Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 107841
WW8: RTL documents lose correct directionality when exported
Last modified: 2017-05-20 11:19:57 UTC
When I create a document in Hebrew and save it in Word 97/2000/XP format, the text alignment is somehow changed between succesive saves. I'm running oowriter 3.1.1 version 310m19 on Debian Lenny Linux. Here are the details: 1. Start oowriter. 2. The Default paragraph style contains: - Options: Left - Text Direction: Use superordinate object settings 3. Change Text Direction to Right-to-left; Options is changed to Right. 6. Write a couple of words in Hebrew. The text is displayed correctly, from right to left and right-aligned. 7. Save the file as Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc) document. 8. Close the file. 9. Open it. Now the text is displayed incorrectly: it is left-aligned. When looking at the paragraph style it shows: - Options: Left (it shoule be Right) - Text Direction: Right-to-left When looking at the file in Word 2007 on Windows XP Pro the text is displayed correctly, though. The test continue: 10. Save the file with a different name - do "save as", just change its name - do not change anything else. 11. Close the file, then open it. 12. The file (the second one) looks okay!? - the "Options" was, somehow, changed to "Right". But if I now open it in Word, the text is left-aligned (this is wrong) - when OO display the text correctly Word display it incorrectly, and vise versa. If you continue this cycle - you start with file a that you create as in the first steps, save it to b, then save b to c, c to d, and so on, every time you save it the "Options" toggles between Right and Left. This toggling occurs also if you just save the same file - e.g., do a little change (delete a single character, then re-type it), save the file, and close it. When you open it again, the alignment is toggled!
I cannot reproduce this problem. Tested it with native 3.1.1 and 3.2 dev build OOO300m6 on WinXP, ubuntu 9.10 and SUSE 11. Do you work on a certain Linux distribution, e.g. ubuntu or Fedora running the by-packed OOo build? In this case, please refer to the distributors support or even run the native OOo builds which can be downloaded from OpenOffice.org.
Closed
The problem exist and is reproducible on two machines running Debian Linux. I installed the latest version from Sun, 3.2.0 rc1 and it shows the problem, as well as the writer in the Debian package. Is there something I can do to help? Thanks, Amit
It would help very much if you could attach an odt or doc file which looks correctly in OOo and then exported to WW8 format afterward will look bad. Thanks for your help in advance!
Created attachment 67609 [details] Tarball containing openoffice writer files demonstrating the issue
Here are the steps for demonstrating the issue that were performed with the files in the attached tarball (ootest.tar.gz). I also added these steps to the attached file. Demonstrating Issue 107841 of Openoffice writer =============================================== RTL documents lose correct directionality when exported ------------------------------------------------------- Reported by Amit Ramon, amit.ramon@gmail.com 0. start swriter (version 3.20 320m8 rc1) 1. In the new document type a word in Hebrew. Right-click on it and open the Paragraph Style for the Default style, go to Alignment. This is what I see: * Options: Left * Properties/Text direction: Use subordinate object settings 2. Change Text direction to "Right-to-left". In Options it is changed automatically to "Right". 3. Save original.odt 4. Save as doc1.doc, word 97/2000 5. Close doc1.doc 6. Open doc1.doc. Now the text is aligned to the left! 7. Open the Paragraph Style for the Default style, go to Alignment: * Options: Left (was Right in the odt) * Properties/Text direction: "Right-to-left" 8. Press Cancel to close the dialog box. 9. Do Save as and save the document as doc2.doc. After saving the text is still left-aligned. 10. Close the file. 11. Open doc2.doc. Now the text is aligned to the right! 12. Open the Paragraph Style for the Default style, go to Alignment: * Options: Right (was Left when the file was last saved) * Properties/Text direction: "Right-to-left" To summarize: the Text direction is maintained, as it should be. The alignment is seems to be switched from Right to Left and vise verse when a file is opened. I believe that the alignment is changed when a file is opened since: * Right after saving the file looks okay. * In Microsoft Word (2007) the file looks as it was when it was saved (either left or right aligned). * If I do successive "save as" and create a couple of doc files, close them, then open, they all show the same alignment after opening (which is opposite to what it was just before they were closed). The above was demonstrated on a Debian Gnu/Linux Squeeze, with a Openoffice that was installed from the official openoffice site. However, the same happens with the openoffice package that comes with Debian. The locale was en_US.UTF-8. It also seems that the problem does not happen with documents that contain only Latin characters.
MRU->HBRINKM: can confirm this on Win. Exporting attached odt to WW8 format and reopening-> the RTL text direction of the Hebrew turned to LTR.
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".