Libreoffice writer - document breaks up

[matt0555]

Dear All,

I have encountered a weird issue in libreoffice writer, version below

It seems like page breaks are randomly placed after paragraphs, lists, equations or images even though there is enough place for it on the current page. When I try using “delete” to bring the shifted content of the next page back to the previous page it only brings back one item (line) not all the content that can fit. It’s bit hard to properly explain so I made a video and as I can’t upload it here I put it on youtube - LibreOffice writer - document breaks up - YouTube.

I can’t upload the whole document because there is lot of private text in it and when I start to delete the text, the issue often disappears.
When I “fix it” and save the document it often re-appears, e.g. in the document in the video, when I save the document and re-open it,
the “Test” heading is the only thing on the page and the list is on the next page again.

Some other details

1. I have been using libreoffice for quite a while and haven’t encountered this issue on the older versions (first happened with 7.4.5, then installed 7.4.6 but still occuring)
2. happened in more than one document; documents created in the current version (i.e. not modifying documents from older versions or MS word)
3. it doesn’t happen immediatelly, usually documents with more than 10 pages
   (I suspect that it starts happening after inserting images and equation but I’m not sure)
4. I insert pictures using copy in flameshot and paste in writer
5. I insert equations using fn + F3 method
6. it’s hard to troubleshoot because the break doesn’t seem to happen on the page that I’m currently writing; I write, add pictures, quations, than skim through the document and find these weird breaks.
7. it is super annoying, currently I fix the documents (often needing to reformat), print to PDF to get a presentable document. Then I save the document and when I reopen it is screwed up again.

Has anyone encountered this issue? Can you, please, advise?

Thank you.

[ajlittoz]

It is not clear if you save your document as .odt or .doc(x). Writer manages correctly its native .odt document but frequently bumps into compatibility issues with .doc(x).

Without you document, it is very hard to diagnose the problem. Your video itself is useless because it is too blurry and we don’t see which paragraph style is in effect. We can, though, infer that you applied direct formatting which usually cause formatting hell.

At this stage, my only guess would be you have a Keep with next paragraph attribute enabled where it should not. The best thing you can do is to attach the sample file you used for your video and clearly explain what we should look at inside.

[matt0555]

Thank you for the reply.

1. created as .odt, saved as .odt.
2. video might not be 1080p but the text is readable and it was made to illustrate the issue better than my words
3. uploading a sample - removed all the other content, saved, reopened, the issue partially remains

• after reopeing, the first list “1-8” and part of the second list “1-16” is placed on the page 1 with the heading “Test” (before deleting all the other content from the document, there was nothing on this page except for the heading, as seen in the video)
• pressing “delete” after list item “16” on page 1 only brings the text of the item “17” from page 2
• I would expect that pressing “delete” will bring all the content from page 2 that can fit on the remaining place of page 1, the item “22” should still definitely fit on page 1

test.odt (29.5 KB)

[ajlittoz]

You’re the one to blame. You messed up the organisation of paragraph styles (the tree-like structure corresponding to the inheritance rules) by making Text Body a descendant of Heading. After that Text Body inherits properties from Heading (except where attributes are overridden). In particular, Keep with next paragraph is enabled in Heading to avoid separating headings from their contents. Consequently all your lines request to be kept on the same page as an atomic block. Of course since all you document can’t be laid out on a single page, Writer wil split the block(s) somewhat arbitrarily.

Fix: revert Text Body to an “independent” style by dragging its name in the side stylepane over Default Paragraph Style.

There are also many issues in your sample cause by systematic use of direct formatting. Styles are your friends to make a distinction between the various semantic significance of paragraphs (like you already use them to discriminate headings with Heading n from common text with Text Body), words (this is the role from character styles, e.g. to highlight word DONE in green), pages and lists.

Your list have been created by applying Format>Bullets & Numbering over Text Body. A better method (but rather difficult for beginners) is to create a dedicated list style (which will characterise the nature or type of you list). This style is either applied as direct formatting over a paragraph or associated to a specific paragraph style (thus making automatic the transformation from ordinary paragraph to list item).

Format>Bullets & Numbering is a compatibility feature offered to users coming from Word to spare them the pain to learn the sophisticated list engine in Writer. But it comes with many tweaks which, in the end, complicate your life.

Learn how to use styles and py special attention to the text flow attributes. At least, read the Writer Guide.

[matt0555]

Never said it was the Writers fault :). Still, I didn’t do it on purpose, I have no idea how I managed to put the text body there.

Thank you for the fix and the explanations. I will read the guide and do better.

Cheers