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Libre Office 5.3.6.1
Mac OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
I've been trying to find a way to easily create a table that starts at the top margin, ends at the bottom margin, with all rows the same height, and not create a blank page at the end of the document.
Can this be done?
Hi,
You can place the table in a frame that is set to be behind the text on
the page (this will remove the space taken by the paragraph mark after
the table on the page but not in the frame). Anchor the frame to the
page, with the top at 0 cm from the text zone. Place the data in your
table and then spread the rows evenly in the table (from the table
menu). By adjusting the height of your table, you should be able to fit
it between your top and bottom margins. This is the easiest way I can
think of, but it is not straightforward.
I hope this helps.
Rémy Gauthier.
I think in LO you always have to have a line after the table on a page. I sometimes make the character height 6 pt to minimise the visual effect.
steve
You have to do this with MS Word too. Never have considered this to be a sign of quality.
As has been said, there appears to be no way to avoid an empty paragraph after the table - appearing either on the same page or a following one. But you can change the font size of this empty paragraph so as to minimise its impact. Note that, even though the smallest value provided in the Font Size drop-down menu is 6 pt, you can enter smaller values - as small as 2 pt - by typing into the Font Size box. Two points is pretty invisible.
If you want to be really precise, you could modify the bottom margin on any such page so that the last table row finishes where the bottom margin would have been without the rogue empty paragraph.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
Hi, Brian,
I've been doing this for years, since I had no option to using MS Word. (Company policy)
But, prior to changing to MS Word, we used WordPerfect. This workaround to try to get what you want was not needed. You simply did what you wanted with no futzing around. 
I hope to have the time to try Remy's frame idea. But yet again, that's a work around, not a solution.
Hi, Remy,
Before I forget this, I "regressed" to 5.2.7 to see if the StartCenter file loading problem I found in 5.3.1.6 was solved. I will have to create some documents to know the current status.
I could not get your idea to work. In fact, I just spent 3-4 hours trying to get your idea and LO's labels feature to work. And it didn't. 
This is what I am trying to do, create a page of labels to fit Avery label #18294.
LO's label creation cannot create a page for Avery letter sized labels, #18294. But neither can MS Word for Mac 2011 and Softmaker Office 2016 for Windows. Printing on the label slowly moves lower on each label and you get closer to the bottom of the page. Or it moves up on the label.
Why does it do this? I think it's because you cannot enter the correct size for the height of the label. In all 3 programs you can only enter .66" or .67" for the height. But neither number is correct. The actual size of the label is two-thirds of an inch, a repeating decimal to infinity, I.E. .66666666666666666 with 6's going on forever. So, if the programmers formulas for calculating height is limited to 2 decimal places, there is no option but to have a built-in error.
It had been suggested to me, somewhere, to use a table. And that's where the problem of the extra line feed, that is unnecessary if you change the program code, comes into play.
And you end up screwing around and wasting your time with all the various workarounds.
Anyway, I created a frame, and sized it to fit the page margins I had set up. Those margins were the ones that should fit the area of the sheet of labels I wish to print. Then, I created a table inside the frame.
I was never able to get the column widths to be correct. In the Table Properties, I typed in the exact dimensions of the for the columns, had all the text offsets I could find set to 0", and then LO would simply change the widths to whatever when I exited the dialogue.
So I went to the Avery website, downloaded and installed their Design and Print software. In 10-15 minutes, I had a page of labels that fit.
From now on, it's the Avery software for me, when it comes to labels. I am going to install the current version of Open Office, see if it has the same problems.
Hi,
Sorry to hear you could not make it work. And you are absolutely right,
2/3 of an inch is not a measurement that works. BTW, your column
adjustment problem comes from the setting of the table width and
alignment. Not trivial, and it requires a lot of patience.
I did manage to get the table at the required height by setting the
first 14 cells at 0.5 inch and then the next one at 3 inches (I am
assuming 15 cells with 0.5 inch margin on top and bottom). Then, I
selected the whole table and used the Table -> Size -> Distribute rows
evenly. In my version (LO 5.3.6.1 on Fedora 25), what I get is a table
where all the rows are 3 inches high instead of identical height within
the current height of the table (which I would assume it would do based
on what happens when you select distribute column width evenly).
If I come up with some brilliant scheme that works, I'll let you know.
Regards,
Rémy.
Hi, Remy,
I was going for 4 columns 1.75" wide, and 3 columns .25" wide. Table width was set a 8" wide, frame set at 8" wide.
The dimensions I used came from using a ruler on a page of labels.
After reading your message, decided on a different approach on the dimensions, a purely math approach. Gave me dimensions of less than a tenth of an inch for everything.
Finally I was able to get the width of the table to work, but not on the first try. But the small box that is supposed to tell you how much space is left never changed from 0, so that was worthless as a guide.
As for the total height of the table, the difference in height is inconsequential if you are printing on plain paper. But if you are printing on precut labels, it is consequential depending on the contents of each label.
Your result with the 3" high rows has been that way for years. And the text used in the menu for row and column distribution is the same, the results you get are not.
I've never been able to think of a situation where you would want to have all rows to be adjusted the way LO does it. And I don't know of any other word processor that does it tat way. I've never been an Open Office user, but maybe I should install the current version to see what OO does. But I suspect it's the same situation.
I filed a bug on this and something else years ago. Others agreed with me on my comments. But nothing has changed.
When I was told in this mailing list that my issues weren't important, that's when I stopped being a regular user of LO. And I never will be again.
FYI, I got the table to eventually fit by selecting all the rows in the table, and manually entering a row height of .66 or .67.
I use LO very occasionally in this Mac, basically just to see what has been changed or added. And I don't think I have it installed on a Windows system.
If you select points as the measurement unit for the document then
two-thirds of an inch is exactly 48 points and you can enter that when
sizing row heights.
https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Selecting_Measurement_Units
https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Conversion_of_measurement_units
It looks like it works on screen but I've no idea whether it prints
correctly.
HTH, Dave
I just did some quick experimenting with points. Even that may not work right.
The margins and space between labels are .3" in width. Which is 21.6 pts. But, you can't enter 21.6, and have it "stick". It gets rounded up to 22 pts. I think this will end up with a horizontal spacing error, instead of the vertical error I was trying to correct.
I didn't work at this too hard, since it's just easier to use the Avery Software, IMO, especially since the label is already included in their software. It's not in the LO list, or in the Word for Mac 2001 list. The label is listed in Softmaker 2016 for Windows, but it doesn't work correctly, as the text is slowly displaced on the paper.
So, we know the Avery software appears to not stumble over this. Bringing up the question, why does it work there, or how do they do it?
It occurred to me, maybe Avery checks the DPI of the printer, and uses that as the basis for positioning on the paper. I did the math with my printer dpi (1200) and all the results for the 18294 label is in whole numbers!!!! If your printing is a bit off, the Avery software allows you to "nudge" the output left, right, up, and down.
Regardless of the word processor being used, I'm done with trying to do labels in that program. I'm going to use the Avery software until I find a label that doesn't work right.
Hi again,
I don't know if this works for the Avery pre-cut labels #18294, but I
was able to get the layout I was looking for like this and, added
advantage, LO does the sizing for me:
1) Insert a frame, anchored to the page2) Place the frame in the center
of the page, at so many inches, cm, points from the top of the page3)
Insert a 1 row, 1 column table in the frame4) Set the row height to 10
inches5) Set the column width to 7 inches6) Reset the position of the
frame to have it sit at the correct place on the page7) Split the table
vertically into 4 columns8) Split the table horizontally into 15 rows
in equal proportions
I hope this helps.
Rémy.
Hi, Rémy,
While this works if all you need is the table, my purpose was to have a table that would overlay a particular label, the Avery #18294. Which would require more steps than your table requires.
Assuming the page is preset for the correct margins, the #18294 table would require 7 columns, of which 4 columns have one width, and 3 would require a different width, with the frame anchored to the upper left corner margin. So you would enter the width of each column manually.
I would ask myself, why would I want to go to all that work just to use LO to accomplish the task, when all that work is automatically done by the Avery software? <G>
The Avery software also lets you save your labels as a PDF file. I've not experimented, but if you had a table to create, and there was a label layout that met your needs, maybe you could enter the data into Avery software, save as a PDF, then import the PDF into your LO document.
If the info in the table would need to be updated fairly regularly, the Avery option might not be the best solution.
I do know there are a couple other label product numbers that have the same size and layout of the labels, but the problem would still exist there. Two-thirds of a inch is two-thirds of an inch.
It's all about knowing the software available, and what you can do with the software on the computer, in order to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.