- LibreOffice Writer
- 6 images in a 1x3 table (2 images per cell)
- Different image heights (can’t be changed)
- Text above images in cells 2 and 3
- Need images to align horizontally at bottom
OS name, LO version (exact number, not “latest”), save format.
Attach a sample file so that we have an idea about your formatting skills and LO experience.
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Unfortunately, the document is a CV with confidential and sensitive data. I will think of an easy redaction solution.
All 6 images are now set as below:
Libre Office Community Version 7.4.7.2 → document → header → table → cells 1 to 3 → images 1-6 → right click → Properties… → Position and Size → Vertical: Top → by: 0.00 cm → to: Base line → OK.
Cell 1 → Images 1 and 2 are near the base line.
Cell 2 → Images 3 and 4 are higher from the base table line.
Cell 3 → Images 5 and 6 are same as Images 3 and 4.
I need Cell 1 Images 1 and 2 to be at the same height as Images 3-6. Images 1 and 2 are perfectly nice and tight near the bottom table line. Images 3-6 are too high up from the table base line.
Images 3-6 have 2 lines of text above them.
Specifications:
OS: Raspberry Pi5 desktop OS
Libre Writer Version: 7.4.7.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 40(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.12; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-AU (en_AU.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Debian package version: 4:7.4.7-1+deb12u9
Calc: threaded
More for nerds:
=== SYSTEM INFORMATION ===
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Kernel: 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-2712
Architecture: aarch64
=== DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT ===
Session Type: wayland
Desktop: labwc:wlroots
Compositor: /usr/bin/labwc
Wayland Display: wayland-0
=== THEME CONFIGURATION ===
GTK Theme: ‘PiXflat’
Icon Theme: ‘Mint-Y’
=== THEME FILES INSTALLED ===
Themes in ~/.themes/:
Icons in ~/.icons/:
=== PYTHON/TKINTER ===
Python: Python 3.11.2
Tkinter: 8.6
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 1, in
_tkinter.TclError: invalid command name “tk”
Tk Backend:
Replace every letter and digit with “x”.
There are many more subtleties in image (more generally frame) positioning. And you didn’t tell anything about their anchor. Since you’re talking about base line, I assume you inserted them As character. But then arranging them relative to each other highly depends on their sizes (both vertical and horizontal).
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Text redaction is easy.
It’s the 6 images I’m working on.
Use rectangles of the same size, but create them as images with same format as yours. Don’t insert drawing objects (shapes) if ther aren’t already shapes because drawing objects behave slightly differently from images.
One point to watch is to handle to Writer images to be used “as is”. If you crop, scale or resize them within Writer, you introduce potential problems.
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All I do is screenshot an image → drag and drop into document → resize.
This works on other document formats, but I thought I’d try odt.
If it’s simple, great.
Right now, I’m confused what is happening to my normally working workflow?
Positioning predictively and reliably images at first shot (without manual tweaking) is one of the most difficult tasks in Writer. It requires careful choice of the anchor and abstraction of the “geometric” properties of the image.
in this realm of subtleties (and instabilities), a screenshot does not help. If you’re really seeking fruitful advice, attached an anonymised 1-page sample out of your document. Failing that, I am in the blue.
I already see a complication: you resize inside Writer. Though it can be done without trouble (despite the fact that Writer is not an image processing program, thus just providing very basic functions), you are in a complex case where you want images to live peacefully side by side.
Note that images are extremely sensible and vulnerable to direct formatting which has a devastating effect on them.
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curriculum_vitae_name_202512160900.odt (16.1 KB)
I attached an anonymised odt, but I can’t even paste in new images, the document just shows what looks like a header field?
There are no images in the sample.
There is considerable direct formatting. You also have “rearranged” style dependencies (making those you use descendants of LO-Normal). This name is very suspect: has your document ever been handled by M$ Word? I am afraid the answer is yes considering the number of stray character and list styles. The structure of your document is perhaps already damaged beyond repair.
A golden rule with any application is: always work in native format.
Meanwhile, send a sample with images.
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Originally created in Google docs as docx file, but I converted to odt.
Are you saying wipe the whole file and start fresh in odt?
I have doubts re the images, I pasting into this document has some strange behaviours.
Google docs is know to deeply damage structure of documents. Conversion from DOCX to ODF (odt) adds it load of “pollution”.
If you want to restart from blank, paste as unformatted text your existing text data to save time. Then apply styles (except so-called “table styles” which are not styles) and ban direct formatting to guarantee stability.
The issue with images remains totally unsolved at this stage until I can have an idea.
I’ve created a new odt file with the header where I’m having trouble.
I’m able to add a header, a table 1x3 and text.
However images are tricky.
Just copying and pasting brought up a strange LibreOffice Writer prompt: Insert Section → Insert → strange box from left to right appears and no image (not important at this stage, but ignore the empty box which won’t delete or undo?).
So I dragged and dropped images into the main page which worked.
Cutting the page’s images and pasting into the header begins al sorts of alignment issues, so I’ll leave the attachment here for some sage advice.
testdoc.odt (34.6 KB)
Right click the “strange box”, select Edit Section and untick Protect, OK (or click Remove button to delete it). Click inside the section and press Alt+Enter to add a paragraph before the section if desired. Add images as described below.
The simplest way to line up images along their bottom edge is to draw a horizontal line (hold down Shift to constrain to 45 degree increments) that extends beyond the margins to make it easy to delete. As you drag images the bottom of the image will tend to snap to the line, it is quite a gentle snap so a little care is needed. Delete the line after the images are aligned. If the rest of the documents wants to jump in between then right click the image and select Wrap > None
It might be best to insert a margin-to-margin frame, sized high enough to easily include the highest image. Draw the line and then drag the images into the frame, aligned along the line. Make sure the anchor is to the character (paragraph mark) inside the frame. When all the images are aligned inside the frame, the line can be deleted. The frame can then be dragged anywhere in the document by selecting the frame (will show 8 square handles) and dragging it.
Tables can be used to hold the frames but they are not so mobile and it can be a bit tricky
Below is a sample with the images in a section, in a paragraph, in a table and in a frame.
testdoc130068EA.odt (52.9 KB)
Note that image position is defined by the top left corner so different height images would need a little maths to define position by coordinates
I don’t trust drag’n’drop because you never know for sure where the anchor will end up (present cursor position? but dragging moves it). My preferred procedure is to copy the image, click wher I want the anchor to be and paste.
In your case, your images are not in the header and they are all anchored to the same location. To make things worse you applied direct formatting (moving them with the mouse or setting coordinated explicitly). When I paste them into the table cell, they become offset to the right (because the anchor in the middle and right cells is not at left margin).
Additionally, Allow overlap is ticked. I don’t know why developers changed the default setting from unticked to ticked in some past release, but IMHO this is a very bad choice because it disables automatic conflict resolution (which is a must when you play with frame styles).
This is the first problem. The second problem is related to image/frame insertion in tables.
Frames interact with text only through their wrap property. They have a weak interaction between themselves through the Allow overlap setting (only when unticked). And they have absolutely no interaction with table cell, notably their size. This means the table cell will not grow to “contain” the image.
Fix for table
Since a table is problematic, the idea is to avoid tables. This is easy. Built-in Header paragraph style has tab stops located at centre and right position of the page. Centre location is centred and right one is right-aligned. Consequently you just enter standard paragraphs (styled Header) with data for left cell, Tab, data for centre, Tab, data for right cell; line per line.
This takes care of your header text.
Fix for images
This one is trickier because I just discovered a bug in image handling when they are in the header: even with wrap off, header is not extended to hold the images. It looks like wrap property is ignored.
= EDIT =
I file a bug report about this. It is at tdf#170038
= END OF EDIT =
So, we must turn images into characters to handle them like text and apply the same trick as above.
The images are then anchored As character. But a new difficulty arises. The frame will not “autosize” because an image is not text (only text interacts with Autosize, this is a limitation of Writer) and, on the contrary, the image will be scaled to frame size. Consequently, frame size must be forced.
The “simplest” way is to create frame styles derived from built-in Formula which has the correct anchor. I created Thumbnail_25mm and Thumbnail_275x328 because your images have only 2 sizes. Look at style configuration for details.
Your images are pasted in a new Header line and the ad-hoc frame style is immediately applied. I also inserted a space between adjacent images to separate them.
Afterthought
Since I worked around the header bug/table limitation by managing your images in a “standard” paragraph, I thought that you could keep the table in the header if so desired. I added a second page (with a different page style to be able to have a different header) and I rebuilt a table there. This table is direct formattd in a quick’n’dirty way; it’s only a proof of concept.
Here is the revised sample: testdoc-ajl.odt (59.1 KB)
Here’s a quick and raw new LibreOffice Writer document with the 6 redacted images dragged and dropped in.
I tried copying and pasting the redacted images into the documents, however the 2 strange line spaces above are what resulted, with some Insert Section prompt appearing, which I have no idea about?
I will continue to work on this attached document, however more enlightened LibreOffice Writer users might suggest a correct or optimised path to reach the goal of bottom row aligned, with text above images 3-6.
1.1 MiB file attached as link, as webage won’t attach with error larger than 4 MB
A good methodological approach is to “prepare” your images outside Writer in a dedicated image processing program like GIMP. There, you crop, scale, rotate your images and adjust pixel density (dpi: 300 dpi is largely sufficient) so that they are ready-to-use. Writer provides only basic image features and it is really much better to have it do nothing on images. Also, this contributes to drastically reduce the global size of the document.
I assume that all the images are shown in a single line.
Then, the simplest and most reliable layout is to anchor them As character.
For ease of procedure (since it is repetitive), I modified built-in frame style Formula (because it anchors As character), but you can use any style of your own:
-
Typetab: Size set to 2 cm×2 cm (to provide a sensible default), Position Vertical Bottom of Character
The latter will align all images on a bottom line. -
Wraptab: Spacing 0.2 cm on all four sides (to separate slightly the images), Options, Allow overlap unticked (otherwise they are all stacked over)
Formula style is applied to all your images. They are all resizes 2×2 cm. Consequently, I right-clicked for Properties and made variations in Crop tab to have various sizes. This is direct formatting and is bad. So, adjust the sizes before inserting the images in Writer. Then you can just click Original Size to autosize the frame.
I experience the same error as you: document size 1.1 MB but site complains about excess of 4 MB. I’ll file a bug. Contact me through private mail to give a valid @ddress so that I can send you my sample. Alternatively, reduce your images to 300 dpi and final dimensions, then reattach the sample document.
Nota: your document exhibits 3 sections (which contents you removed). If there is no real reason for sections, i.e. a count of columns different from what is configured in the page style), don’t use them. They create their assortment of problems (probably not visible in a short CV).
EDIT:
I used your “last” sample (header, 1×3 table, images in cells).
As explained above, I tweaked Formula frame style and applied it on your images. Considering the variable amount in each cell, it is impossible to align in a simple way yout images.
Consequently, I added a new row for them and transferred the images into the second row. They are now correctly aligned. Only the size needs to be tuned (right-click on image and Properties). For that, first press Original Size in Type tab. Then go to Crop tab and change Scale (I reapplied your original ratios).
This is direct formatting and is generally a bad idea which prevents you from centrally tuning your layout by playing only with styles (effect is immediate on all occurrences). The whole header is direct formatted. Avoid this for the same reason.
Curriculum_vitae_name_tbl_ajl.odt (1.1 MB)
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As per screenshot in earlier forum post, images need to be lined up along bottom line, in the header.
Preparing images outside of a document isn’t intuitive.
Gimp is great, however I will need dimensions of the final document to space 6 images.
I will also need awkward dimensions of where the top text will fit.
Table of 1x3 is needed as middle cell needs larger and centered text and right cell needs smaller and right aligned text.
I do have consistent and set image width sizes to fit the document, however height of image 1 is different to images 2-6.
I’ll set the images in Gimp and retry a drag and drop.
As mentioned, the weird lines at the top of the odt file with blurred images, are remnants of image copy/paste attempts. No content has been removed from the file with the blurred images, I simply cancelled the Insert Section prompt.
The new file will have no copy/paste images, just drag and drop from Gimp.
Version with
-
header
-
6 images dragged and dropped into header.
Curriculum_vitae_name_202512191547.odt (1.1 MB)