Writer Navigator Headings don't update if cursor changes position in a doc

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#1

When a Navigator Heading is double-clicked, the cursor and view change to show that selected heading in the document. All good so far.

But if I then scroll, or otherwise mover through the document, such that the cursor is in a different Heading to the one just double-clicked, then the hightlighted heading showing in the navigator should change to reflect where the cursor is. It doesn’t. I believe that this is the default behaviour in Word.

It’s extremely usful to have the navigator change the highlighted Heading to reflect the cursor position - for example if I search for some text and the main view changes to show the text, then it’s useful to see from the highlighted Heading in the Navigator where this is the in the document.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed, or mis-understood, something. Any advice greatefully received.

#2

You didn’t mention OS name, LO version nor save format.

Under Fedora 40 with KDE Plasma desktop (in case this is relevant), Writer 7.6.7.2 and 24.2.* behave exactly as you describe. When my cursor moves, the current heading is highlighted (with automatic expansion if the chapter was “closed”).

Are you sure you have styled your headings with Heading n style family?

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#3

Hi, oops, sorry - Win11, Writer 7.3, and saving as .dot.

I’ve no idea what Fedora or KDE are. I’ve just checked for updates and “LibreOffice 7.3 is up to date.”

Re: styling - yes, 100% sure headings are properly styled.

Is it strange that you get the ‘correct’ behaviour and I don’t?

#4

Is this a typo? Do you mean .odt? .dot is an old file extension for M$ Word document template.

#5

Yeah, sorry, it was late - I did, of course, mean “saving as .odt”.

#6

In LibreOffice Writer 7.3.1.3, Windows 11:

  • If I use the down arrow key or PgDn the cursor moves and the new position is shown in Navigator.
  • If I scroll down, the cursor remains at its original position and Navigator also shows the original position.

Same with LibreOffice 24.2.3.2

If it doesn’t do that for you, does it do it in Safe Mode (Help > Restart in safe mode > Continue in safe mode)?

#7

Where/how did you check this?

PS:

Fedora is a distribution (variant) of Linux, and there you can choose between desktops. Compare it to variants from Win7-Aero optics to Win11. So he uses KDE, others would be gnome, xfce etc.
.
On your original question EarnestAl had already remarked: When you only scroll the cursor is not moved. So navigator would only show an updated position, after you click at a new position…

#8

Woa, so much great help - thanks all…So, in turn and hopefully not missing anything:

In the OP I did say “scroll”, but went on to say “such that the cursor is in a different Heading”: You are of course right, Scrolling doesn’t move the cursor, so that was my bad. What I was meaning (and completely understand) is that the cursor has moved from the original position and is now located in a part of the doc under a new heading. Sorry for the confusion!

So I tried Restart in Safe Mode and it worked - at least partially. In the first (about) 1/3rd of the doc the behaviour was exactly as I was wanting and as described by you all. After that, the navigator frequently updated (on cursor position change in the doc) to various entries in the bookmark section of Navigator. When I flip back to non-Safe Mode the behaviour is lost completely.

I checked for updates in Tools>Check for Updates…

#9

OK, I’ve run out of time just at the mo, will do more later today. But I think there might be an issue with Bookmarks in my doc. There are a number that were broken. When I delete these, I get back some of the desired behaviour (when in non-Safe Mode). There are several screenfuls of DdeLink listed in under Bookmarks in the Navigator. I’m not sure why so many - I definitely set up a handful of bookmarks but no where near this many. Let me investigate further and I’ll report back.

Thanks for everything so far :+1:

#10

OK, I’m back again. I basically deleted all the bookmarks in the doc. There were loads of them, all unintentional. I’ve seen somewhere else a suggestion that these might arise when copying and pasting. Well I’ve certainly done loads of that for this current doc, so maybe that’s where they came from.

So, with no unintended bookmarks, the ‘highlight a heading in Navigator as cursor moves’ seems fully restored.

Very grateful for all the help and advice, and I’ll know what to look out for in the future.

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