[LibreOffice Writer: Feature requests]

users
#1

Hello everyone. I've been using LibreOffice 3.4.3 for some time now, having
migrated from MS Office 2003, and there are two features that I'm missing:

1. The ability to have different text orientation between different cells
in a table (for instance, I'd like the top row of a table to have a
vertical, or even angled, orientation for the text inside the cells, with
horizontal text orientation in the rows underneath - or adjacent cells,
where one cell has vertical text orientation and the one next to it has
horizontal).

2. Smart formatting capability in numbered/bulleted lists: Let's say I'm
starting a bulleted or numbered list. I type the first word in bold or
italic or underlined (or any combination of the three), then I type the
colon (:slight_smile: and then I revert to regular text. I would appreciate it if
Writer could recognize that this is the format I want for the rest of the
list and then automatically format the rest entries in the list.

There are also a few other things I'll report on later, but otherwise I
find that LibreOffice writer has great potential; I especially appreciate
the fact that I can hard-code (using commands) mathematical functions in it
- it's a lot faster to format and more powerful than Microsoft's equivalent.

#2

Hello everyone. I've been using LibreOffice 3.4.3 for some time now, having
migrated from MS Office 2003, and there are two features that I'm missing:

1. The ability to have different text orientation between different cells
in a table (for instance, I'd like the top row of a table to have a
vertical, or even angled, orientation for the text inside the cells, with
horizontal text orientation in the rows underneath - or adjacent cells,
where one cell has vertical text orientation and the one next to it has
horizontal).

Try formatting the row/cells with Format>>Character select the Position tab and change the orientation to the desired angle. There are presents for 0 (default), 90, 180, 270

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
Possibly the biggest difference is learning to use styles.  It's completely different from MS Office so it's worth reading up on them
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

I know this is no MS Office mailing list, but could you please elaborate a bit?
I has been using OOo/LO for past few years and recently been using MS Office
Word 2007 quite much. I didn't see huge differences in styles (and working with
styles) between these two applications.

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
To be honest i don't know.  People keep telling me i need to read-up about styles because they are much more powerful.  All i notice is that in Word styles keep changing almost at whim in most people's documents flicking from one language to another whereas Writer seems to stick with something sensible.  ie swtiching to Writer means it's no longer a problem so i don't worry about it even if that means i miss a lot of the powerful stuff. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

Jay Lozier wrote

There are presents for 0 (default), 90, 180, 270

There is no preset for 180º. That would be upside down text :slight_smile:

However it would indeed be nice to have 45º and 135º. Maybe it would make
sense to add a Feature request (named an "enhancement" in LO language :slight_smile: )
for this?

#7

I think you should stop believe to what people are saying :wink: .

Writer and Word styles are really close to each other. Numbering lists are
different; I think that Word approach is harder to learn but more flexible. But
on the other hand, Writer has almost anything (considering lists) that anyone
could ever want. Word has also table styles, whereas Writer do not. Writer has
only Table autoformatting, but it is more workaround than solution. But on the
other hand, Word table styles often does not do what user would expect it to
do.

On the other hand, Writer has frame and page styles, whereas Word does not.
Working with sections (in Word) is quite easy, but creating long documents
involve a lot of work without section styles.

Considering styles, each program has some advantages over another. Neither of
them is "best". Both are powerful enough, I think. Unless someone comes with
strong argument that says otherwise. I admit that I might have missed some of
Word advantages.