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I just upgraded to 3.5 from 3.4.4. There are no page margins visible for my
Writer documents last saved in 3.4.4. Am I missing something? I've looked
for a preference and can't find one. I'm using Mac OS 10.7.3.
Thanks.
I think one of the new features in 3.5 is getting rid of the visible
”border” for the margins, if that's what you mean.
Kind regards
Johnny Rosenberg
ジョニー・ローゼンバーグ
Are people who like seeing the margin border out of luck?
Yep, I you can solve this with adding a "background" on the default template
I can understand eliminating visible margins for people who desire that...but
why not make it a preference setting? Yes, I already thought of either
using a colored background or a border around my writable area, but those
things print. That's what I'll probably do, but it's a kludge that should
be necessary.
I'm a college professor who writes his own teaching materials. Each course
features roughly a 400-page Writer document that contains a variety of
inline graphical objects created in Draw or Calc and then pasted in as a GDI
Metafile. Usually, I need to resize those images and having visible margins
REALLY helps that process.
And I thought that Apple was the only entity who was making dumb user
interface issues like that. Actually, not just Apple. I'm running Ubuntu
11.10 in a virtual machine on my Macs (for some specialized tasks)--I can't
believe how bad the user-interface is. I used to love the Ubuntu UI.
Meant to say "a kludge that should NOT be necessary."
Hi noibs,
noibs schrieb:
[..]
I'm a college professor who writes his own teaching materials. Each course
features roughly a 400-page Writer document that contains a variety of
inline graphical objects created in Draw or Calc and then pasted in as a GDI
Metafile. Usually, I need to resize those images and having visible margins
REALLY helps that process.
Perhaps you only need a different workflow? Do you want to align the graphic with the left egde of the text area? Rightclick the graphic (or the surrounding frame in case of graphic with caption) and align left.
Or do you not use the mouse at all? Then you need only the position&size dialog. You need not to see the page border, but LO will find it for you.
I first thought too, I would need that border. But then I find no situation, where it is really needed. So please describe a goal, where you need the border line.
Kind regards
Regina
I just upgraded to 3.5 from 3.4.4. There are no page margins visible
for my
Writer documents last saved in 3.4.4. Am I missing something? I've
looked
for a preference and can't find one. I'm using Mac OS 10.7.3.Thanks.
I think one of the new features in 3.5 is getting rid of the visible
”border” for the margins, if that's what you mean.
feature??? to eliminate a wanted behaviour is considered a feature?? then suppress the possibility to color the text, it will be another fantastic brand new feature!!!
Are people who like seeing the margin border out of luck?
me, it's me I like to see the margin borders.......
I have no illusions that I'm going to win this argument; however, I use the
visible margins in two ways:
1. When deciding when to add a manual page break, I need to exactly how far
until the end of the main page, excluding the space occupied by the footer.
Let's say I'm getting ready to begin a third-level heading. Depending upon
the visible space near the bottom of the page, I might decide to begin that
section on the next page. Right now, I can't accurately guage that space,
especially since my footer has some blank space above the text. If I'm
beginning a Level 2 heading, I tend to start it on a new page unless there's
about 2 inches at the bottom of a page.
2. When adding any kind of graphical object to a Writer document, I
sometimes manually expand the size of the object (proportionately) to be as
large as the width of the page. I can keep enlarging the size until it's in
the margins of the page--but I won't know that with LO 3.5 because I can't
see the margins. This is a huge issue for me, because I embed many
graphical objects (usually GDI Metafile objects from spreadsheets) in Writer
documents and I often want them to be as large as the printed width of the
page. If you stop allowing expansion of graphical objects past the margins,
then this issue would be taken care of.
Just because certain individuals don't make use of certain user-interface
features in both applications and operating systems doesn't mean view that
issue in the same way.
Further, my question is still valid--why should a long-time user-interface
feature be completely eliminated as compared to making it a preference
setting? I could make the argument that was made to me (justify why I use
this)--I don't use about 70% of all preference settings in LibreOffice.
Thus, let's eliminate these unless each person can justify why they use
them. How would that be? I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but it's pretty
insulting when you've been doing serious writing for about 30 years and then
get a question like this.
Frankly, I view the elimination of visible margins as part of the dumbing
down of user interfaces that I'm seeing in Mac OS Lion, Ubuntu 11.10, and
now LO. It's the "let's make it pretty to look at even if if compromises
the usefulness" school of thought. Clearly, LO Writer is not as pretty to
look at with margin guides showing. But, for me, it's more useful.
C'mon--this is a "View" menu option if there ever was one.
Hi 
I agree that it would be great to have the option of choosing the "page view" as i think it's called in MS Office rather than being forced into whatever fad people happen to want to force you into. Whaat? MS more configurable than OpenSource?? lol
Regards from
Tom
Here's the best workaround that I've discovered so far. I have five really
large (400+) page documents that I'm constantly revising and that are only
printed once or twice a year.
First, I've set my default page style to include a very thin (0.02 pt wide)
light gray border around the entire printed area of the page. Set the
distance from the border to the text in the page to zero.
Then, shaded the background of my headers and footers to have a very light
gray background, so as to be able to distinguish the main page from the
header and footer.
It will take less than a minute to get rid of these when printing. For
draft printing, it doesn't make any difference whether these added things
print.
By the way, in Apple's Pages word processor, margins and header and footers
can be shown or made invisible via the "Show Document Layout" under the View
menu. Hmmmn. Wonder why they do that if it's such a useless thing?
Hi noibs,
noibs schrieb:
I have no illusions that I'm going to win this argument; however, I use the
visible margins in two ways:1. When deciding when to add a manual page break, I need to exactly how far
until the end of the main page, excluding the space occupied by the footer.
Let's say I'm getting ready to begin a third-level heading. Depending upon
the visible space near the bottom of the page, I might decide to begin that
section on the next page.
Let LO decide it. You format your third-level heading with the style "Heading 3". It has the setting "Keep with next paragraph". So it will never happen, that the heading is on one page and the following paragraph on the next page. If you want that the paragraph has at least e.g. 4 lines on the bottom of the page, than set the orphan control to 4, or more extreme use the setting "do not split paragraph". With such settings the layout remains fine, if you insert or delete something before this third-level heading.
Right now, I can't accurately guage that space,
especially since my footer has some blank space above the text. If I'm
beginning a Level 2 heading, I tend to start it on a new page unless there's
about 2 inches at the bottom of a page.
You can see the exact space in the vertical ruler and you get a delimiter line for the footer, when you hover the footer area with the mouse. But as mentioned above, there is no need to insert manual page breaks for that reason.
2. When adding any kind of graphical object to a Writer document, I
sometimes manually expand the size of the object (proportionately) to be as
large as the width of the page. I can keep enlarging the size until it's in
the margins of the page--but I won't know that with LO 3.5 because I can't
see the margins. This is a huge issue for me, because I embed many
graphical objects (usually GDI Metafile objects from spreadsheets) in Writer
documents and I often want them to be as large as the printed width of the
page. If you stop allowing expansion of graphical objects past the margins,
then this issue would be taken care of.
You find all you need in Right click graphic > "Picture" > dialog page "Type". Mark "Follow textflow", Mark "Keep ratio", set width to "relative" and value to 100%.
Just because certain individuals don't make use of certain user-interface
features in both applications and operating systems doesn't mean view that
issue in the same way.Further, my question is still valid--why should a long-time user-interface
feature be completely eliminated as compared to making it a preference
setting? I could make the argument that was made to me (justify why I use
this)--I don't use about 70% of all preference settings in LibreOffice.
My question was not intended to make you defend, but a simple question what you do with this lines, because they are only visual and have no function like snapping or so.
Thus, let's eliminate these unless each person can justify why they use
them. How would that be? I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but it's pretty
insulting when you've been doing serious writing for about 30 years and then
get a question like this.
30 years ago I used a typewriter with hard return at every line end 
Frankly, I view the elimination of visible margins as part of the dumbing
down of user interfaces that I'm seeing in Mac OS Lion, Ubuntu 11.10, and
now LO. It's the "let's make it pretty to look at even if if compromises
the usefulness" school of thought. Clearly, LO Writer is not as pretty to
look at with margin guides showing. But, for me, it's more useful.
C'mon--this is a "View" menu option if there ever was one.
Perhaps you write a feature request to get such switch and/or write to libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org to discuss the feature with the developers? Please, don't get me wrong. I'm not against a switch to let the user decide, whether to show the border lines or not. But discussing here will not make it appear.
Kind regards
Regina
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feature??? to eliminate a wanted behaviour is considered a feature??
then suppress the possibility to color the text, it will be another
fantastic brand new feature!!!!
Are people who like seeing the margin border out of luck?
me, it's me I like to see the margin borders.......
I agree. I prefer to see the borders. It does make it easier to line
up/size graphics, for one.
- --
Steven Shelton
Regina,
Please explain why this change is better? How does it make users more
efficient? I now have to hover to see the header/footer line. How is that
faster than it was before? How many word processors that offer decent
layout capabilities DON'T offer an option to actually see the page layout?
Really. How many?
Paste a picture into a Writer document. Be in the middle of the page where
you can't see the upper and lower corner markers for the page. Drag the
picture left and right. How can you tell when the picture is in the margin?
You can't Do the same thing vertically. How can you tell when the picture
is in the header or footer. You can't. For some operations you need to see
the actual page layout.
[...]
You could also enable the grid:
Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Grid > Visible Grid
I'd consider the lack of an option to make the actual margins visible a
regression bug.
Cheers,
- --
Fabián Rodríguez
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:MagicFab
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You could also enable the grid:
Yeah, the grid does work for this purpose, which is why I haven't rolled
back to 3.4.5. But the margin lines were so much nicer!
- --
Steven Shelton
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Here's the best workaround that I've discovered so far.
[...]
You could also enable the grid:
Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > Grid > Visible Grid
I'd consider the lack of an option to make the actual margins visible a
regression bug.
Cheers,
Fabián Rodríguez
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:MagicFab
I strongly agree with that.
Some time ago, when Cedric introduced that "enhancement" on the FR users list, I did emphasize the drawbacks noibs and some others have explained here. All what I received where names and the suggestion to go to the ux list to discuss that.
I think the matter is not unimportant enough to be discussed in some hidden list while most *users* are here.
Anyway, that functionality (the text limit suppress) is not complete until some option is added somewhere to get it back if one so desires. This alone stops me from using Writer v.3.5 on a regular basis.
One more workaround that seems to have the least drawbacks for me is to apply
a very light shade of gray or some color to the background of the page. It
will include the main page, header and footer. Then, if you haven't already
done it, set your printing preferences in Writer to not print backgrounds.
Create a template for new documents and you are all set.
I've been trying to envision working with multiple columns and multiple
graphics images with text wrap--basic page payout. Yes, without the margin
guides you can get the job done, but I don't think it can be done as quickly
and as effortlessly.
Like I said above, this seems to be the way of the world right now and I
think most of it has been driven by Apple's change to the Mac OS Lion user
interface to make it more like iOS (and dumber as a result). Because of
Apple's mandatory autosave and versions in iWork Pages, I've now returned
100% to LibreOffice because it was driving me crazy and couldn't be turned
off. I think the Ubuntu Unity interface was created for much the same
reasons--prettier and dumber.
I'm the first to agree that LO Writer documents look way nicer without the
layout guides. Because of that, it may attract more novice users. Why
knows. But a requirement and an option are two completely different things.
Given that the code for the layout guides already exists, I seriously
question the wisdom of those who decided to make the change mandatory and
not an option. What they are essentially saying is that they know what's
best for me. Take it or leave it. When I find a better option, I'll leave
it.
I'm know I'm probably violating whatever the rules of this forum are in
terms of editorializing, so this will be it.
One more workaround that seems to have the least drawbacks for me is to apply
a very light shade of gray or some color to the background of the page. It
will include the main page, header and footer. Then, if you haven't already
done it, set your printing preferences in Writer to not print backgrounds.
Create a template for new documents and you are all set.
Yes, but it is just that: a workaround to fix an interface defect.
BTW, I've started a new thread in the UX list (libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org): "The "no border text" feature in Writer 3.5 is not complete"
where I ask for the return of a previously existing option: display or hide the text limits.
What they are essentially saying is that they know what's
best for me. Take it or leave it. When I find a better option, I'll leave
it.
I understand your thoughts.
I'm know I'm probably violating whatever the rules of this forum are in
terms of editorializing, so this will be it.
Telling things is better that shutting up.
What bothers me the more on the users lists (FR is the same for that matter) is the recurring motto Regina sang: "discussing here will not make it appear."
To tell the truth, this is a shoking answer. Users may not wish to register to some "strange" or hidden list for a one-shot message, non-english speaking users might feel they are set aside. As the users lists are frequently visited by members of TDF, it would seem important these knowledgeable people report to the devs, if the devs themselves don't lurk round here (which is a shame development-wise).
Best regards,