Deleting a Table in Impress

users
#1

I'm using LibreOffice Version: 4.3.0.0.alpha0+ Build ID:
be4035d00f37c492494fa7860955b6d0868c7f77 on 64 bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - not
because I have any desire to be "bleeding edge," but simply because some
bugs in earlier versions were directly impacting things I wanted to do in
Writer.

I've used LibreOffice Writer for some time now but only recently began using
Impress.

I have to say that the name is a bit misleading. Although Impress is usable,
it has very little consistency with Writer in terms of how one accomplishes
things - worse, it has very little internal consistency, but I've managed to
muddle along until today, when I decided to use its table capabilities.

Without going into the difficulties of selecting things, one key thing that
seems to be missing is the capability to delete a table once you realize
you've stepped into what seems to be "first draft" code.

I've tried selecting the table, then pressing delete, cut, and all of the
usual suspects, but it simply won't go away. It isn't apparent whether the
problem with deleting it is related to the strange behavior when selecting
it (which I've also managed to do with the usual different techniques) or
because the delete function just doesn't exist.

Am I missing something ? Any help would be appreciated.

#2

A few suggestions:

o Select all of any single row of the table. Go to right-click | Column > | Delete.

o Select all of any single column of the table. Go to right-click | Row > | Delete.

o Click the table to select it. The blinking cursor will be in one of the cells. Now click somewhere on the boundary of the table. The blinking cursor disappears. (You can achieve the same result by either dragging the table to move its position or dragging a handle to adjust its size.) Now you can use Backspace, Delete, Edit | Cut, or Ctrl+X.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

Thanks Brian, but still nothing.

What you suggest works fine in Writer (although a lot more cumbersome than
Table>Delete>Table), but the only way I was able to get rid of the table in
Impress was to copy everything but the table to a new slide and then delete
the slide with the table on it.

I may not have mentioned it, but this was a native Impress table, not a
Writer or Calc selection that I copied into Impress, since I hadn't thought
of trying that. I guess Impress just doesn't like me.

I've found another way of doing what I was attempting, so this isn't a big
deal to me any more. Based on the informal survey that's floating around on
this list right now, it doesn't look like Impress is used by many folks
anyway. Even one of the guys who uses it says he only does so to view
presentations that others have put together.

#4

Interesting. Do these techniques not work for others in Impress?

Brian Barker

#5

Hi:

Someone asked me offline (or is that back channel?) to provide examples of
what I meant by my comments regarding Impress. I think the implication was
that these were unfair rants. So here are examples that come to mind:

1) I said Impress is a "Work in Progress": this wasn't a slur, merely an
observation. One example is that the export to pdf doesn't support anything
but the slides themselves. I don't even know whether the developers ever
intended to "complete" this capability for Notes, Handouts and such. I just
went to utilize a feature that I assumed would be there, and found that it
didn't exist (or at least I can't find any way to make such a choice). I
utilized a third-party "printer driver" which worked just fine, although it
would be nice to have all of the capabilities of LO's own PDF exporter.

2) I said that Impress has "interface inconsistencies": again, just an
observation. One example is that if one copies an object on one slide, and
then pastes it into a different slide, and then uses one of the arrow keys
to move the object's position (the pasted object is clearly selected -
handles showing, etc.), the screen display will jump to an earlier or later
slide rather than moving the object within the slide. If one holds the arrow
down (when, for instance, the object needs to be moved a good distance), you
might end up at the first or last slide of the presentation depending on
your reaction time to the unexpected screen chaos. This is, of course, quite
simply explained by the fact that pasting an object doesn't seem to give
that object (and the slide display) focus, but rather leaves it on the
thumbnails on the left side. I don't believe that is the normally expected
behavior, and it certainly isn't how Writer, for instance, reacts (although
I understand that pages are not "independent" as they are in Impress).
Again, this normally isn't tough to deal with - you just have to remember to
click on the display before attempting to move the pasted object. If you're
pasting a selection of multiple objects, however, you end up needing to
re-select them before moving - and this can be quite tricky if they've
landed on top of other objects.

So, if my comments appeared snooty to anyone else who was too polite to call
me on them publicly, I apologize if the tone seemed offensive. I believe,
however, that the remarks were factual - I certainly can't imagine anyone
making the argument that Impress is at the maturity level of Writer. And I
don't think that should come as a big surprise given the relative importance
(and user interest) of the two. It just 'is what it is' as they say.

Have a great day ...

#6

Brian Barker wrote:

Thanks Brian, but still nothing.

Interesting. Do these techniques not work for others in Impress?

Having inserted a table via Insert > Table, any of Brian's suggestions work for me to delete it in 4.0.4.2 and 4.2.0.4. Admittedly those are not the latest versions.

It looks like there may be a bug, introduced around 4.2.3.3:
   https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78326

Mark.

#7

CVAlkan wrote:

Hi:

Someone asked me offline (or is that back channel?) to provide examples of
what I meant by my comments regarding Impress. I think the implication was
that these were unfair rants.

Maybe just that others here can help resolve or work around specific issues, but can't help with general comments.

So here are examples that come to mind:

1) I said Impress is a "Work in Progress": this wasn't a slur, merely an
observation. One example is that the export to pdf doesn't support anything
but the slides themselves. I don't even know whether the developers ever
intended to "complete" this capability for Notes, Handouts and such. I just
went to utilize a feature that I assumed would be there, and found that it
didn't exist (or at least I can't find any way to make such a choice). I
utilized a third-party "printer driver" which worked just fine, although it
would be nice to have all of the capabilities of LO's own PDF exporter.

Under the File > Export as PDF dialog, on the General tab there is an "Export notes pages" option. However, that results in a PDF with pages each containing one slide taking the full page size, followed by pages with the top half containing a slide and the bottom half the notes. Probably not what's really wanted, and this is reported:
   https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39271

2) I said that Impress has "interface inconsistencies": again, just an
observation. One example is that if one copies an object on one slide, and
then pastes it into a different slide, and then uses one of the arrow keys
to move the object's position (the pasted object is clearly selected -
handles showing, etc.), the screen display will jump to an earlier or later
slide rather than moving the object within the slide. If one holds the arrow
down (when, for instance, the object needs to be moved a good distance), you
might end up at the first or last slide of the presentation depending on
your reaction time to the unexpected screen chaos. This is, of course, quite
simply explained by the fact that pasting an object doesn't seem to give
that object (and the slide display) focus, but rather leaves it on the
thumbnails on the left side. I don't believe that is the normally expected
behavior, and it certainly isn't how Writer, for instance, reacts (although
I understand that pages are not "independent" as they are in Impress).
Again, this normally isn't tough to deal with - you just have to remember to
click on the display before attempting to move the pasted object. If you're
pasting a selection of multiple objects, however, you end up needing to
re-select them before moving - and this can be quite tricky if they've
landed on top of other objects.

I can't find this reported on the bug tracker with a quick search. It may be worth reporting it at https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/bug/. After filling in the details but before submitting, check the list of "Related bug reports". If any of those describe the same problem, it's better to add information there instead of submitting a new report.

In the meantime, a couple of possible workarounds to having to reselect all the objects:

- Shift-click just one object (this will deselect that one leaving others selected) then shift-click it again (this will select it in addition to the others) and all objects will be selected and have focus, so can be moved with the arrow keys. If it's difficult even to do that, perhaps add a large extra object before copying, use that for shift-clicking after pasting, then delete the unwanted extra objects.

- Press F6 until the keyboard focus is on the slide, although it's not easy to tell when that is the case (I found I need to press F6 four times to get from the thumbnails to the slide, but the exact number of times may depend on what other toolbars and panes are visible).

So, if my comments appeared snooty to anyone else who was too polite to call
me on them publicly, I apologize if the tone seemed offensive. I believe,
however, that the remarks were factual - I certainly can't imagine anyone
making the argument that Impress is at the maturity level of Writer. And I
don't think that should come as a big surprise given the relative importance
(and user interest) of the two. It just 'is what it is' as they say.

Have a great day ...

I hope this helps, at least to some extent.

Mark.

#8

A swift test with 4.2.4 (64 bit) reveals that an empty table cannot be deleted, even though selected, but entering *any* data in a cell allows selection and deletion of the table.

Peter HB

#9

Further to my last post, this behaviour is not consistent. Since my previous test I've closed LibreOffice, re-opened a new presentation and repeated the test: the table can be consistently inserted and deleted.

Presently I've no idea what's going on, but a workaround for afflicted presentations may be the insertion of random data in to a table cell as per my first test.

Peter HB

#10

Interesting ...

I just tried what you suggested (using the 4.3 alpha), and I was indeed able
to then delete the table after adding data to a cell.

When I initially encountered the problem, I had also entered data into the
cells, but I did so solely by pasting data into several cells. It doesn't
seem reasonable that pasting versus typing would make the table act
differently, but stranger things have happened.

So I tried creating a new table, then pasting again and was still able to
delete the table. Does whoever made the change to the earlier 4.2.2 code
have the ability to compare old / new side by side to see if anything is
obvious?

Something strange is going on. If I do run into the this behavior (or
misbehavior) again, I'll try to pay more attention to what I was doing at
the time, but I decided to stay away from tables in the project I'm working
on at the moment, so that isn't likely.

Frank

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
There always seems to be a shed-load more devs working on Writer than any
other module. I think Calc and Draw are in around 2nd place although i
don't track these things.

There is much better software out there than Impress/Powerpoint for doing
the sorts of things they should be good at. It might be worth hunting for
a specialist program.

I'm not sure but the issues you mention probably have already been posted
as bug-reports but if you have the time it would be great if you could make
sure;
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugReport
If that doesn't help you find them then please do post your own.

On a side-issue i think most people here recognise that you are a strong
supporter of LO, TDF and the wider OpenSource community and appreciate that
your 'critic' is merely meant to help us find&fix issues.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile: