Issue 30782 - Please treat tables as object
Summary: Please treat tables as object
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Writer
Classification: Application
Component: editing (show other issues)
Version: OOo 1.1.1
Hardware: All All
: P3 Trivial with 2 votes (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords: ms_interoperability, usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-06-27 20:50 UTC by oliinman
Modified: 2013-08-07 14:38 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: ENHANCEMENT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Attachments
An example of tables with caption without a frame. And within a frame (9.08 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2006-01-15 19:12 UTC, ecastro 		no flags Details
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Description oliinman 2004-06-27 20:50:11 UTC 
For Figures, you associate a caption to a figure which is all set in a frame;
please do so for tables.  Once the frames are built it is much easier to move
them around appropriately for page alignment (actually surprisingly so). 
Unfortunately tables do not seem to have this property and moving them about in
the word processor is tedious at best.

--> Kudos; in working on my dissertation there have been a number of issues
(particularly since I have migrated to this from word).  After 140+ and 140+
references, the product works notably better than off the shelf word.
Comment 1 eric.savary 2004-06-28 08:53:36 UTC 
Reassigned to Bettina
Comment 2 ecastro 2006-01-15 19:05:03 UTC 
Hi
This different behaviour for Tables is also present on OOo 2.0
I have supervised several Ph.D. theses (documents with >400 pages and hundreds
of figures and tables) and putting tables within a frame has been a must for
easy table moving and positioning within the page. The behaviour asked by
oliinman would be a definite improvement.

Adding a frame to the table would also remove another two issues:

a) alignment of the caption. Now the caption is aligned as mandated by teh
"Table" paragraph style, and can (is) be different from the real table
alignment.  Furthermore, many times one wants the caption to be "cropped" (left
-and -right indented) at Table boundaries. This has to be done manually now but
it is automatic within a  frame.

b) The frame would allow the whole table to be movable on the page. Thsi is teh
default behavior for tables in OOo competitor, MSO. Allowing a similar behavior
would ease migration for Word users, and be less frustrating. So this is also a
compatibility issue, not only an usability one.

I do see a place for "normal" tables like OOo have now. So adding the frame
should be an option, not a mandatory command


¿How can this be implemented? I see two places:

a) Adding a "Within a Frame" menu option in Table>Insert menu
(this is the easiest way, can be done with a simple macro)

b) adding a new option to Tools>Options>OpenOffice.org Writer>AutoCaption:
"Writer Table within a Frame"

Both options are not mutually exclusive.
Comment 3 ecastro 2006-01-15 19:12:37 UTC 
Created attachment 33238 [details]
An example of tables with caption without a frame. And within a frame
Comment 4 bettina.haberer 2010-05-21 14:55:45 UTC 
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on
my owner to the owner "requirements".