Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 84163
Usability issue: Cannot duplicate a table row with copy and paste
Last modified: 2013-08-07 14:38:26 UTC
It is impossible to duplicate a row within a table using just copy and paste. It should be possible, but I have had no success. This is a usability issue. The same usability issue exists when you try to duplicate a column using copy and paste. This issue probably exists on all platforms. I will attach a document as an example.
Created attachment 50044 [details] Demo of issue
You must insert a new row before pasting. IMHO it is the correct behaviour because ctrl+V paste at the current cursor position. If you want insert before you need to make room for it. On another hand with the actual behaviour, you can paste several times the same row by only one ctrl+V. I think it's not a defect, perhaps an enhancement, but I prefer the actual behaviour.
Of course you can justify the existing behaviour, but it doesn't make it less unintuitive. In all other circumstances, in a word processor, image editor, or even a spreadsheet, whether it is an OpenOffice application or not, you can duplicate something with the following steps: *select the thing to be duplicated *copy *clicking the cursor elsewhere *paste Except when you try to duplicate a row in a table in Writer. No other steps are required to duplicate text, images, or cells in any other OpenOffice program, or indeed, any other program I can think of. Why should a row or column be any different? You can say it is the "correct" behaviour all you want, but it doesn't make OpenOffice.org any easier to use, and leaves a horrible kludge for users to work out. It's also painfully slow to have to find the "insert row" command every time you want to do it. You should note that I have not suggested a solution, just the problem. The solution may be to allow selection of a row or column in a way that is different to selection its cells, so that it is clear to the user and the application which behaviour is being used (cell or row/column based). When you do select cells, the current behaviour may make sense. When you select a row and copy it, it makes sense that the user wishes to have duplicate it if they paste it "between" two other rows. I wish I could recommend OpenOffice to more people, but little usability bugs that have not been ironed out at this late stage make me think that little development effort is going into making the basic GUI usable. I'd be happy to report other usability bugs if the attitude of developers isn't defensive.
This is currently "industry standard" in treating copy&paste process in tables of Word Processors. But what we could is to somehow offer a possibility to paste table content as new table part and not to overwrite. This is related to issue 13645. MRU->FL/AMA: cold you please also give a comment on this? Thanks!
If "industry standard" is code for "Microsoft Word" then you're mistaken. It allows rows to be duplicated with copy and paste, without requiring an "insert row" command between them. I'm happy to test other word processors if you'd like further comparison.
I was just trying to make a table with alternating row background color and other styling (as e.g. in the OOoAuthors Math guide http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide3/writer3/WG3_published/0216WG3-MathObjects.odt) - this is just not user friendly. My expectation was definitely that i could copy and paste two rows and then get all the styling copied. Copying style should, in my opinion, be the default. An option of "copy as plain text/copy without styling" like the Firefox extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/da/firefox/addon/134) would be nice. Thanx for a great product though.