[4.0/Win] Edit form?

users
#1

Hello

LibreOffice Write is unable to let me fill this form:

Lost.in.Post.Declaration1.docx
http://bagofiles.free.fr/Lost.in.Post.Declaration1.docx

Apparently, it's filled with macros.

Does someone have an idea how to fill this?

Thank you.

#2

Using a Mac 10.8.4 and LibreOffice 4.1.0.4 it works perfectly for me.

Tink.

#3

Thanks Tink. I must then be missing something about how to actually fill a
form.

When I single-click on a field, I get the green squares around it.

When I double-click, the mouse turns into the vertical, blinking bar, but I
can't type anything, like it's write-protected.

When I hit F2 to edit, nothing happens.

As to why they didn't simply write an HTML online form...

#4

I filled it in using Textmaker from Softmaker 2012 (paid version)--in
PCLOS. LibreOffice is not all it's cracked up to be!

--doug

#5

One solution: open it in Microsoft Word (apologies to those who see these as dirty words!), save it as .doc instead of .docx, and open that in LibreOffice (perhaps then saving that as .odt). I'll send you the result. You may need to readjust the vertical spacing.

While you are at it, you might want to explain to the originators:
1) they ought not to be requiring their customers to have particular proprietary software available,
2) they could make life easier anyway by distributing as .doc instead of .docx, and
3) being in Northern Ireland (part of the UK), they should be providing documents in the international standard A4 format, not the Letter format used by a very few non-standard countries.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
+1
and a little applause.

If only that was more acceptable.  We are getting there though.  People around me are becoming more aware of the geekish
File - Save As
but outsiders still have trouble with that sort of thing
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#7

Thanks Brian. After more fiddling, I figured how to enter edit mode and fill
that form. What a waste of time.

#8

Hi :slight_smile:
Seems like they are trying to go for the prize of most pointlessly awkward
form based on just bad formatting options rather than anything sinister or
really clever.

Step 1 From the web-page the file opened as "Read only" so i had to save it
locally to fill it in
Step 2 Adjust the font sizes and box sizes until they didn't look so bad
Step 3 Was clicking inside the box, then outside again, then inside (repeat
until laughing hopelessly or screaming) until at last the thing actually
lets you type instead of just being able to adjust the box. Note this was
made easier by step 2 where i made the boxes big enough to type in.

Lost.in.Post.Declaration1.odt
<http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n4069254/Lost.in.Post.Declaration1.odt>

Every fortnight i have to fill in a stupid pointless form that doesn't
actually have any spaces for the information the people that designed the
form want to know about. So i hand the form in and then they have to ask me
all the stuff they needed to know and, of course, completely ignore all the
stuff that i had filled in by doing as the form told me to!

I'm sure there are awards for designing bad forms.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#9

Folks

The reason for this document not working correctly has nothing to do with LO and it's capabilities or lack thereof. Brian covered a number of work arounds, but the primary one for it not working and the supposedly editable fields, if we all observe correctly, is that the document opens from the web, in LibreOffce as a "Read Only" form, no way in hell it will allow input in this state. And I have just tried it on my wife's laptop running MS Office 2010, it does the same i.e. "Read Only". This is the fault or intent of the webmasters with this document. And I tested this in both Linux and Windows on my system with LO.

So again Brian has covered what one can do, and I was able to save it to my drive as a .docx and open it fine in a now non-read only state and fill it in, and then save it as a .docx IN LO.

Regards

Andrew Brown

#10

Thanks for the tip. I don't know where to look in LO to check if a document
was saved in read-only.

Figuring I'd save time, I filled and saved the DOCX as PDF, uploaded the
file to a web site, and provided the URL in my reply.

I'm sorry I'm unable to open the Lost in Post Declaration you have sent in
to ourselves.

No comment.

#11

Hi Gilles

Using your example from the doc off the website, as you open the doc in LO, or any other similiar app, if you look at the very top, to the left, of the main Writer frame, above any of the menu bars, ribbons. This is where it normally says "name of doc - LibreOffice Writer" or the like in other products, you will see in brackets it indicating that it is in a (read only) state.

This is the same for any doc on your drive, flash disk etc also locked in a read only state.

Regards

Andrew Brown

#12

Thanks but it's not in read-only mode:

http://postimg.org/image/qzs97o3tf/

The issue is that some fields don't work properly, and once, for some
reason, LO displays the green squares around a field, it's not obvious how
to get back to normal.

As to why such a big company doesn't simply ask one of their web developer
to write an HTML form to handle this is beyond me... but it's consistent
with the rest of the issues I had with them. Last time I order from them.

Anyhow, thanks for the help.

#13

Many people, expecting a .docx file, will try to open it using File | Open... from within Microsoft Word. And they'll do that even with your PDF. But you knew that.

It all reinforces what I said about your needing to educate your correspondents!

Brian Barker

#14

From what you are saying, you clearly think that the web site is that of the original publisher of the document. But no: surely the questioner had this problem with a local copy of the document and posted it on a web site himself to make it available to list subscribers for testing and discussion. (I'm guessing he was originally sent it by e-mail.) We can't blame the originating company for that aspect of any difficulty.

Brian Barker

#15

Hi :slight_smile:
Here people just double-click things and use whatever happens to open and then grumble about whichever program it is.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: