Formatting of new rows in Tables with LibreOffice Writer

[StephenM1]

Good Afternoon

I am using LifeOffice (version 5.1.4.2) under Linux MINT. I am having problems with understanding how and why Writer sets the formatting of new table rows in a document.

I have a two column table. The left column is in Portuguese; the right column in English. I am using the FreeSans font at 10pt in both columns, everywhere in the table.

When I insert a new row anywhere in the table the formatting for that row is the same font but at 12pt, and the new left-hand cell is formatted as English (not Portuguese). I would have thought it should keep the formatting of the table (at least the rows) around it. If I use a different font and different point size for the table the problem still occurs.

Can anyone explain to me why this happens? It is a nuisance to have to keep setting the language and font size every time I add new rows to a table.

I would have attached the file, however, I get some bizarre error (">3 points required to upload files") when I try to attach same.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

regards
Stephen Meatheringham
Canberra, Australia
I have attached a simple copy of the table - ODT format.

[ajlittoz]

Sounds to me like a style problem, but I can’t reproduce it. When I add a row, either in the middle or at end, the cells inherit formatting from the one above.

Default style in a table is Table Contents. You might try to define a new style, linked to Table Contents, for the Portuguese column: the only difference will be text language. Then you type your columns using the styles, without any direct formatting (may be cleared with Format → Clear Direct Formatting).

[StephenM1]

Thanks. I am using the bog standard style, no changes, nothing. Other tables in other files don’t have the problem.

To be honest, it is the final straw in my struggle to use LibreOffice. I’ve been working with it for over 12 months now. I find too many glitches and things that simply do not appear to work as they should. The worst problem I have found is documents with many images in them. I have files over 60 pages long. I insert images (often around 100). I format everything. Then days later I find images have moved, sometimes on top of each other and it’s a huge struggle to get them back how I wanted. Unfortunately, I have to say that Microsoft Office is a much more stable product. I have been testing it under Wine and it seems to work well enough in that configuration under Linux MINT for me.

I’ll close this question off now.

[ajlittoz]

I admit mastering LO requires some time, it is much more based on styles (with more variants like character, page, list, table, …) than M$ Office. Once styles are correctly defined, workflow is really automated with minimal manual formatting, usually none. On stability issue, I’ve always had great pain to make M$O section numbering comply with some specific presentation rules (resulting in M$O crashes) while it was sugar with LO.

[ajlittoz]

On document with images, I think it is linked to the issue of how “frames” relate to each other. A “frame” is a rectangular area which constitutes kind of sub-document. Frames have position (somehow unstable) and wrapping properties. The reliable position propertier are “as character” or “to character”.

This is how I made a catalog for my photo-library: several documents with hundreds to thousand of images (15 per page) without the problem you mention.