What is this light-grey vertical cursor shape in my Writer document?

English
#1

One of my Writer documents has a light-grey vertical cursor shape, as you can see just after “3.2.1” in the screenshot.

Light grey cursor shape

Nothing that I do gets rid of it, and I can’t even move it. It just sits there before the first letter in that sentence, even if I type something else. Closing LibreOffice and reopening it, even restarting the computer, makes no difference. I have no idea how it got there nor what it means. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it elsewhere.

What does that sign mean, please, and how do I remove it?

Thank you

LibreOffice version

Version: 25.2.4.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 33e196637044ead23f5c3226cde09b47731f7e27
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-GB
Flatpak
Calc: threaded

OS: Linux Ubuntu 22.04

#2

This is a marker to tell you there is a bookmark at this location. This marker never prints. You can keep it as a useful reminder there is some special markup there.

If however you really insist on getting rid of this clue (IMHO this is a bad idea because you lose some awareness about what is effectively present in your document), you can configure it in Tools>Options, LO Writer>Formatting Aids where you find a check box labelled Bookmarks.

If you are worried about this hint, ask yourself if a bookmark is relevant. A heading (as it seems the paragraph is part of the outline) can always be referenced without the need of an explicit bookmark.

3 Likes
#3

Thank you for the detailed explanation!

I guess that I must have added a bookmark accidentally, because I have no need of one in this document.

If however you really insist on getting rid of this clue (IMHO this is a bad idea…

Yes, I agree with you that it’s a bad idea. I’d rather delete the unnecessary bookmark.

My problem now is that when I open Navigator to delete the bookmark, it’s not listed (screenshot below).

No bookmarks
No bookmarks335×515 27.1 KB

I checked that it really is a bookmark by turning off the clue as you suggested, and yes, the symbol did disappear from view (I’ve turned it back on again).

So, I’m stuck. Navigator says that there’s no bookmark, but the sign says that it is a bookmark.

Do you know what I can do next, please?

#4

Send me your document through private mail (or reduce it to the offending part, making sure the clue still displays, and attach it to a comment).

1 Like
#5

Thank you for the offer to look at the document!

I’ve reduced the document to just a few nondescript paragraphs. I noticed that there was a second paragraph elsewhere in the document with the same problem, so I’ve included both of them in the document.

Having been renumbered as a result of shortening, they are at the start of sections 1.1.1 and 2.1.

I attach the document here, as it contains no personal or private information.

Reduced.odt (12.9 KB)

(Edit: I don’t know why my paragraph breaks are being reduced in my comments.)

#6

Has your document ever been in contact with M$ Word?

When looking at the XML, I find two bookmark definitions with nmes starting as __RefNumPara__999__some-long-number. After tweaking a bit (erasing initial double underscore and shortening last number), the bookmark becomes an ordinary one and is listed in the Navigator.

The XML also shows your document is entirely direct formatted except for a manual application of list style List 1 (however, when the style side pane is focused on list styles, this is reported as Bullet • which has been patched for numbers !!! It can be done but is rather confusing).

You should try to remove direct formatting (DF) and style methodically your document. DF will always play nasty tricks on your back. At least it inflates the size of the document. It impacts performance because every formatting is a unique occurrence and Writer can’t cache the formatting like it does with pure style application (it must recompute formatting on every occurrence).

I assume you’re complaining about AskLO. It is basically an HTML site and HTML rules apply. In particular, sequences of whitespace characters are merged into a single occurrence. So, multiple returns (in comments, but strangely not in answers) are reduced to a single one.

To space my paragraphs, I prefix them with <br>. It inserts vertical spacing above the paragraph by requesting a full-fledged line break.

1 Like
#7

These are the bookmarks created when a cross-reference to a numbered paragraph is created. So it is likely, that cross-references were created for those paragraphs.

The issue is, that this specific type of internal bookmark should not show in the text body, the same way as it doesn’t appear in Navigator.

1 Like
#8

But you can “navigate” to them.
imagen

#9

Sorry, I don’t remember how it was first created!


As you’ve found that it was manually formatted, that probably means that it was something that I inherited.


Yes, that's correct. Thanks, I'll try out [br] (I can't find out how to display the angle brackets).
#10

I think that you got it! These were indeed referenced, although not in the reduced version obviously.

#11

That doesn’t work for me.

#12

Since < is THE fundamental delimiter in HTML (introducing a tag), you can’t enter it literally (because it must start a valid HTML tag). So to display a left angle bracket in LO:

  • enclose it between grave accents like `<`
  • or write it as &lt;
  • or precede it with a reverse solidus like \< (reverse solidus is the AskLO escape mechanism)
1 Like
#13

Ah, thank you! I had tried the reverse solidus, but for whatever reason it didn’t like it.

Practice:

  • Grave accents <br>
  • As &lt; and &gt; <br>
  • With reverse solidus <br>

Ah, this time they all work! Thank you.

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