I am entering a formula in libreoffice writer. a math formula. As if it is not hard already, i cannot also adjust the size of the formula box while entering things in there. I try to do usual thing such as clicking and dragging edges of box but it doesnt work. How can I do this?
(Now that same guy will reply again, and ask for my operating system and libre office version, as if my question is not clear enough)
The “same guy” effectively asks again and more: save format.
If we’re talking about formulas created with Math, they are inserted in your text as frames with frame style Formula.
Consequently, you must adjust properties of style Formula to give more “air” to it. Since anchor mode is As character, dragging edges has no effect (because you can’t do that on a usual character).
There you go. See how he knows himself well…
I hope someone answers who doesnt pretend not to understand that I inserted the formula by the most straightforward Insert > OLE Object > Formula object, and writes clearly, not complicated on purpose.
Have you tried customising frame style Formula? Usually all is needed is to adjust Spacing distances in Wrap
tab?
This frame style is automatically applied by Writer whenever your insert a Math formula. But, perhaps, you don’t know what a frame style is.
There are rules and guidelines for this site to keep it orderly. Please respect other users of this site especially those attempting to help.
You should look at
https://ask.libreoffice.org/faq
Also how to ask a question This is the guide - How to use the Ask site? - #3 by Hrbrgr
What has been asked to be added to the question is expected to be included in the question. It might not seem relevant to the questioner but sometimes there are exceptions, bugs, or other possibilities that affect an answer.
If you wish to download the Math Guide from Documentation - The Document Foundation Wiki then Chapter 2, Object spacing will give a fuller explanation
It’s all well and good having rules and guidelines for asking questions, but without similar rules about answering it makes the site pretty one-sided and creates a cliquey, not-welcome-here vibe. The “answers” given to tropaj look like trolling to me.
It is normal for him to wonder about the S.O. and the L.O.
Your problem can be a bug that occurs in some version / operating system.
Assuming that you are in Writer and what you want is to increase the size of the formula, you must do it by increasing the size of the source inside Math (not Writer).
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Double click on the OLE object to open in the Math Edifor and change the source size.
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OLE objects are not properly images and that is why you can not treat its as an image or drawing.
I’m using version 24.2.3.2 and when I enter a formula in the same way (Insert/OLE Object/Formula Object) it creates the OLE Object box in the document but it also opens a window at the bottom of the screen for entering the formula into. It then automatically adjusts the OLE Object box in the document to the size of the contents.
Are you trying to adjust the size of the OLE Object box in the document instead of using the formula window at the bottom of the screen?
If the OP was hitting the same issue I’m seeing in 25.2.3.2 what was happening would be that the OLE object box was not automatically resizing to match the formula. If you right click the OLE box in Writer and go Properties… → Position and Size → width and the related options is greyed out even though size isn’t protected and (I think as expected) there’s no set of changes which unlocks them. Similarly, you get a on the handles to resize the box and can’t do anything there. It appears you’re just stuck with impressively terrible equation formatting.
What I found is if I used the separator handle to change the size of the formula window at the bottom of Writer then the OLE box started autosizing as expected. So looks like Libre’s got a bug where autosize doesn’t necessarily start up as expected that’s somehow related to the size of UX elements. This is not intuitive.
@calliotrope Formula objects are inserted as frames in Writer text. The auto style is Formula. Such a frame is anchored As character. The formula is therefore made part of the text flow as a [huge] character. Just like there is no handle to resize a character, As character frames can’t be manually resized. You can however play with other parameters of the frame, such as its spacing in the Wrap
tab.
Other than that, formula size is managed inside Math where you change the size of the various elements with menu item or description language commands.
Yes, I’m aware (it’s in the UX for the most part and discussed here and in some other related threads that come up in search). None of those spacing options are helpful to fix autosize not working, though. The problem I was getting is Writer decides your huge equation character is 5 cm or 16 cm wide or something, instead of its actual 2 cm width or whatever, and apparently no part of Libre gives an option to manually turn on autosize to snap the width to the correct value. So your equation typesetting’s no good because of all of the extra whitespace that’s inserted (I didn’t check but also long equations might get clipped).
Math standalone, rather than in the formula window, seems irrelevant here. For me it just wants to save out to a separate file rather than to update the OLE object Writer has. If I save it out and then put the .odf into Writer all that happens every Libre app that’s open hangs for several seconds. The inserted equation doesn’t end up in the document.
If you can’t get autosize unstuck a workaround I’ve used is to save to .docx, insert the equation in Word, and then go back to Writer, which at least for me would then autosize correctly. Not great for using Libre as a full Office replacement but it’s better than nothing.
Attach a sample file for analysis.
A lot has happened between v24.2.3.2 and 25.2.3.2 - a whole year for starters. I suggest you check the release notes for all releases since 24.2.3.2 to see if any of those changes affect this issue.