Unknown Tool

In LibreOffice Writer 5 there is a tool icon that that appears at the cursor position when a text box is left-clicked and the mouse button held down. The icon looks like a rectangle with an arrow pointing toward the 11 o’clock position. If the cursor is then moved and then the mouse button released the text box jumps across the page aligning the top line of the bounding box to the cursor position.

What is this tool called, and what is it used for, bearing in mind the cross-arrow tool can move a text box too?

That is not a separate tool, but rather a mouse pointer icon that indicates moving an object. The icon is shown at Dragging and Dropping Within a LibreOffice Document - LibreOffice Help.

When the pointer changes, the shape should be loaded in memory. For certain operations in LibreOffice, this is important, for example, Is there a UML XShape for LibreOffice? - #3 by jimk.

The pointer icon is also slightly more informative. For one thing, it makes it clearer when pressing Esc to cancel moving.

TL;DR, There’s no significant difference when moving text boxes.

Thanks.

I understand now is part of the move tool based on what you said. The link you referred me to in your second paragrpah is gobbledegook to me… above my head; not sure what it has to do with anything.

In your last paragraph you wrote “TD;DR…” I don’t know what that means either.

Enter define TL;DR, in Google to produce this definition: “TLDR. (Internet) too long; didn’t read. Used to indicate that one didn’t read the whole text. (Internet) too long; didn’t read. Used to indicate that what follows is either a summary of the overly long text, or (more likely) a non-sequitur.” In this case, I used it to indicate that is the only part that is necessary to know.

The link in the second paragraph gives an example where clicking and holding for one second is required. It is not required for your situation, but I thought it would be helpful to give a complete explanation of why it works that way.