Bug 87720

Summary: Default insert image anchor, wrapping, and spacing
Product: LibreOffice Reporter: Jay Philips <philipz85>
Component: ux-adviseAssignee: Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: medium CC: cno, fdbugs, foss, iplaw67, libreoffice-ux-advise, stgohi-lobugs
Version: 4.5.0.0.alpha0+ Master   
Hardware: Other   
OS: All   
See Also: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=82873
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:
Bug Depends on:    
Bug Blocks: 87740    

Description Jay Philips 2014-12-25 23:48:19 UTC
By default libreoffice inserts images as To Paragraph, Optimal and many users coming from other word processors are not familiar with LO's image insertion behaviour and may like to change this default behaviour. So i'd like to suggest that in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > General, we add a section entitled 'Image Insert' and provide two drop down lists - 1) Anchor, 2) Text Wrap.

Defaults in other word processors:

MS Word - In Line (aka As Character)
WPS Writer - In Line (aka As Character)
Google Docs - In Line (aka As Character)
WordPerfect - Paragraph, Square/Both Sides (aka Paragraph, Parallel)
Abiword - In Line (aka As Character)
Calligra Words - Floating Free (aka To Page, Optimal)

Is there a reason why LO has decided to stick with this default anchor and wrapping preset for insertion of images?
Comment 1 Jay Philips 2014-12-26 12:34:31 UTC
Another setting worth providing options to is alignment, as presently, inserted images are always center aligned.
Comment 2 Jay Philips 2014-12-27 10:40:02 UTC
CCing iplaw and foss to add how iWork inserts an image.
Comment 3 Cor Nouws 2014-12-28 20:04:30 UTC
Hi Jay

Is MS Word - In Line _as_ character or _at_ character?

Two suggestions to work on this idea:
1. could we advice something wrt exchange of files with other word processors?
2. I think this on is interesting to ask on users@. Will do for Dutch language.

Cheers,
Cor
Comment 4 Jay Philips 2014-12-28 20:27:22 UTC
Hey Cor

(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #3)
> Is MS Word - In Line _as_ character or _at_ character?

MS Word calls it 'In Line', LO calls it 'As Character'.
Comment 5 A (Andy) 2015-01-02 17:38:22 UTC
(In reply to Jay Philips from comment #0)
> By default libreoffice inserts images as To Paragraph, Optimal and many
> users coming from other word processors are not familiar with LO's image
> insertion behaviour and may like to change this default behaviour. So i'd
> like to suggest that in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > General, we
> add a section entitled 'Image Insert' and provide two drop down lists - 1)
> Anchor, 2) Text Wrap.
> 
> Defaults in other word processors:
> 
> MS Word - In Line (aka As Character)
> WPS Writer - In Line (aka As Character)
> Google Docs - In Line (aka As Character)
> WordPerfect - Paragraph, Square/Both Sides (aka Paragraph, Parallel)
> Abiword - In Line (aka As Character)
> Calligra Words - Floating Free (aka To Page, Optimal)
> 
> Is there a reason why LO has decided to stick with this default anchor and
> wrapping preset for insertion of images?

I would also like to have such an option.  Now, I always have to change from anchored To Paragraph to anchored As Character, because I normally need to have it anchored as character.  Therefore, this behaviour is currently very inconvenient for me.
Comment 6 Jay Philips 2015-01-02 18:53:33 UTC
Looking at the video and images sent to me by Alex and Steve, images inserted in iWork Pages are set to automatic wrapping (similar to LO's parallel wrap, but smarter) with automatic contour and 12pt (0.42 cm) spacing and an anchor of 'To Character'.

After seeing the spacing being applied in Pages, i went to check if MSO did the same and yes it does. MSO inserts an image with a default 0.13" (0.33 cm or 3.69 pt) spacing on the left and right, which is does not take effect when an image is anchored 'As Character' or wrapped as 'None'.
Comment 7 Cor Nouws 2015-01-03 10:12:06 UTC
what popup up in my mind (sorry for that ;) ) to check for this issue:

- what is the behaviour when a paragraph with an image crosses the page border, because of adding/deleting content above it?
- is there a difference when exporting to doc(x)?
- in one of the choices more stable in settings when moving the image in the document?
Things like that.
Of course this focus is wider then just: what do the others do, but has important aspects too for user experience.
Comment 8 Jay Philips 2015-01-03 22:30:11 UTC
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #7)
> - what is the behaviour when a paragraph with an image crosses the page
> border, because of adding/deleting content above it?

Only when an image is anchored 'To Page' does it not move with the content it is attached to, as its position is fixed on that particular page.

> - is there a difference when exporting to doc(x)?

Doc(x) doesnt translate 1 to 1 between LO's anchor settings (bug 49179). Microsoft doesnt present users with both anchor and wrap options by default. They show a list of wrap options, all of which are anchored 'To Character' though it never shows the anchor in the interface, except for 'In Line' wrap which is anchored 'As Character'.

> - is one of the choices more stable in settings when moving the image in the
> document?

Setting anchor to 'To Page', 'To Paragraph' and 'To Character', all act the same way when moving an image on a page, only that 'To Page', the image doesnt move along with text movement.

> Of course this focus is wider then just: what do the others do, but has
> important aspects too for user experience.

MS Word, iWork and Google Docs use 'To Character' when they allow an image to be wrapped, but most dont show the anchor position indicator on the page.
Comment 9 Cor Nouws 2015-01-04 20:51:51 UTC
(In reply to Jay Philips from comment #8)

> > - is one of the choices more stable in settings when moving the image in the
> > document?
> 
> Setting anchor to 'To Page', 'To Paragraph' and 'To Character', all act the
> same way when moving an image on a page, only that 'To Page', the image
> doesnt move along with text movement.

I didn't talk about a stable position. I meant when a paragraph moves with an image in that paragraph. When that crosses a page, at some moment...
Does that differ with one or the other option..
Comment 10 Jay Philips 2015-01-05 01:35:39 UTC
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #9)
> I didn't talk about a stable position. I meant when a paragraph moves with
> an image in that paragraph. When that crosses a page, at some moment...
> Does that differ with one or the other option..

When an image is anchored as 'To Paragraph', 'To Character', or 'As Character' and the movement from page to page is exactly the same with 'To Paragraph' and 'To Character', while 'As Character' acts different. With 'To Paragraph' and 'To Characer', an image can appear over the page's margin when its position not enough text from the paragraph has moved onto the previous or next page, while this doesnt happen with 'As Character'.

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