Unable to edit contour

John_Jason_Jordan · April 25, 2012, 8:36am

I have inserted a JPG file into a Writer document. I right-click on the
picture, select Wrap > Edit contour. A window pops up to edit the
contour. I need to enlarge the contour all around the image so the text
is offset further. The Edit contour window has no space around the
edges in which to place a rectangle, that is, the image fills the Edit
contour window. Enlarging the Edit contour window enlarges the image as
well, so there is still no space outside of the image to draw a
rectangle. And for that matter, I can select the Rectangle tool, but no
rectangle is drawn.

I have LibreOffice 3.4.5 OOO340m1 (Build:502) on Fedora 16, x86_64. I
hope someone can help.

Regina · April 25, 2012, 8:59am

Hi John,

John Jason Jordan schrieb:

I have inserted a JPG file into a Writer document. I right-click on the
picture, select Wrap> Edit contour. A window pops up to edit the
contour. I need to enlarge the contour all around the image so the text
is offset further.

That sounds as if you use the wrong tool. The purpose of the contour is to set parts of the picture to transparent and allow text to float into this area.

To set a distance margin between picture and text use the setting "Spacing" in the dialog page "Wrap" in the property dialog of the picture.

The Edit contour window has no space around the

edges in which to place a rectangle, that is, the image fills the Edit
contour window. Enlarging the Edit contour window enlarges the image as
well, so there is still no space outside of the image to draw a
rectangle. And for that matter, I can select the Rectangle tool, but no
rectangle is drawn.

When you select the rectangle, the cursor should change in a cross with a small rectangle. It indicates, that drawing with the mouse will give a rectangle. Click where the top/left corner of the rectangle should be, hold down mouse button and drag to the bottom/right corner.

I have LibreOffice 3.4.5 OOO340m1 (Build:502) on Fedora 16, x86_64. I
hope someone can help.

Kind regards
Regina

Tom_Davies · April 25, 2012, 9:06am

Hi
Would it be better to edit the 'original' picture outside of the document and then insert the newer version? Draw and Gimp are good for editing images.
Regards from
Tom

Regina · April 25, 2012, 9:33am

Hi Tom,

Tom Davies schrieb:

Hi Would it be better to edit the 'original' picture outside of
the document and then insert the newer version? Draw and Gimp are
good for editing images. Regards from Tom

I think not. If I understand it right, it is not about the picture itself but about the way the text is floating around the picture.

Kind regards
Regina

Tom_Davies · April 25, 2012, 11:19am

Hi
Ahhh, borders and wrapping options? Right-click on the image and choose "frame" or "picture" or whatever and then use the tabs to set various options in one go :) (there are other ways and i guess Regina has probably given the best route)
Regards from
Tom

John_Jason_Jordan · April 25, 2012, 3:37pm

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:59:08 +0200
Regina Henschel <rb.henschel@t-online.de> dijo:

Hi John,

John Jason Jordan schrieb:

I have inserted a JPG file into a Writer document. I right-click on
the picture, select Wrap> Edit contour. A window pops up to edit the
contour. I need to enlarge the contour all around the image so the
text is offset further.

That sounds as if you use the wrong tool. The purpose of the contour
is to set parts of the picture to transparent and allow text to float
into this area.

To set a distance margin between picture and text use the setting
"Spacing" in the dialog page "Wrap" in the property dialog of the
picture.

Thanks. That got me part way there.

The picture is aligned to the paragraph at the right border of the
page and is about half the width of the page. I needed to add space
around the bottom and the left edges. I added six points to the bottom
and it moved the caption down correctly, but did not move the text
below the caption. I added points to the left and the text did not move
at all until I added 20 points, and then the picture suddenly re-scaled
to half its original size. Apparently I am in a setting for moving the
caption, not the text around the picture.

Tom_Davies · April 25, 2012, 3:46pm

Hi
Ah, you might have a border (called a frame probably) that goes all around the caption&picture. If you can click on the grey border then it should allow you to set wrap options there too.
Regards from
Tom

John_Jason_Jordan · April 25, 2012, 4:26pm

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:43:42 +0100 (BST)
Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> dijo:

Hi
Ah, you might have a border (called a frame probably) that goes all
around the caption&picture. If you can click on the grey border then
it should allow you to set wrap options there too. Regards from Tom

There is no border.

Every time I try to change the settings the picture suddenly resizes to
about half the size I set it to. This can't be by design. The problem
is a bug. Unfortunately, it renders LibreOffice useless for my work, so
I'll have to use something else. Maybe I can uninstall it and go back
to OpenOffice.org.

Steve_Edmonds1 · April 25, 2012, 6:04pm

Hi.
This works ok in my LO 3.4.5 (just tried). What version are you using.
Steve

Tom_Davies · April 25, 2012, 11:47pm

Hi
The grey"not-border" might be hidden if you are not showing non-printing characters. Do you see lots of backwards P signs, each indicating the end of a paragraph?
Regards from
Tom

John_Jason_Jordan · April 26, 2012, 12:41am

On Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:47:40 +0100 (BST)
Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> dijo:

Hi
The grey"not-border" might be hidden if you are not showing
non-printing characters. Do you see lots of backwards P signs, each
indicating the end of a paragraph? Regards from Tom

From: John Jason Jordan <johnxj@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Unable to edit contour
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Wednesday, 25 April, 2012, 17:26

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:43:42 +0100 (BST)
Tom Davies <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> dijo:

Hi
Ah, you might have a border (called a frame probably) that goes all
around the caption&picture. If you can click on the grey border then
it should allow you to set wrap options there too. Regards from Tom

There is no border.

Every time I try to change the settings the picture suddenly resizes to
about half the size I set it to. This can't be by design. The problem
is a bug. Unfortunately, it renders LibreOffice useless for my work, so
I'll have to use something else. Maybe I can uninstall it and go back
to OpenOffice.org.

At this time I have given up on LibreOffice. However, in the interests
of bug-fixing, here is the image that I placed in the document:

Iberian Peninsula 1037-1270. (n.d.).Historical Maps Overview. Retrieved
April 24, 2012, from http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/maps/1270spain.jpg

At the point where I gave up the document had two paragraphs, with the
above image (saved to file from the website and placed in the document
with Insert > Picture > From File), anchored to the second paragraph and
set to the right margin. I scaled the image to width of 290 pts with
"keep ratio." I added a caption below the image.

If I right-click on the image and select Picture I get a popup window.
Under the Type tab is where I scaled the image. Under the Wrap tab I
set it to 10 pts top, 10 pts left, 0 pts right, and 6 pts bottom. The
latter moved the caption down 6 points, but did not change the wrap of
the text in the paragraph surrounding the image, nor did any of the
other settings change the offset of the text in the surrounding
paragraph.

If I change the left offset to 20 points, as soon as I click on OK it
re-scales the image to about half its former size. This is why I say it
is a bug. This should never happen.

There are no borders and the background tab is set to the default "no
fill."

I have LibreOffice 3.4.5 OOO340m1 (Build:502) on Fedora 16, x86_64.
This version was installed from the Fedora repositories and is the
latest.

I encourage you to see if you can reproduce the issue.

Tom_Davies · April 26, 2012, 1:29am

Hi
I have uploaded a document to Nabble to try to show what i think you are
aiming for
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n3940021/Spain-2012-04-26.odt
Spain-2012-04-26.odt

Note that adding a caption put a frame around the picture. Applying the
Wrap - Spacing
to the picture tries to create space between the picture and the frame which
creates a bit of confusion! In the upload i have applied the spacing to the
frame that is around the picture&caption.

Hopefully this gives you something you can copy&paste into to replace the
caption and the main body-text.
Regards from
Tom

John_Jason_Jordan · April 26, 2012, 3:03am

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:29:21 -0700 (PDT)
Tom <tomdavies04@yahoo.co.uk> dijo:

Hi
I have uploaded a document to Nabble to try to show what i think you
are aiming for
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/file/n3940021/Spain-2012-04-26.odt
Spain-2012-04-26.odt

Note that adding a caption put a frame around the picture. Applying
the Wrap - Spacing
to the picture tries to create space between the picture and the frame
which creates a bit of confusion! In the upload i have applied the
spacing to the frame that is around the picture&caption.

Hopefully this gives you something you can copy&paste into to replace
the caption and the main body-text.

Tom,

Thanks for figuring it out. Indeed, it was the caption frame that was
causing the offset to fail. It took some poking with the mouse, but
eventually I was able to select the caption frame and set the wrap on
it.

However, setting a wrap on the picture should not suddenly cause the
picture to re-scale, so there is definitely a bug.

Tom_Davies · April 26, 2012, 8:47am

Hi
Phew! :) I'm glad that was useful and you were able to fix the problem :) It is really tricky to find the line, partly because it's practically invisibly soft grey and partly because it's so thin. Once you know where it is it's much easier to find!
Regards from
Tom