Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 86279
Avoid splitting mathematical strings in Writer
Last modified: 2013-01-29 21:45:55 UTC
What is a word? To me, a 'word' it any string containing no blank or hyphen. Thus, at the end of a line, 'high-speed car' can be broken into 'high-' and 'speed car', or into 'high-speed' and 'car'. But, if I write an equation 'x=a+b-2-aaa-bbb+ccc', I want it to remain whole. OpenOffice insists on breaking it (at the end of a line) at every '/', '+' or '-', even if I use an endash, emdash, or a 'real' minus sign (unicode 2212) instead of a hyphen. Same problem for a symbol as simple as C^-1: it can be broken into 'C' at the end of a line and the exponent on the next line. Yes, I can use a formula to keep the symbol whole, but that's clumsy, and it introduces extra space around the symbol. Solution: OpenOffice should have a customizable list of 'hyphenable' characters (other than space), With an empty list, any string without space would be considered an unbreakable 'word' (except, of course, if it exceeded a whole line)
Created attachment 51607 [details] Example of strings broken at EOL
If you really use mathematical operators, the string will not break, at least not on my German OOo version. (The slash is not a mathematical operator, the mathematical operator is at u+2215.) Nevertheless the wish to make the set of symbols configurable, where a line break is allowed, is a valid enhancement request. It might be useful in other contexts too.
Reassigned to SBA. Something for break iterator...