I’m trying to edit a document in LibnreOffice Writer for the first time since switching to Linux from Windows. I want to set the paragraph indent, but the measurements in the Format Paragraph window are set to “ch”, even though I went to Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > View and set measurements to be in inches. I’d much rather work in inches for widths, thank you very much. Is there any way to do so?
I am surprised to be having this problem, because the setting in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > View and the Format Paragraph window worked quite well together in the Windows version.
Seriously, though, how does using character-width as a unit of measure work when fonts are proportional? I tried setting a few values, just for the hell of it. and it appears that there is a great inconsistency in what a ‘ch’ is. A 1.0-ch indent is appears to be 1/8 of an inch, but a 4.0-ch indent is noticeably more than 1/2 an inch. A 12.0-ch indent comes to 1.75" or so.
On top of that, the width of 1.0 ch bears no relation to the font size, so if I set a four-character indent I get the same indention, regardless of whether the point size of the font is 6 or 26. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.