Annoying, unwanted, squiggly blue lines

English
#1

After a VERY LONG battle with Libre Office’s presumptuous automatic formatting, I finally got it to do what I want it to do, not what some programmer in a darkened room with no windows thinks it SHOULD do for me (treating me like a mindless idiot!). AT LAST! I could then just get to work and type and format documents in a way that met my needs.

THEN Libre Office installed an unsolicited update… and everything flew out the window again. I TRIED to eliminate all the annoying over-riding nuisances but found that some of the settings menu items actually DO exactly the opposite to what their wording indicates you would expect them to do.

So, HOW do I get rid of all those annoying, unwanted squiggly blue lines that Libre Office INSISTS on superimposing on my layouts when I INTEND to type multiple blank spaces?

Also, how do I get it to correctly just record a hyphen or a dash, again without putting squiggly blue lines all over it?

#2

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Oh yes, I see that the battle was very long. Why didn’t you ask for help 9 years ago? You were immediately told that instead of exploring the menu, you just need to right-click on the annoying fragment and the program, which considers you an old idiot, will immediately suggest the desired action.

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1 Like
#3

Your package manager (Snap, flatpack?) or your anti virus (Norton) add-on installed an unwanted update.

You should know that annoying squiggly blue lines are Grammar check, while annoying Squiggly red lines are spell check. Double or more spaces are not correct English and are a common typing error so by default, that is turned on for English. If you need a bigger space then maybe a tab is in order. Anyway, to turn off the lines for extra spaces, click Tools > Options > Language settings > English Sentence Checking (for 24.0.2 it is still Tools > Options > Language settings > English Sentence Checking but is in a different position) and under *Punctuation, untick Word Spacing, OK out.

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#4

Thank you JohnSUN. I tried this in the document I am working in at present and, yes, it DID work!
So easy! Now the question is, has this one action applied to ALL my Libre Office documents, or will I have to repeat it for every individual document? I guess I’ll soon find out!

Next question: is there any way to get LO to correctly differentiate between hyphens (short) and dashes separated by spaces (long)? If so, what do I need to do in Settings to make this happen? Thanks.

#5

Tools > Options > Language settings > English Sentence Checking and tick either Em dash or En dash depending on your preference. See the tooltips

#6

Ummm… well, okay, I’ve found them where you said I would but before I tick either, what does each actually DO? More specifically, what do respectively “Em dash” and “En dash” mean? These descriptors are a bit cryptic!

#7

And, are they mutually exclusive, or can I tick both?

#8

And not so ‘cryptic’ when you realise - quoting from that article

The widths of en and em dashes have also been specified as being equal to those of the upper-case letters N and M, respectively,[15][16] and at other times to the widths of the lower-case letters.[14][17]

#9

Em dash replaces a space-dash-space with just an Em dash,
e.g. back - against to back—against
En dash replaces a space-dash-space with a space-En dash-space,
e.g. back - against to back – against

By inspection, if you tick both, then only Em dash is offered.

#10

Well, thank you to you BOTH for clarifying something that I would never have discovered by my own efforts. :blush: And, with a combination of these two explanations it is now clear to me how I want to set up my own working environment. THANK YOU!

#11

Especially if you don’t make any effort. What is so hard about typing em dash into the search field at Wikipedia - or even into your favourite search engine?

#12

The fact that while I was busy trying to complete A TOTALLY UNRELATED TASK, and, having tried everything I could see in the Settings to resolve a formatting problem that, on the basis of my best efforts in Settings, still didn’t resolve, I didn’t even know at the outset that such a thing as an “M dash” or an “N dash” existed! How could I look up what I didn’t know existed?
Meanwhile, the need to regain access to this forum (after a nine year absence, apparently), type my questions, wait for answers, apply them to find out if they actually work, then thank the people (such as yourself) who were gracious enough to provide those answers, has consumed two hours of my time that SHOULD HAVE gone into the document I was working on originally.
That’s the short answer to “what’s so hard… etc.”

It’s a pity you spoilt your helpfulness by taking this cheap shot at someone who, battling with a problem he didn’t know how to deal with, came to the Help forum - which I believe EXISTS for that purpose.

#13

You asked

and then after an answer was provided your response implied, to me at least, you never could have found that explanation yourself.

You’ll appreciate - or perhaps not - that a lot of the peripheral questions that are asked here, and elsewhere on the Internet, could be resolved with a quick search.

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