Usually I have to keep a format with my documents. But when I a header/footer in writer it messes it up, and the content is sqeezed into a smaller area. So cumbersomely I have to compensate by decreasing the margins, which is impossible to do accurately because I can't know exactly how tall a margin is. (especially if I add a vertical line or such). The ability to put the header/footer in the margin would save me this mess. They are supposed to be in the margin anyway most of the time.
@cedric would you have a look at this and see if it makes sense ( I'm afraid I don't understand exactly the issue ) @Zsolt could you maybe supply a test document and/or screenshots to illustrate the problem more clearly here, thanks!
(In reply to comment #1) > @Zsolt could you maybe supply a test document and/or screenshots to illustrate > the problem more clearly here, thanks! Its specific to some documents. The problem is simply that the header essentially extends the margins, being in the margin. So the page text gets less space than intended.
@Zsolt: Please draw a little sketch illustrating your problem and describe more exactly what your problem is. Descriptions like "The problem is simply that the header essentially extends the margins" are completely useless, you should better give a precise description like "after ... I see in dialog ... that margin width has been increased from ... to ..." or similar. Please contribute a detailed step by step instruction how to reproduce your problem. I can't remember that I have seen something similar, but may be I don't understand all details of your problem..
Created attachment 45266 [details] Image showing the problem (In reply to comment #3) > @Zsolt: > Please draw a little sketch illustrating your problem and describe more exactly > what your problem is. Descriptions like "The problem is simply that the header > essentially extends the margins" are completely useless, you should better give > a precise description like "after ... I see in dialog ... that margin width has > been increased from ... to ..." or similar. > > Please contribute a detailed step by step instruction how to reproduce your > problem. I can't remember that I have seen something similar, but may be I > don't understand all details of your problem.. I don't understand why is it unclear. You add a header/footer and the content decreases from the desired size. Unlike MS Word where they're added to the margin and don't mess up the page format. Anyway, I attached an image explaining the problem.
The current behavior is intended (I think so), and I do not want to have that changed, even if other text processors do that in an other way. Our / my logic: The margin is the distance between contents and paper border. Header / Footer are parts of the (printed) document contents; to me it seems absolutely consequent that also the header has to respect the distance to the paper sheet border. There is no benefit if you add a heading without touching text body contents in the page, and the printer will cut away the heading ;-) I believe the current help text is misleading, I filed a report for that: Bug 35993 - WIKIHELP: Wrong description for Header / Footer place. I see that WONTFIX, but may be lots of users will protest here? @Zsolt: Thank you for your patience.
(In reply to comment #5) > The current behavior is intended (I think so), and I do not want to have that > changed, even if other text processors do that in an other way. > > Our / my logic: The margin is the distance between contents and paper border. > Header / Footer are parts of the (printed) document contents; to me it seems > absolutely consequent that also the header has to respect the distance to the > paper sheet border. > > There is no benefit if you add a heading without touching text body contents in > the page, and the printer will cut away the heading ;-) > > I believe the current help text is misleading, I filed a report for that: > Bug 35993 - WIKIHELP: Wrong description for Header / Footer place. > > I see that WONTFIX, but may be lots of users will protest here? > > @Zsolt: > Thank you for your patience. But this way you can't keep the document in the necessary format, because there is no way to determine the header/footer height. I had to write a document in a specific format, with rules for margins. When I added header in MS Word I was done, the margins were intact. But when I did this in writer I had to compensate by decreasing the margins by guessing to adhere to the rules, which is ridiculous. Its illogical, to do it this way. At least the user should be able exactly specify the height of the header/footer, and get some feedback of its height. On better would be if the header would automatically took the space form the MARGIN and not the content. It wouldn't be a problem, since writer could notify the same way as it does when one decreases the margins.
*** Bug 36853 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I use this software for years, since OpenOffice time and I never liked the header and footer behavior, but with the time I got used. So, today, I decided to try to change this and report a bug. Then I arrived here and saw this bug is marked as WONTISSUE. Why? I understand that fix this will not be trivial, but I think the correct behavior of headers and footers is outside body area. LaTeX, as a good reference, works in this way.
I'd like that you reconsider your decision of marking this request as WONTFIX, based on my previous comment.
<http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport_Details#Particular_Versions>
@Rainer Bielefeld, Thanks for reopening this. It looks like a good conversation. I usually don't mind tinkering, so I have never cared about this issue. The convention you use, I agree is most logical assuming a margin is only used for the distance between the edge of the paper and where the printer begins printing. Unfortunately, someone who had market muscle implemented an illogical system that has warped our way of thinking. I wish your way of thinking would catch on. Until then, could there be a macro type fix? Example, add a button on the side of the "Margin" text under the "Page" tab called "MLA/College style" or something. Clicking it would open a window with: A. Page Margin size input boxes, B. Header/Footer Margin size input boxes, and C. Header/Footer Distance from top and bottom of page input boxes. Lets say the user puts in: A. all 1" margins for the page, B. 1" header/footer size, and C. .5" from top and bottom of page. The macro would automatically set the values appropriately: A. Page's top and bottom Margin input boxes would be set to .5" (value is pulled from "distance from page edge) (other values left as is) B. Header/Footer's size would be set to 1". My thoughts are, instead of rewriting how the program already works, other peoples method of thinking can be accommodated by simply giving them a tool to automatically convert whats in their head to what should be inputted into the program. Hope this made some sense. Thanks for making Libre Office a great program. Matthew B.
I am sorry, looks like this issue was resolved with "dynamic spacing" button. Am I correct?
I have tried enabling dynamic spacing with a header already in place and before inserting a header, and neither time did it solve the aforementioned problem. As a student who needs documents to have exactly 1" margins (from top of document to body text - does NOT include headers, however much or little sense that may make; it's the rule). Can someone please either: a) explain to me how to use the dynamic spacing option to resolve this issue (it's not in the help section) or b) revisit this issue? Thank you.
(In reply to comment #12) > I am sorry, looks like this issue was resolved with "dynamic spacing" button. > Am I correct? Sorry, but ”dynamic spacing” is a completely different issue. @Peter: You did right to reopen this issue. @All: Plese note: This is an enhancement request, not a bug report. You can think that this request is not useful. Mostly, it is just a matter of taste if one prefers the current behaviour or if one prefers the requested behaviour. But nevertheless this all does not make this feature request invalid, so please don’t close it so easily. IMHO the best thing to do is what has just begun in this report -- to discuss the issue and to consider all pros and cons. Even better would be a discussion with UI and/or page layout experts. If they say that the current behaviour is clearly the better one, we can set this report to RESOLVED/WONTFIX. But until that, the user is free to request this enhancement/change, and IMHO we should not close the request.
> @Peter: > You did right to reopen this issue. > Thank you both for considering it worth discussing ;-) > @All: > Plese note: This is an enhancement request, not a bug report. You can think > that this request is not useful. Mostly, it is just a matter of taste if one > prefers the current behaviour or if one prefers the requested behaviour. But > nevertheless this all does not make this feature request invalid, so please > don’t close it so easily. > IMHO this can lead to a new option via Format -> Page, on the Page tab rather than individually on Header and Footer tabs. A radio button with some label like "header/footer location:" with "page margins"/"text body" options will surely do a nice job. I agree it's an enhancement request, now that I see people are actually supporting/using the current behavior I begin to think it's only a matter of taste and habits. I am still supporting my version though, and I have a solid use case for this: imagine writing a long document, and *after* you finish it you realize you forgot to add some header => this will be messing up a decent amount of page formatting at least. My $0.02 are either for an option or placement into margin. Many thanks for your attention, Victor
Should be NEW not REOPENED.
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