Group objects together with images in Writer

English
#1

Hi!
I inserted an image in a LibreOffice Writer document (in this case, a map) and added some objects to it - forms and text boxes so as to pinpoint locations - and now I’d like to group it all together, but I’m unable to select both images and objects at the same time.

Is there any way of selecting and grouping images and objects together in a Writer document? In both Microsoft and FreeOffice I was able to do it, though in the case of the latter I had to first click on a convert option in the Image toolbar. Can’t find a similar option on LibreOffice Writer.

Thanks in advance.

#2

It is easier to start with a frame and Insert the map and objects into it.
It isn’t too difficult to move all the objects into a frame. Probably they will maintain their relative positions.

  1. Click in a suitable place in the document and then click Insert > Frame > Frame interactively and draw a frame large enough to fit the objects.
  2. Click on the largest object then drag the anchor into the frame and release. Adjust position if required
  3. Click on the next object and drag the anchor into the frame. Adjust position of object if needed. Repeat for the other objects
  4. Adjust the size of the frame to suit its contents. Right click on the frame edge and select Properties, set border and Wrap as needed.

Map116326.odt (114.6 KB)

You can move the frame by clicking on an edge and dragging it.To avoid accidentally shifting the objects that are now anchored to the frame, you can right click each and select Position and size, in the Position and size tick the box Position

#3

Alternatively, you can group images and objects in Draw, then copy and paste them into Writer.

#4

I’d suggest here to follow @Hrbrgr as you have a complex graphical object here.

IMHO both don’t have a seperate component like Draw. So workflow is different. You may find the same when working with datasources: As the database Access is sold separate by Mucrosoft Word/Excel need their own tools, while LibreOffice will use the included component Base for this.
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I’d use frames as @EarnestAl suggested to group captions with figures or similiar topics.

#5

Images and drawing objects dont’ live in the same Writer “workspace”. Consequently it is extremely difficult to bind them.

For a similar reason, you can’t jail drawing objects inside a frame.

It is best to prepare your compound graphical material in Draw to create a group which can be pasted in Writer as an atomic unit.

Take note that images and shapes in Draw also live in different “workspaces” and you’ll meet the same difficulties. But they are easier to handle in Draw.

#6

You can jail them inside a frame, my example shows that, I would go so far as to say that it is the intended purposes of frames, to group together objects and text outside of the main flow of the document.

You can drag the frame around to anywhere on the page and all the objects remain in the same place within the frame. All are anchored to the frame so they all move with the frame and their position inside the the frame is unaffected by text in the frame.
I suggested locking their position inside the frame only to guard against accidental use of the mouse.

#7

My comment was very concise. Text is indeed constrained within the frame, but anything else is not. You can anchor an “object” in the frame and it will keep the same relative position when the frame is moved. However this relative position is not limited to frame inside area. A frame inside a frame is not clipped to the outer frame. This is very disturbing when you start to fiddle with nested frame positions. An example of this is captioning where things quickly turn awry (e.g. you paste a new image to replace the previous one and you must tune again the whole layout of the caption and associated frames).

Only anchors are “nested”, frames (in their geometric “extent”) never are. This makes it difficult to keep true nesting after a size change: the inner one in not clipped nor capped to the outer one; the outer one can’t be automatically resized to contain all inner “objects”.

There is a parallel between frame with regard to main text: there is an anchor (to define inside which page the frame will appear) and independently a position within the page. A frame anchored to some character of a frame will appear in the same page as the anchor but position is arbitrary within the page, not the frame.

The anchor hierarchy (nesting) defines the z-order of frames (I have not tested to see if I can change manually this ordering).

#8

Indeed, for normal use I would always create such a collection in Draw. If pasted as a Draw object then care is needed to set Text Attributes correctly or text can wrap unexpectedly.
It can be safer to export from Draw as svg to avoid the text issues.
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For a short document where the size is already confirmed and the collection exists on the page, then anchoring the objects in a frame does work without extra work. Resizing would be an issue if the sizes are not already set.
Simply protecting the Contents and the Size of the containing frame is enough to prevent accidental adjustment.
MapFrameContentsSizeProtected116326.odt (114.7 KB)

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