disappearing graphic caused corruption in document in Writer

users
#1

Using LO 6.3.5.2 Writer

While I was having the recent difficulty with getting graphics to stick in a template, I prepared a short document copy/pasting header and footer graphics into a Writer document as I went along.

During this work, there was a moment when adjusting the position of a footer graphic on the page, the graphic disappeared completely. I had no idea why or where it had gone and just supposed I had slipped and clicked in a wrong place.

When the document was finished, I exported to pdf to check that the hyperlinks in the footer graphics were working as they should. To my surprise, I found in the pdf, right in the centre of a single page, an upside down hyperlink that also worked ok. It was a text box from the graphic I had lost.

This corruption was not visible in the Writer odt document, only in the pdf. Deleting the page only made the corruption appear on the  next one. Being invisible in Writer, I couldn't find any way to remove it.

My workaround was to prepare a new document and copy /paste the corrupted one into the new with frequent checks to make sure the corruption didn't get copied over.

Has anyone come across this sort of effect? Is there a way to get such a graphic element to be visible in Writer?

Philip

#2

If deleting a page "only made the corruption appear on the next" page; that suggest corruption linked with header or footer. Did you try changing Page style (Insert > More Breaks > Manual Break > Page Break, Style) before deleting the page with corruption?

Were the elements not at all visible in Navigator? Did you try examining in an XML editor? (First save the file in FODT (Flat ODT) format or unzip the ODT file to examine content.xml.)

John

#3

Using LO 6.3.5.2 Writer

While I was having the recent difficulty with getting graphics to stick in a template, I prepared a short document copy/pasting header and footer graphics into a Writer document as I went along.

During this work, there was a moment when adjusting the position of a footer graphic on the page, the graphic disappeared completely. I had no idea why or where it had gone and just supposed I had slipped and clicked in a wrong place.

When the document was finished, I exported to pdf to check that the hyperlinks in the footer graphics were working as they should. To my surprise, I found in the pdf, right in the centre of a single page, an upside down hyperlink that also worked ok. It was a text box from the graphic I had lost.

This corruption was not visible in the Writer odt document, only in the pdf. Deleting the page only made the corruption appear on the  next one. Being invisible in Writer, I couldn't find any way to remove it.

If deleting a page "only made the corruption appear on the next" page; that suggest corruption linked with header or footer. Did you try changing Page style (Insert > More Breaks > Manual Break > Page Break, Style) before deleting the page with corruption?

The page style I was using had both header and footer OFF ( at least, not selected ON). But I did just try your idea of changing the page style just before the corrupted page. The new page inherited the corruption but only as long as it stayed in that place in the document. If I moved the new page down with the navigator, then the corruption did not move with the page. Suggests the corruption is in a fixed spot in the document.

Were the elements not at all visible in Navigator? Did you try examining in an XML editor? (First save the file in FODT (Flat ODT) format or unzip the ODT file to examine content.xml.)

Nothing visible in the Navigator.

Yes, following your suggestion, I've had a look in an xml text editor both flat ODT and content.xml and I can't see the corruption. I'm not saying it isn't there but life moves on and this cannot absorb more time.

Regards,

Philip

#4

I have recently had something similar.
I noticed after my last update of LO all my graphics anchored to paragraph have moved to new places.
I have just been going through the documents and repositioning the graphics and anchoring as character to get over this.

But I did have 4 draw objects disappear off page 97 or something and appear on the title page, but unable to be selected.
They showed in the navigator however, but couldn't be selected or deleted.

In the end I found deleting the page (97) they were supposed to be on deleted them from the title page, and when I did an undo of the deletion I got my page 97 back and the draw objects no longer existed, also not showing in navigator.

So try deleting some chunks of the document until they no longer show in the PDF, then undo that deletion and check again, and cross your fingers.
steve

#5

Interesting.

Unfortunately, by the time I found the corruption in the pdf file, I could no longer remember which page I had been on when my graphic 'disappeared'. It was a graphic I had been applying manually to the base of each page.

My doc was only of 15 pages, not > 97, so after I found I could not get rid of the phantom, I copied and pasted progressively into a new document and tested by converting into pdf from time to time to make sure the phantom had not been transferred too.

Philip

#6

Having no problems until once again that slider on the left side decided
to disappear;

      then somehow it re-appeared, but now is only 1/2 the length size,
rather than extending the length of the space on the left side,
         it's 1/2 the size & is in a floating (?) rather than stable
position.

   Please explain what causes this to disappear; & please explain how to
get it back - & now how to get it back to its original size & into its
permanent, rather than floating spot.

   Thanks in advance,
       & keep up the good work,

#7

Sounds like you've undocked the Slides pane.

Help article is here: https://help.libreoffice.org/6.4/en-US/text/shared/guide/autohide.html