Problems Rotating Multi-line Text in Tables [Revisited]

users
#1

I'm using Writer Version: 4.1.3.2 Build ID:
70feb7d99726f064edab4605a8ab840c50ec57a on 64 bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

There are numerous postings about this, but no responses that provide a
reasonable solution, so if anyone thinks this should be listed as a "bug,"
be my guest. I'll revisit the issue below:

I have a large Writer document that’s in “normal” (i.e. portrait)
orientation, but have many “landscape” illustrations to include; my
objective is to place them – rotated – on the pages where they appear, with
captions also rotated so they are easy to read when the book is rotated to
look at these illustrations.

For each such illustration, I’ve created a table with two rows and two
columns. The bottom row and the right column are narrower than their
counterparts. In this table I’ve placed an image of a document (which is in
another language, by the way) in the top left cell and, since it is a
landscape image itself, have rotated it so that it can be read by turning
the page.

In the top right cell of the table (bottom right when rotated), I’ve placed
a one line description of the image; using character attributes I’ve also
rotated this description ninety degrees so that it is easy to read with the
page rotated.

In the bottom left cell (which is, of course the top left cell when it is
rotated for viewing), I wanted to place a series of lines (i.e. paragraphs)
with translations of the key elements in the image. I have done this in
earlier documents using MS-Word, but there doesn’t seem to be any way of
accomplishing this in Writer.

The key here is that there are multiple paragraphs in the cell. If I use
character styles, all of the lines/paragraphs are run together and, actually
are placed in the opposite order. No amount of fiddling seems to cure this.

If I format the cell by setting Table Format | Text Flow | Text Orientation
to Vertical, this does exactly what I want to do EXCEPT that the text is
“Upside Down” when the page is rotated, and I can’t seem to locate any means
for reversing the vertical direction.

Since I can’t believe that Word can do this easily but Libre apparently
can’t do it at all, I suspect I’m just looking in all the wrong places, so
can anyone tell me how to accomplish this?

The previous postings about this seem to indicate that this is a common
issue, but the solutions (e.g. create a landscape page and set up new
headers and footers and such), while accomplishing the objective, just
strike me as far too complex to be useful (I have a lot of these
illustrations).

So, should this be considered a "bug" or perhaps an "enhancement request" or
has someone come up with a better approach?

Thanks...

#2

There is an old bug about it:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34436

#3

o Go to View | Toolbars > | Drawing.
o Click Text ("T") in the Drawing toolbar and drag a text object in your table cell. You may need to anchor it As Character to keep it in the cell.
o Insert your text.
o Right-click the text object and select Position and Size... | Rotation | Rotation angle.
o Set Angle to 90 degrees.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#4

Thanks for the tip Brian.

What you suggest "works," although it certainly isn't a particularly
efficient method of working. It seems, however, that it is the only workable
method of accomplishing what I'm trying to do so I guess I'll have to live
with it. I do have Word loaded in a Windoze virtual machine, but I hate
firing that up unless absolutely necessary.

In BUG#34436, someone suggested using Shift+Enter, which seemed like an
easier thing to do while in the course of attempting to write, but the text
entered in that fashion is always centered, and I tried everything I could
think of to get it left justified to no avail. So no dice. Even so, I don't
understand why the Enter key would need to be shifted for this.

With the text being entered via the text object in the drawing bar (as you
suggest), the other drawback is that I can't easily match the styles in the
other part of the document - i.e. the formatting capabilities are a little
primitive. I guess this part hasn't been well integrated into the overall
scheme of things (perhaps that's why it works, since there's obviously some
quirk somewhere).

One of the developers (maybe?) made a comment in the aforementioned bug
discussions that, since there is a work-around (a statement I find to be
something of a stretch given the effort involved), there was no need to work
on this. I've been retired for a while, but if this were a commercial
enterprise, I would certainly question that, since the symptoms have all the
earmarks of a lurking (and possibly simple) code error that will eventually
cause other problems - and perhaps already does.

Sorry for the rant (I was hoping to get some work done today since there's
no Bears game), and thanks for responding.

Frank

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
I managed to get it so that every odd-numbered page was in landscape
but all the even ones were portraight by using
Format - Page
Would it be easier to solve this puzzle that way? Unfortunately i
couldn't get it so that a random selection of pages were in landscape
but i only fiddled with it for about 5mins. Is it possible to have 2
page-styles? One for making the images pages into landscape and the
other for the rest of the pages?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

Shift+Enter creates a line break (whereas Enter creates a paragraph break). So you are giving your text the appearance of separate paragraphs whilst keeping it all as a single paragraph as far as Writer is concerned.

To avoid centring, select the text and set Format | Paragraph... | Alignment | Text-to-text | Alignment (or right-click | Paragraph... | Alignment | Text-to-text | Alignment) to Bottom.

Brian Barker

#7

Brian:

Thanks so much. Your suggestion not only works and is fairly simple, but can
be turned into a style with minimal fuss.

Great solution, but I guess this is a telling example of the difference
between "easy" and "intuitive." What you suggested makes perfect sense after
you already know the solution (as I now do, thanks to you), but I was
beginning to believe it couldn't even be accomplished at all with Writer.

Documentation authors/writers: are you tuned into this channel?

I also suspect there might be a better way of labelling the term
"text-to-text" in the dialog box (or even providing a little icon to
illustrate what happens with the various choices). The term "text-to-text"
as used didn't suggest itself (at least to me) as having anything to do with
text rotation, and I've been using various flavors of word processing since
before the days of personal computers.

But your suggestion works and I'm happy, so I'll go away now.

Frank