Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 39582
add support for run-in headings (next paragraph starts at the same line)
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:41:21 UTC
is it possible to have a formatting feature like FrameMakers run-in head paragraph formatting? That means, the next parapgraph starts in the same line as the previous one. This feature is very useful when creating indexes with entries comming from different paragraphs but have to be listed in the index on one line.
reassigned to "requirements".
*** Issue 44075 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 53478 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
confirming, setting keywords
When is a paragraph not a paragraph. One gentleman at: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=138114#138114 points out that a rival prodcut can do this, and that there are US government standards require it. But in a separate thread another forum user wanted to lay out his pages with a chapter number on one line, and the chapter name on the next, but have both form a single TOC entity. This seems related to me. Run-ins require a paragraph without a line break, flowing TOC entries require a line break within a paragraph. http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=34376 I think that both problems could be addressed together, if the relationship between paragraph end and line break was "broken"
Lack of r.i.h. is an absolute showstopper for creating IEEE- and MIL-STD-961E-format documents. W*** accomplishes this by allowing you to set the paragraph mark between heading and para text to "hidden". Recent W*** versions use a "style separator" with same effect; the paragraph as printed is formatted with Heading X up to the style separator, and with e.g. Body Text after the separator.
Please note that run-in heads are somehow similar to side headingss (see Issue 53523). At least both styles of headings require the following paragraph to start on the same (horizontal) line. The difference between run-in headings and side headings is the vertical alignment of the paragraph representing the heading and the following paragraph.
*** Issue 63425 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
From the example given in Issue 63425, it is rather a duplicate of Issue 53523 (side headings). The summary "Allow paragraph breaks within a line" of course applies to this Issue 39582 (run in headings) as well as Issue 53523 (side headings). Maybe it should be clarified, whether this Issue 39582 is only about run in headings or whether it is in general about tow (or more?) paragraphs aligned on one line. Example for run-in headings: RUN-IN HEADING Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. OTHER RUN-IN HEADING Bla bla bla. MORE RUN-IN HEADINGS Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. Examples of side headings can be found in Issue 53523.
Has there been any progress on this issue?
I would like to request support for inline lists: Earth's oceans: (1) Arctic Ocean, (2) Atlantic Ocean, (3) Indian Ocean, (4) Pacific Ocean, (5) Southern Ocean. I don't see any requests for supporting such lists, but this issue would cover both situations if it were addressed through a general way to mark any paragraph as "inline". Should I file a separate issue?
It's been over 6 years, and still no update on this?
Because everybody knowledgeable enough to make such serious code changes had left the project long ago.
Or, put another way, the paragraph begins with a heading as its initial text. I always liked that capability. It is particularly handy when doing numbering of paragraphs as individual sub-sub-...-sub-sections. It also works when the section number is all there is to the heading. Many technical and formal documents benefit from that scheme. I do it on web pages (by manual means though). I think the key question, in pursuing this, is to figure out whether and how ODF 1.2 supports such a provision or whether it requires a style extension of some form. Currently, headings and paragraphs are independent paragraph-level formats. THINKING OUT LOUD - INSTANT DESIGN This is an useful feature, but ODF 1.2 has no way of representing such an arrangement at the present time. A potentially really-bad idea is to embed a <text:h> inside of the <text:p> (or vice versa). This is not allowed in ODF 1.2. There are weird ways to do this indirectly using frames, but it is not clear how well that works and it would be difficult to make easy for users and to recognize the hack on incoming documents (and in interchange with other formats). One could introduce an OpenOffice extension to ODF 1.2 extended documents that would degrade properly when not understood. Something like <ooo:run-in-heading> could be a new element allowed in paragraqph content. It could be done in such a way that consumers that did not recognize the extension would simply treat the text within the element as text of the paragraph, properly formatted but not recognized as heading. (That is, it could be reduced to treatment as a <text:span> and it might always have a <text:span> within it to accomplish exactly that. This might show the last of any auto-numbering, but it might not update properly when the document is edited where the run-in feature is not understood. THEN WHAT? Assuming that a workable method comes up, the next question is how resilient is it when documents formed using the chosen technique are opened by other ODF-supporting software that has never seen it before. This is a factor in conversion for interchange with other formats, including PDF, Microsoft Office Word, HTML, etc. Also, there are many interdependencies with places where headings have an impact, such as in cross-references, the autonumbering, the reflection of current headings in headers and footers and tables of content, etc. BOTTOM LINE Great feature. Obvious appeal. Simple to ask for. Not so simple to provide in a robust way. The use of a carefully-crafted extension element that fails smoothly is the best prospect.
(In reply to comment #5) > But in a separate thread another forum user wanted to lay out his pages with a > chapter number on one line, and the chapter name on the next, but have both > form a single TOC entity. This seems related to me. Run-ins require a > paragraph without a line break, flowing TOC entries require a line break within > a paragraph. > http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=34376 > I think that both problems could be addressed together, if the relationship > between paragraph end and line break was "broken" There is no ODF prohibition of line breaks in headings and that should work in the TOC lines as well. It is the same provision that allows hard line breaks to be included in the body of paragraphs without starting a new paragraph. If this doesn't work in a particular place in OpenOffice, a bug should be reported on the specific case.
(In reply to comment #11) > I would like to request support for inline lists: > Earth's oceans: (1) Arctic Ocean, (2) Atlantic Ocean, (3) Indian Ocean, > (4) Pacific Ocean, (5) Southern Ocean. > I don't see any requests for supporting such lists, but this issue would cover > both situations if it were addressed through a general way to mark any > paragraph > as "inline". > Should I file a separate issue? I think that having a paragraph style that indicates no break after the paragraph content might accomplish this. both headings and paragraphs have paragraph styles so it could work generally. Such a provision would make whatever follows a run-on. This might be easier than adding a special run-in-heading element, while having all the benefits. There are still interoperabilty issues. In this case, if the style were not understood, the material would appear as separate paragraphs. It would also take some effort to craft an in-line list using such a provision. It is feasible at the ODF level. Usability and how handy it is in the way OpenOffice provides editing of such situations remains an interesting consideration.
(In reply to comment #17) > (In reply to comment #11) > > I would like to request support for inline lists: > > Earth's oceans: (1) Arctic Ocean, (2) Atlantic Ocean, (3) Indian Ocean, > > (4) Pacific Ocean, (5) Southern Ocean. > I think that having a paragraph style that indicates no break after the > paragraph content might accomplish this. > [ ... ] There are still interoperabilty issues. In this case, if > the style were not understood, the material would appear as separate > paragraphs. It would also take some effort to craft an in-line list using such > a provision. > It is feasible at the ODF level. Usability and how handy it is in the way > OpenOffice provides editing of such situations remains an interesting > consideration. AFTERTHOUGHTS: When headings and paragraphs are run-together this way, it might also be important to adjust the spacing before, spacing after, and keep-together provisions to avoid weird breakage. That would also help control the level of mess when any no-break-after style is not recognized.
I came across another situation where this feature would have come in really handy. Clearly, much work would be needed to implement the inline layout but the file format wouldn't need a major upset. As far as I can see, it could be as simple as a new paragraph style attribute, something like text:layout-mode="inline". Since <text:h> headings already use a paragraph style, the attribute would be available to both headings and text. The attribute could safely be ignored by older processors, in which case the inline material would be laid out as a block. Not nice, but existing documents would never expect inline text, so it's no worse than the current situation, or previous ODF enhancements,