Inserting sections causing glitches/issues?

English
#1

I am inserting sections to separate endnotes for my book. However, after the insertion of such sections, I stumbled upon an unexpected glitches with text flow. I had a two line paragraph which was initially on the beginning of Pg. 26. After inserting a section from pg. 1-100, this two line paragraph shifted to Pg. 25, but only the first line was visible. The second line was on neither Pg. 25 or 26.

I am working with a 400 page book, doing the very last bits. I am therefore concerned that there are more glitches of this kind scattered around my text caused by inserting sections.

Have people had formatting/text flow glitches from inserting sections before? Does it make sense for me to? Is there are way such glitches can be either avoided or identified without me having to read through the entire book from start to finish?

Thank you

(edit: using Linux Mint, LibreOffice Version 25.2.4.3 Flatpak, saving files as odt)

#2

Please include the following information with all inquiries: operating system, LibreOffice version (four digits, e.g., 25.2.4.3), file type in which the file is saved. Thank you.

#3

You are describing a bug. It is not something expected, and not something easily “identifiable”. Most important, this is something requiring a fix, and for that, it needs a bug report with a sample problematic document.

#4

Sections may introduce spacing issues because their box model is not as “regular” as those for pages or paragraphs. This may result in loss of spacing above or below in lead or trailing paragraphs of the sections. Therefore, some paragraphs may shift a bit and this cumulates along the document.

However, this effect is highly dependent on how you format your document. How do you do it? With styles exclusively, direct formatting (and here I think specifically of empty paragraphs to create vertical spacing) or a mix of both.

Please provide a reduced sample of your document, at least to evaluate the “quality” of your formatting.

#5

using Linux Mint, LibreOffice Version 25.2.4.3 Flatpak, saving files as odt

#6

I’m formatting exclusively using styles.

Sorry it’s difficult for me to provide a reduced sample of the document as the problem is only occurring within a large section of a large book.

But I’m very interested to know more about the spacing issues. Each paragraph is formatted according to its style, some of which have before and after spacing set. I don’t use blank paragraphs to create more space.

This problem occurred in a rare instance where I used “tab” to indent, alongside defined tab measurements in the paragraph style, allowing me to format text messages whereby the speaker name is indented, followed by another another gap where the message from the speaker appears.

But please, fixing this specific instance isn’t my priority right now. My main priority is understanding how sections may affect my formatting more generally and how I can identify any additional issues that may have occurred.

If it has affected my formatting in additional ways, I may need to do ditch sections altogether.

#7

See bug tdf#137069.

I understand you usage of sections is motivated by the desire to collect endnotes at end of each chapter.

This can be solved by a hangin indent paragraph without any additional tab stops.

Define indent Before text wide enough to host speaker name, e.g. 2cm. Set First line indent to the negated value of this value, e.g. -2cm.

In such a configuration, the left indent acts as an implicit tab stop and you’re 100% sure left indent and tab stop are exactly the same (otherwise due to conversion they may differ by a tiny bit and this is enough to mess up your layout).

It is likely that your document is private and bigger than the post limit. However I can have a look at it if you agree but transmission must be made private through some upload service (to send the URL, send me a private message).
#8

Thank you for everything.

Unforunately while trying to spot additional errors, I found the exact same problem but with a normally formatted paragraph. (same simple style as most paragraphs).

The only way to fix it was by deleting the section it was in.

I think I’ll have to do without sections. It’s too risky.

I will need to create separate documents for each separation in endnotes in my book. To bring the book together, I will need to export the PDFs and use a PDF editor to compile them.

The challenge I now face is finding a PDF editor which allows PDFs to be added together and their pages rearranged, while preserving the links of the endnotes, so that clicking on an in-text endnote will bring me to the correct endnote page.

Any suggestions welcome.

PDF arranger is fantastic except for how it breaks the links.

OnlyOffice allows for the rearranging of pages while preserving links, but I only managed to get this to work for a small test doc, not a larger one. Also, it doesn’t allow multiple PDFs to be added together.

LibreDraw has a very serious bug when working with PDFs whereby it ignores text alignment and causes text to bleed off page.

Scribus also preserves links at a basic level but I’m concerned it may like LibreDraw causes problems since likewise converting the PDF into another format to allow for editing/rearrangement.

My remaining options are PDFChain/PDFtk, cpdf, jpdftweak, MasterPDF Editor, PDF Sam, Adobe Acrobat (via Wine), and PDF-Xchange (via Wine).

It’d be really useful if anyone has info on which of these may or may not work at allowing multiple PDFs to be added together and their pages rearranged while preserving the links between them.

I’d test them all if it wasn’t so costly to do so (either paying money for easy-to-use software, or spending hours trying to figure out how to do the basics of difficult-to-use software just to test something).

But once I’m confident in a software I’ll be willing to pay and/or overcome any learning curve.

#9

Draw is not a PDF editor. It opens PDF files and sees them as a collection of graphics objects. In particular, text is arranged as a series of 1-line (or partial line) text boxes. There is no text alignment concept in PDF. All strings are x×y-positioned on the sheet. Then the string “develops” itself “naturally” according to font metrics. Visual alignment failure is caused by a missing font: it is not installed on your system nor it is embedded in the PDF.

Have you considered footnotes instead of endnotes? If your notes are rather short, it would be fine and your readers no longer need to flip pages.

Is this paragraph located at the beginning or end of a section?

#10

Sigh. Your priorities are yours. But without people doing their share of work to file bugs, there can’t be any improvement.

#11

I’ve come across quite a few bugs since using Libre Office, most of which were reported a decade or more ago and not fixed.

Like for example, that issue I mention about Libre Draw breaking the alignment of PDF files. It makes it quite disheartening to go through the effort of reporting. Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if my bug is fixed my devs asap, I presume it won’t be rolled out for another, what, six months? I gotta finish formatting this book next week. I’ll come back and report another time.

#12

… and OTOH, there are bugs fixed the day they get reported.

Bugfixes are included into the next bugfix release.

#13

Draw is not a PDF editor. It opens PDF files and sees them as a collection of graphics objects. In particular, text is arranged as a series of 1-line (or partial line) text boxes. There is no text alignment concept in PDF. All strings are x×y-positioned on the sheet. Then the string “develops” itself “naturally” according to font metrics. Visual alignment failure is caused by a missing font: it is not installed on your system nor it is embedded in the PDF.

I don’t think you’re right about it being about a missing font. I don’t understand how a font installed in Writer isn’t installed in Draw. Anything I’ve ever opened in Draw was a PDF exported that same day in Writer

Have you considered footnotes instead of endnotes? If your notes are rather short, it would be fine and your readers no longer need to flip pages.

I use footnotes for short notes, endnotes for long notes and references.

Is this paragraph located at the beginning or end of a section?

Middle of section. But both cases of this bug occurring where on first page of a chapter, which begins with a title paragraph with substantial spacing above and below.

#14

Just a thought: Have you tried to open your file using Apache OpenOffice?
Before you proceed: Make a copy of your file for this test, as (AFAIK) OpenOffice does not use the latest version of ODF so features in your file may be lost in the process. Do not experiment with your main “work in progress” file.

Disclaimer

On my MS Windows systems, OpenOffice and LibreOffice live happily side by side. Not sure about the situation on your system. With linux you may need to activate other repositories for your app manager, or install from file, or there may be an unresolvable conflict between the apps. Proceed with caution!

Why this?

I occasionally see some regressions in LibreOffice which are not in OpenOffice. If that is the case for your situation, you may be temporarily helped by OpenOffice. Note that other undesired changes may occur, though, due to file format/functionality features not supported by OpenOffice. Also, opening large files in AOO can be VERY slow on some systems.

If you find that this resolves your current issue, it might then also constitute an additional guide for the LO developers, should you eventually choose to submit a bug report.

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