What happens to Writer date fields when converted to PDF?

English
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#1

Hi,
I write a monthly column with Writer, in which I manually maintained months. As an example: Please submit information for inclusion by the 5th of MAY for the JUNE issue.

To simplify, I’ve used Date fields to calculate from this month of May to have it read “MAY” and “JUNE.” Next month’s column will be auto-updated to read “JUNE” and “JULY.” Etc.

That’s my working copy, but I send a PDF to my proofreaders, where I want to include the contents of the date fields as plain text.

Can I convert to PDF without carrying the active date field over?

I want to submit the ODT file for publication with plain text dates as well. I would do whatever is done to convert the date field to plain text, then save it to a new file name for submission.

My current workaround involves copying the dates to the text editor and then copying the plain text back to Writer. The only issue is if I have bold or underline, that formatting gets lost, too.

I am using version 6.4.7.2 LibreOffice in Linux Mint

Here is a test document as requested by Hrbrgr.
test.odt (20.7 KB)

Date field in Writer for automation?
#2

May I assume that you use a document template for the monthly column?
Save as fillable form?

Upload your document here so someone can look at it and examine. Thank you

#3

Hrbrgr, thank you for your inquiry.

I edited my question post to upload a test case ODT file. I take last month’s column and “save as” this month’s file, then change the contents and save. I took last month’s column and saved-as test.odt. Then I replaced the column contents and saved the file. I don’t save a template file per se.

The test document is self-explanatory, but no, I have no fillable form. I want the date fields to become plain text before sending it out to my editor or my PDF proofreaders.

#4

Date fields (not in a form) become text when exported to pdf. Your thought to export to pdf and copy the text back from a pdf reader (this works with Adobe Reader in Windows) to Writer should work to keep bold, italic and underlining. It will keep links though, so you could instead print to a pdf printer which will also lose the links.

You are best to experiment with a test document so you can find any drawbacks before actual use.

1 Like
#5

Thank you for uploading your test document and the additional explanations in it.
I confirm the statements of @EarnestAl for the date fields.
They are only present as text in an exported PDF file.

But you can easily test it.
When you have created your column, choose File>Export As>Export as PDF... from the menu.
Take a look at the exported PDF file.

#6

I’m really confused by the whole question.
Have you tried yourself?
If you did, then which exact problems did you observe? Are you asking because there was some automatic change of the field in the resulting PDF at some stage? Maybe you used a Hybrid PDF feature?
If you did not, then why?

1 Like
#7

Thank you, @EarnestAl ,

Here is something that I discovered: My “05/05/22” Date field was inserted from the Insert > Field > Date item from the side menu. The date and Time fields on this side menu are fixed fields, which capture the date or time the field was inserted. I need “More fields …” from the side menu and in the dialog box, select the field name without “(fixed)” included. Then the field will update each time the ODT file is saved, and each time the PDF is exported from Writer.

I’m good with the PDF. As you said, the date or time fields become text when exported to PDF.

I have never tried copying straight from PDF back into Writer. I have always passed it through a text editor along the way. I shall report back!

Reason for edit: Unlike the preview to the side, the saved post has no space between paragraphs, so I added dashes between.

#8

You can see what sort of date (or other) fields they are by clicking View > Field Names (Ctrl+F9) and then click it again to toggle back to the date display. Note that this does not affect printing; you can have field names showing, print the document and the contents of the fields will print, that is, the date will print.

[Edit] you can add <BR> on an empty line to force separation on this site

#9

I copied from my test.pdf and I lost all my formatting, lost my empty spaces, too. Plus, I had hard returns at the end of the line. I can copy from Writer and paste to the text editor with loss of formatting, but keep my paragraphs word-wrapping when I resize the editor’s window.

So, I am so far going to stick with the selected copy of text containing fields and paste into the text editor and back over the selected text in Writer.


I am good with the PDF not carrying live fields.
Edit #3: Replaced Paragraphs with <br>.
#10

I will call this ^^^ the solution to the title question. Thank you, EarnestAl.

Hrbrgr
I confirm the statements of @EarnestAl for the date fields.
They are only present as text in an exported PDF file.

And thank you, Hrbrgr for your confirmation. You both deserve credit. I’m not sure, but if I mark this post as the solution, then AZM gets the credit. Not fair, if that’s so!

I am using Date fields, not Date (fixed) fields, so each time I save my document as a new filename.odt, I update the field to the current date (in my case, month), which is what I want in my working copy.

I have to copy the date field text into a text editor, then copy the text back to the ODT document in the copy that I will submit to my editor to clear the existence of fields in the submitted ODT file.

Thank you to all who participated in this thread. Your input was valuable.

I’ve learned, too, that the use of the HTML <br> tag separates paragraphs for ease of readability in the posted reply.

1 Like
#11

Just select the date field (click), copy (Ctrl+C), and paste without formatting (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+V).

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