Textbox copy converts to image when pasted in Apple LO version 24.2.1.2

English
#1

I have a textbox I use as a plaque in various places spread over 10 or 15 pages of text in a Writer document. I recently upgraded from LO Mac 7.4.6.2, the older, stable version, to the LO version noted below. In the older version, the text box would remain editable when I copied it, moved it to a new location and pasted it back into the document. I could then edit and change the text in the pasted box. However, in the LO version noted below, it now only pastes an uneditable image. I can work around this by selecting and option-dragging the copy of the text box to the new location. It remans editable when I let go of the drag in the new location. But that’s quite inconvenient if I have to drag it 15 or 20 pages each time. Is there some setting in LO Writer that has changed, or that I can change, that will allow the text box to remain editable when it is copied/pasted via my system clipboard.

Version: 24.2.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: db4def46b0453cc22e2d0305797cf981b68ef5ac
CPU threads: 12; OS: macOS 14.3.1; UI render: default; VCL: osx
Locale: en-CA (en_CA.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

#2

Are you using a clipboard manager? They often reduce the number of paste options among other issues.

#3

Using text boxes is usually a bad idea because drawing objects are “alien” objects relative to text and its management.


A better approach is to insert [text] frames which can be centrally controlled with a style and have their relationship to main text configurable by many parameters.


Depending on your usage of these “text boxes”, there may be other more efficient solutions. Please provide an example and even a sample file.

#4

When you copied the box to clipboard: what are the options shown to you, when you press a small arrow next to Paste toolbar button?

image

#5

I am, but I wasn’t using it for this straight-forward copy and paste.

#6

Thanks! I’ll will explore this concept!

#7

Thank you! I had never even noticed the options there. Up to this point I was just using keyboard commands. Having said that, three of those options paste an image. The only one that works properly for my purposes is the first one, the LibreOffice 24.2 Text document. That’s exactly what I want, as the resultant paste gives text that is fully editable. Is there a way to make that the default paste?

#8

I have noticed that the text box concept I’ve been using can’t be found using the standard Find or Find and Replace for text, though I haven’t explored the various Find options in the Find and Replace dialogue box yet.

#9

Here’s a screenshot of one my boxes inserted in a line for positioning, with the text wrapping on the left of the box:

Image on 2024-03-04 11.23.53 AM
Image on 2024-03-04 11.23.53 AM882×600 86 KB

#10

I was trying to adjust the Roman numerals to match the modern numbers at the top.

#11

And this is to be expected. Text Boxes (like all drawing objects) are totally estranged to text. If you want “textual contents” to be recognised as secondary text flows, use frames. As already mentioned, frames are more versatile than drawing objects and are indeed managed as sub-documents with all formatting possibilities.

#12

Thanks! That helps, too!

#13

Now I’m puzzled. I confess to being a relative newbie with LO. I’ve only been using it daily for a year. I tried… well, wrestled with, trying to duplicate my text box as a frame, as suggested. I want to pause here to say thanks for the suggestion. I appreciate that from the folks here.

I finally got the frame tamed, but it bounced around a bit and fought me.

I selected the frame box and copied it. No complaint from LO.

Pasted it elsewhere. Nothing happened. Nothing appeared. Then I realized, after looking more at the Help section discussion of Frame, that it doesn’t copy “the contents, size, position…” Which is part of what I wanted copied.

So I tried Cloning the format and applying the paintbrush to a virgin frame of random size I manually created. Nope. Nothing seemed to happen.

I tried creating a new Style from my designed frame, and then applying the new style to a new frame of random dimensions that I manually created. It applied the correct border line, but that was all. Everything else: size, wrap, position, text and the text formatting… are not duplicated.

On the other hand, I can easily copy my fully designed text box and paste it (by manually selecting one of four specific paste methods, the one that is not the default) wherever I want, with all of the necessary design and text attributes and copy going along with the paste.

So, unless i’m missing something, the easily duplicated text box does what I want and with a minor workaround, goes where I want and I can easily edit the text in it, but its text cannot be found by search-and-replace or other tools. I couldn’t find any setting or preference that would change the default behaviour of the paste method to the only one of the four that works properly.

A frame version does not seem to do any of that via copy/paste or other means of replication, but its text can be found by search-and-replace, etc.

Seems… odd.

#14

The default for copying from a Writer document and pasting back into a Writer document is as LibreOffice x.x Text Document.

Something else is interfering with the clipboard

#15

There was something interfering with my LO paste. Thanks for letting me know. It’s fixed and Copy/Paste is working as expected now. Much appreciated (and relieved!).

#16

Frames are much much more sensitive to direct formatting (DF) and this DF is more difficult to eliminate (because Ctrl+M operates only on paragraph and character settings). When using frame styles, don’t “touch” in any manual way the frame afterwards. With this precaution, frame control is reliable and predictable.

#17

Thank you.

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