Every time I cut and paste, all of the following pastes are pasted right on top of the first one. How can I stop that?
Do we talk of text or images?
- for text cursor right (arrow key)
- images: look for “allow overlap” and deselect it
If above guesswork 8sbnot helpful, try to give us more details, starting with OS andvversion of LO, then what you really do…
I guess that you are pasting images and want them to paste them the way that you would paste into Word? If so:
- Open Writer
- Click Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Formatting Aids (for Mac substitute the first two steps in the trail with LibreOffice > Preferences)
- Under Image select Anchor As character. OK
Note 1. Using this method, the images will be pasted as characters so they will go one after the other but you cannot drag them to a new position. To drag the images inserted by this method right click the image and select Anchor > To character
.
Note 2. When you paste an image from outside LibreOffice into Writer it is pasted as .png so as not to lose any image information, this can massively increase file size if the original is a jpg image. Better to use Insert > Image or drag the image file from a file manager which will insert the original file type into the document. Copy and paste from another Writer document should keep the file type of the image as it is in the donor document.
You might consider using a third party image editor to manage your images. Or you can compress the images in Writer; click Format > Image > Compress and alter settings to suit.
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IMHO WebP is an exception to this rule. For compatibility a png is added.
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Thanks for your help. Mostly, I clip and paste paragraphs, but sometimes images. I will try your advice.
CLR
Pasting will insert the text in the cursor position or overwrite the selected text.
If you use a clipboard manager it might paste text as an image.
Yes, I know. But the curser won’t move where it is supposed to go. When I try, the entire text moves down with it, making the next paste on top of the first. It is aggravating because when I first installed
Libre Office it didn’t do that. But after a month or so it started. This has happened 3-4 times before, over the course of a couple of years. I uninstall, then reinstall, only to have the same thing continue. What I can’t figure out is why that happens, when I haven’t adjusted the settings within Libre. I do know how to use a computer, (although I must admit the older I get the less skill I retain) and clip and paste should be an easy thing to do. Which it would be if it stopped pasting one on top of the other. I appreciate your reply.
Chris R
I don’t use clipboard manager. I just want to do a simple clip and paste. I don’t understand why it works fine for the first clip. If it works for the first why would the rest go on top of it?
Did you try my step-by-step instructions on how to change the default anchor for images in my first comment? Or what was it about that method that didn’t work for you?
Typical error: Reinstall leaves your user-profile intact, so all setzing are kept.Try to start LO in safe-mode/ now called troubleshot mode). If problem vanishes create a new profile after backup.
But actually I think pasted text to be selected is normal behaviour and kind of to be expected.(But as I’m a cross platform user for 45 years I’m used to “look first, expect nothing to be granted”.
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I guess I must be dumber than I thought. I don’t know what a “default anchor” is. After all instructions, I still don’t know why it pastes one on top of the other. But I will continue to gripe to myself and not bother you anymore. Thank you for trying to help me.
Chris R
This is not related to the “default anchor”. Several releases earlier, developers made a decision to change a default setting for frames (and images): Allow overlap is now enabled. IMHO, this is unfortunate. When you insert a new frame (image), its area is no longer compared to other existing ones and it is positioned strictly at its configured location.
This means that several frames anchored to the same paragraph will end up exactly at the same spot, overlaying each other.
Without Allow overlap, Writer detects position conflicts and shifts the new frame in an attempt to clear the conflict. When conflicting frames are anchored to different paragraphs, this can even move the paragraph itself to remove the conflict.
You’re not “dumber than you thought”. Frames are probably the most difficult feature in Writer. It really took me years to understand the underlying concept and more years to be able to manage predictably frame behaviour with frame styles. But I still meet unsatisfactory results in specific contexts.
What must be understood is frames nearly live their own life in a different “realm” than text. Due to this quasi-separation, they are extremely sensitive to direct formatting (DF), much more than the other Writer objects (including text). DF is already a plague with text, but it is a nightmarish hell with frames.
Where I have written “Click Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Formatting Aids” I am referring to the menu, not to tabs.
If you are using Tabbed mode and cannot see the menu then click the left to icon with tooltip Menubar to toggle visibility of the menu, then follow the steps
Maybe this extension and the announced improvements mentioned on the thread may help you.
But still: consider testing in safe/troubleshot mode, if your user profile is causing your current problem, as I mentioned above.
(to @ajlittoz)
If the developers messed up simple things, why don’t they simply make Libre more user friendly than come up with “new and improved” ideas that are not improvement at all?!
They need to understand that the average user of Libre writer are not college grads with degrees in computer use. I guess my only recourse is to just let things do what they do and fuss a lot about it to myself.
Thank you so much for trying to help me. I’ll consider the “case closed”.
Chris R
(to @EarnestAl)
Yes, I know. I’m not using tabs. Thank you for trying to help me. I’ll just let this go because I doubt that I will understand. Why developers have to mess around with things while the average person is not a computer genius I’ll never know. Libre Writer is a good thing to have, but they are making it less and less so in an attempt to “improve” the functions.
Chris R
@MissChris It is quite difficult to guess which post you comment upon because you don’t quote the author. There are two ways to do this:
- you select some text and click on the “comment” callout below the post
The selection is “quoted” in your comment - more concisely, you start your comment with
@followed by poster’s pseudo (as I did at start of this one)
Anyway, thanks are always welcome.
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