Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 76435
Anchoring Drawing Objects created by Writer and Undo
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:22:50 UTC
I work mainly with two and three column tables and put text in the left column and screen-shots & graphics in the right column. The graphics (Drawing Objects created by Writer) are 'anchored to character' without wrapping into a table cell. Now text and graphics move together when edits are done in cells above. Some callout Drawings (like comic balloons) are then used to mark something transparently with the pointing part stretching from one cell into another cell of the table. It is anchored to the text in the right hand cell of the table. Sometimes when changing the attributes of one callout Drawing, like the anchoring to the standard 'Paragraph' to the 'Character' mode, all the callout graphics loose all position formatting on the page I am working on. Besides that some other or sometimes all drawing objects inside the tables also loose their anchors, and all move to the top of the page; i.e. 'anchoring to the page' for all drawing objects. I can readjust them again by re-anchoring; but it wastes a lot of time. The screen capture graphics in the tables also sometimes concurrently 'Arrange to the front' and all the OOo Drawing-generated graphics 'Arrange to the back'. The Arranging to the front of the screen captures mostly occur only on the actual page I am working on. The same behaviour also happens when sometimes some screen capture or drawing object graphics are moved around in the table cells. Exactly the same problem occurs on two different systems. Systems configs where problem occurs: 1st System: OOo 2.1 (openSUSE 10.2, Updated on 30.3.2007 from openSUSE X86_64) 2nd System: OOo 2.0 (update three weeks ago on a Novell Boxed SUSE 10.1 X86_64).
Created attachment 44471 [details] Document to reproduce issue and PDF of original
I cannot reproduce the problem, that all objects change their positions. But a very similar one. MRU->OD: select one of the callout objects, set its anchor "as character" and click "Undo" -> the position is wrong.
Created attachment 44618 [details] New example with PDF to show original
It was the case of an arrow disappearing again. On the last page (i.e. 12) is a blue arrow. The Drawing object it points to must be moved, then mostly it dissapears. This arrow was on the bottom of page 10 in the first document. I include a new example. Notice on page 11 how the screen captures moved to the top again, for no apparent reason. :-)
Aaagh, My last sentence "the screen captures moved to the top" means the last two Screen Captures on page 11 were "Arranged" to "Bring to Front", whereas they were formatted with "right click - Arrange - Send to the Back" before. Pardon the confused expression. :-)
I noticed that moving the graphics or drawing around also moves the anchoring position (icon). It causes the graphic or drawing to then change its position according to the anchoring to either page, paragraph, character or as character. If it is anchored to paragraph, it jumps to the next paragraph, that is possibly the start of the table cell, which may be on another page altogether. If it is possible to lock the anchoring to the original position it was initially placed, it could solve the problem. With the right click menu item the locking could be set to "on" or "off". I do not know how difficult it may be to have a "lock" option, but may be a useful option.
Some more observations. Anchoring Graphics imported via clipboard or as a graphics file can be anchored and locked in its right-click "Picture" -> Options -> Protect -> Position. Is seems to be stable, keeping it in the background. The Drawings created with OOo-Writer has a right-click "Position and Size" -> Protect -> Position option. It is unstable, i.e. it does not happen to all Drawings all the time, but some few always the document is reopened. The anchor point (Icon) is moved somewhere else in the cell (or sometimes to the adjacent cell) as soon as the document is saved. Often the anchor icon remains where it was 'Protected', but the Drawing is shifted to the extreme right hand edge of the page on about the same horizontal level. It happens if anchored to paragraph or character. It happens in both the English (UK) and German (Germany) versions. I am downloading OOo 2.2.0 now, to see if the problem persists. :-)
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".