Text Box Disappears [solved]

English
#1

I’m using LibreOffice Writer. Version: 7.3.7.2 / LibreOffice Community. Running Linux Mint 21.2 64 bit Xfce.

Text boxes seem to randomly disappear.

I create a text box, put some text in it, and change the attributes to shade the background of the text box. I do some other minor editing of the document, then exit Writer while saving the document.

Later when I come back, the text is still there. But the shading is gone. As far as I can tell, the text box itself has disappeared, but left the text.

I haven’t been able to discover any pattern as to why this happens.

I read the past threads on this issue from 5 years go but they didn’t solve my problem, in so far as I could understand them.

Thank you for your help.

#2

In which file format do you save?

1 Like
#3

I’ve been editing and saving in .odt.

I don’t know where the file originated from. It’s possible it started out as .docx, but the whole time I’ve used it, it’s been .odt.

#4

Inserting text boxes is usually a bad idea because text boxes are “drawing objects” which don’t collaborate well with text. A better approach is to use text frames over which you have full control. They provide many more formatting possibilities than text boxes and can be styled.

Explain your ultimate goal (in typographical and semantic terms without reference to any possible implementation) so than we can suggest an ad-hoc solution.

#5

Thank you, @ajlittoz. I will look into how text frames work.

I was able to determine that these files were all originally .docx, then converted to .odt. I have been working with them as .odt files.

Each file is a book chapter. Certain paragraphs are highlighted in a shaded gray background. The ones that came to me as already highlighted seem to be fine. Where I’ve had trouble is when I’ve tried to insert a new shaded text box during my updates. Some of the text boxes have disappeared entirely. To this point, I haven’t been able to discern any pattern.

Here’s what I’ll do as a work-around. (1) Learn about text frames (2) I will create an entirely new .odt file from scratch, copy-and-paste over information – except for text boxes. Those I will create anew. Since I have a small number of files where this is an issue, this will be a decent work-around.

If I ever figure out a pattern or definitive information as to why this is happening, I will post it. Meanwhile I’ll mark this thread Solved.

Thank you for your help.

#6

A very good idea!

Have a look at:

Frame in Writer

English documentation

#7

This is probably the best solution because conversion has brought in its load of inaccuracies and approximations. However care to copy as unformatted so that all meta-information is erased. This will guarantee that any M$O idiosyncrasies remnant is eliminated. Of course, this means you’ll have to restyle everything. Prefer styles over direct formatting. This really makes formatting your document more comfortable.

#8

If the shaded paragraphs don’t need to be moved around and are inside the margins, then a paragraph style with a shaded background might suffice.

Text boxes and frames are anchored to a single position, if the character sharing that position is deleted then so is the box or frame so care must be taken during editing.

#9

Thank you all for the excellent help and good ideas. Wow, what a great community here.

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