Issue 5091

Created attachment 1715 [details]
This MS Word file shows custom properties, not imported into OOo

Reassigned to Michael.

General [Star|Open]Office problem. Only four user defined properties
are allowed. So somehow OpenOffice would have support for more
userdefined fields in the doc properties, an import could be possible.
MRU->FT: what about enhancing our doc properties?

*** Issue 5103 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Enhance OO.o document properties to match those of MS Office.
Note: This is a generic MS Office filter issue.

started

added keyword ms_interoperability

*** Issue 10116 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Hello Andreas, is your team working on enhancing the file properties? Please
give approval for this evaluated OO.o 2.0 flagged issue. 
If you confirm with the target OO.o 2.0, then please keep it on your owner (or
the owner of the concerning developer) for implementation. In case you want this
issue for 'OOo Later', then please reset the target milestone. If you decline
the issue finally, please set the resolution to 'Wontfix' (but do not close). In
case of 'OOo Later' or 'Wontfix' please reset it on Bettina's owner. Thank you.

Re-targeted to OO later.

Suspect duplicates are 17733, 25915 and maybe other ones.

I fully agree with a comment in 17733 by pschatz100: also in my organization the
Word file properties are used the same way and I suspect that there are many
other organizations that uses file properties this way. It's a comfortable way
to put metadata on documents: metadata are the only way, together a complex
folder structure, to organize a large number of documents and link them to
contextes, people, and tasks.

This issue must be solved because it could help position OO as a "professional"
suite like Microsoft Office is considered. This is not optional, I think.

I propose to break this issue in two parts: the first one, to be done in OO 2.0,
which let properties were they are without touching them but also without the
possibility to edit them (remember that actually it's a "data loss" issue type,
it's a bug from mt point of view); in the second part, optional, add a feature
to edit them.

I raised the priority. After reading this issue and the mentioned duplicates I'm
convinced that these properties are used by several potential customers (esp.
companies).

Yes, using Words custom properties would be very useful and even if they are not
the fact that the data is lost is very bad for interoptability.

I would like to suggest that this issue is changed to be a defect and give it an
actual target milestone as it is still a problem in 2.x

Daniel.

OO Writer 2.0.3 is almost there.

Until this compatibility is completely provided it is hard to switch from MS
Word do OO Writer.
1. My company use MS Word to produce documentation, as many companies do (view
issue 5091).
2. Every document has at least 6 Custom Fields.
3. If I edit a document in Writer I will lose all these Custom Fields.

Please check my simple test:


Steps:
1. import Word document with Custom Fields to Writer 2.0.3
2. in Writer save document as Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc)


Results:
. After step 1: the Custom Fields are successfully imported to Writer as
Variables and are dynamic in text in page.

. After step 2: the Variables are successfully exported to Word as Custom Fields
BUT ARE NOT dynamic in text, i.e., the variable text is all static in the page!



I believe this issue is related or a duplicate of issues 64516 and 17733.

It's related to them. Since OOo 2.0.3 we are able to import the Word document
variables but we still don't have text fields for them.

I changed the summary according to my last comment

Whe use "Custom Properties" of MSWOrd to store documents metadata, these info
are also show in the document (i.e. Project Number, Project Title, Document
revision, etc.).

An windows application create new documents and insert project & revision info.

We need "Custom Properties" or other similar function, in order to migrate to
OpenOffice.

Simone

@simone
Hi,
I've gathered some info lately. CDP's are supported currently by OOo.
Anyway in code:

Function AddMyDocProp (sName$, sValue$) as Integer
	Dim vDocInfo, vDocSetInfo

	On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
	vDocInfo = ThisComponent.getDocumentInfo()
	vDocSetInfo = vDocInfo.getPropertySetInfo

	If Not vDocSetInfo.hasPropertyByName(sName) Then
		vDocInfo.addProperty (sName, 0, sValue)
	Else
		vDocInfo.setPropertyValue (sName, sValue)
	End If	

	AddMyDocProp = 1
	Exit Function
ErrorHandler:	
	AddMyDocProp = - 1
	MyErrMessenger ("AddMyDocProp")
End Function

I'm confused...

I installed v2.3.0, when I open "custom-properties.doc" I get custom fields, but
when I open another mine document with custom properties, these are not
converted in open office custom fields.

I already wrote it by I will do it another time, maybe this time with a little
bit more details.

OOo supports custom properties and it imports them from MSOffice documents. 
OOo does not have a dialog where these properties can be read or changed or
where properties could be added or removed. This will change in OOo2.4 or 3.0.
OOo does also not have text fields showing custom properties to embedthem into
text document like you can do with the "built in" properties. It's currently
unclear whether this will be available in OOo3.0 but it's also not improbable.

Created attachment 48587 [details]
MSWord document with custom properties that writer is unable to convert

simonegirlanda: how did you detect that the properties where not converted? The
only way to find that out is to write e.g. a macro. Can you tell me some
property names that you think are not converted?

May be I'm not able to understand or I'm unable to explain me in English, if so,
please excuse me for spamming this issue.

If I open this document
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/1715/custom-properties.doc
using OO Writer custom properties ARE present as variables "User Fields" (look
to menu item "Insert | field command | other ... (CTRL-F2)" I'm using Writer
with Italian interface, so my translation of menu items could be incorrect). 

So Writer convert MSWord custom properties (open the same document with MSWord
and you find them in File|Properties|Custom) into Variables.

But if I try to open with Writer this document
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/48587/Meeting%20Report.doc
custom properties are not converted by writer and are present as normal text.

I'm not interested to save from writer in .DOC format, because I would like to
convert all my documents in ODT format.

I just need to read custom properties of all my old documents.

Thank you, that gives us some material to work with!

Created attachment 48644 [details]
untested potential patch to show the missing user fields in the 2nd doc

what can I do (or should I do) with the patched code ?

If you're not a developer - nothing. 
The good news is that if cmc is right (and he mostly is ;-)) we have a good
chance to get this issue fixed in 2.4.

My company is a software-house, but we have no experience in this kind of
activities.

May you give me some directions to download and compile source ?

If this is such an urgent problem for you we could make a deal. :-)
I can take the patch and build a new version based on OOo2.3. I will hand it
over to you and you do some testing with it.

In case you agree I need to know which operating system you are using.

The migration from MS-Office to OO is blocked by this problem (seems to be the
only one), so your patch will help me to continue testing.

Our clients PC are now WindowsXP (we will gradually migrate them to linux in the
next year).

Many thanks for your support.

The patch works, names are parsed correctly.
Of course we still insert user fields that are not dynamically bound to the
custom properties. This will need another fix in the filter.
I propose to extend SwDocInfoField to support custom properties (by adding a
DI_CUSTOM and a string member for the custom property name). This should be easy
to do in the filter. Of course we also have to think about the field dialog.

quote "Of course we also have to think about the field dialog."
@ mba:  You know where to find the cdp's in MsWord? Not in the fields-dialogs.
In the document properties dialog.

This is not what I meant. The new tab page for document properties is on the
way. I think we also need a way to insert the field that points to the
properties. And in Writer this is the "Insert Field" dialog.

BTW: I finished Word import, ODF import/export for the new "real" custom fields
and everything looks fine. :-)

Now, as I sad, we need the UI and the Word export, perhaps even HTML im/export.

Currently it looks good for 2.4 in case I get the rest fixed. But I'm cautious -
target 2.x for now.

Created attachment 48874 [details]
Screenshot of patched OOo2.3 with support for custom fields

Just to show something about what I have achieved so far: I attached a
screenshot showing "real" custom fields in the "meeting report.doc" document.

Looks good. Indeed also a place where the cdp's must be.
The location makes sence, not something to bother the UX-list with, IMO.

In case someone is interested to test the build - I can provide a Windows as
well as a Linux version. Please let me know about that by sending a mail to me
(use my OOo account).

Target 2.4

Please find archives of a Windows and Linux build at 

http://ooo.services.openoffice.org/pub/OpenOffice.org/cws/upload/customfields/

These are no installation sets, just unpack the content and run the application
from the unpacked folder.

This build should import custom fields from Word documents, save them to ODT
format and reload them again. Word export is not implemented (and it wasn't before).

Thanks to Simone Girlanda and Fredrik Sjöstedt for testing. The feature works as
expected.

While testing we discovered that Word treats the property names in a case
insensitive way, e.g. a field named "subject" fits to a property named "Subject".
I'm currently not sure whether we should support that sloppy treatment but
anyway we can add that later. For the moment I think I'm done so we can meet the
feature deadline for 2.4 this week.

Michael, we already have a good testing coverage. So we mainly need the usual
integration testing.

Hint to QA: custom fields are DocumentInfoFields and should appear on the
corresponding tab page.

Had in mind to help testing - sorry, didn't make it.

About ".. Word treats the property names in a case insensitive way, e.g. a field
named "subject" fits to a property named "Subject". I'm currently not sure
whether we should support that sloppy treatment but..." :

The same is true for bookmark names. So I'm used Thinking caSe sensiTive :-)

Verified this in CWS customfields. 

Changing issue type to "Task", as long as Writer has been enabled to import this
field properly.

Hi,

The solution made by mba was not implemented in the latest release of openoffice.
When can we expect to have a version with this solution implemented?

Also, the related problem with not beeing able to save the now recognized fields
into word document again. When can we have attention on that.

Regards
Fredrik Sjöstedt 

The target of this issue is 2.4. So please expect to find the enhancement in
that release.

The word export may be fixed in 3.0, but if time doesn't permit that it's
possible that it will be fixed later. 

Sorry, but predictions are hard, especially about the future. ;-)

Checked in OO 2.4 dev build 680m241.