writable vertical cursor.
Please file this as a bug.
Yes, I know that, but when I do that and type text, the text is invisible.
The bug occurs only when the merged cells span several rows.
Invisible text seems to plague the topmost leftmost merged set. If you create another merged area to the right of the invisible-text “cell”, the invisibility is transferred to to the new cell cluster, but the previous one can no longer be edited even trying to aim precisely the top left corner (or maybe because this was the top left cell in my case and the pointer interacts with the row*col selector pointers).
With the cursor inside an invisible-text area, Table>Merge/Split Cells commands are disabled.
When a single row is involved (like in my too quick test), text can be inserted normally.
Ajlittoz, you are absolutely right. When it comes to one row (merged horizontally) or cells are not merged (applied to a single cell) then everything is OK, otherwise it is not.
Mike, I reported it as a bug.
Sorry for my English.