Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 5266
Formula not resizable
Last modified: 2021-06-17 06:58:54 UTC
1. In Drawing insert any formula, such as %omega_2 2. Select the formula, right-click, select Position and Size, Size tab. Both Keep Ratio and Protect are checked by default. 3. Uncheck Protect (Keep Ratio remains checked) and press OK. 4. Resize formula using any handle. The formula can resize without keeping the ratio the same. This appears incorrect since Keep Ratio should keep the proportions the same. 5. After resizing once, it is not possible to resize again. One must repeat the process and uncheck Protect again. This may not be a bug but I wonder if the design is intentional. It would be more consistent for the user if the Protect remained unchecked unless explicitly re-checked.
Addendum: Also drew a graphic object (rectangle) and checking Keep Ratio did not prevent changing the ratio, so maybe this is not a formula issue. However for the rectangle, Protect is unchecked by default and remains that way after resizing. I think formula objects should work this way also so that all objects are consistent unless there is a good reason otherwise. Looks like the formulas are the exception.
Joost: Resize of the formula is disabled by default. The ability to activate resizing it is a bug. JA->ES: reassigned to you... (you mentioned this already has been fixed in 642...)
Yowch! I need to keep my big mouth shut next time!! Please DO NOT remove the "bug" which allows resizing of formulas. It's not hurting anything, is it? If anything, just change the resize defaults and operation to make it similar to the way other graphic objects are handled in Drawing or Presentation. Resizing formulas is extremely useful for technical drawings where it is necessary to resize components so things "look right" and make formulas readable. I'm not a great artist and it would be difficult for me to make professional looking figures without it. Microsoft Office DOES allow resizing of formulas. Why shouldn't OO? If for no other reason, at least it maintains a feature consistency. Thanks for listening.
I'd like it to be possible to resize formulas as well and have it simply scale the graphical view of the object to fill the new size. It would indeed improve compatability with word and how it operates.
ES->LHO: I recently closed a task disabeling ANY possibility to resize Math object in Writer. Do you realy think we follow the needs of the user?
LHO->FT: Please take over.
??? I cannot find any(!) possibility to resize math objects in MS Offfice (XP). Therefore I do not think we should change our behaviour!
You certainly can. e.g. insert->object->ms equation editor. Stick in some text and then format->object->size and change the height/width. Or grab the object outline and stretch it.
Hi Andreas, Caolon is right :o( So what do you think? I think we need to address this issue. 1) we just import it the size it is but do not allow to change its size (as we do it now) or 2) we also allow to change its size and to im/export this feature. After all in the long run we must have this feature anyway (INHO)
OD->FT (25.02.2003): Please take over again. The described defect changed to an enhancement request. Please resolve this issue and setup an new issue for the enhancement.
FT->BH: Changed from defect to enhancement. Re-assigned to BH for further evaluation.
It makes no sense for a user not to be able to resize a formula. And it is also not obvious, why that works for other objects. We should get able to resize formula and scale text to get a result, which is comparable with MS.
*** Issue 8881 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Too late for beta2, re-targeted to 1.1 RC.
I changed the milestone target for this larger implementation to OOo 2.0.
8881 has been closed as duplicate to this issue.
Hello Thomas, did you make some changings in the meantime with this issue? Is it possible to get then in in Q?
No I did no make any changes and it is unlikely to get into Q. Also I'd like to get some comments on this by FL. A long time ago we discussed about this issue since it pops up every now and then. Until now we always decided against it... TL->FL: Anything new about this matter?
remove OD from CC-list
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Seems odd that that ja thinks it is a bug to be able to resize formula. For doing scientific presentations its rather useful to be able to make an equation large. It sounds like no extra code would be needed to make this possible, just remove the bit of code that tries to stop you resizing things.
Formulas should be resized relative to text when changing font-size for a text „containing“ formulas. Especially when putting text with formulas from writer to impress, where you need larger fonts it's ennoying, that the formulas stay small!!!
Thomas, please consider this issue for 3.x. Thanks a lot. WBR, KP.
TL->FL: it seems we are missing a statement about this for quite some time. Please take over.
See issue 26446 too.
Is allowing manual resizing breaking something elsewhere and that just hasn't been mentioned in this thread? It's odd how you seem to be going out of your way to reduce functionality, especially since this bug has been here for 13 years. Manually resizing through size/position is simple, but for some reason you default to protecting size even after that protection is removed by the user. The formula renders correctly in the new size so it's curious to say the least. Would it be possible to get an explanation of what errors allowing manual resizing would cause to stem the confusion? Latency issues perhaps?
I have a degree in computer science, and I just spent about 1 hour converting a formula into SVG graphic format. This required approximately the following procedure: * Open LibreOffice Math * Write formula * Could not find a way to "export to Draw", "export to SVG", etc. * Open LibreOffice Draw * Menu: Insert/ Object/ Formula * Manually edit the formula (paste in formula code) * Format/ Font size/ make the text incredibly tiny with 5 point text, so that the entire formula would be shown inside the tiny, rigid, NON-RESIZEABLE box thata Insert/Object had placed it inside (the formula was internally overflowing, and being clipped) — of course this NON-RESIZEABLE box was NOT automatically resizing itself to the formula contained inside it… * Context menu: Convert to profile (initially attempted convert to curve, but this resulted in resizing & clipping so had to try another option) * Manually resize resulting formula-profile to width of page. * Manually resize page to vertical size of object * Export as SVG I'm running LO 5.2.3.3 x64 — it baffles me how anyone thinks this procedure is acceptable in 2017. Perhaps with Windows 3.1 in 1992, I would have thought this about normal, but these days, this is well below my expectations for how software should work! Anyone who thinks that being inside this strait-jacket is a "feature" is frankly an idiot. Sorry for the undiplomatic language!
Possibly related to: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49614 Can anyone explain how these two bugzilla databases are related to each other?
(In reply to Matthew Slyman from comment #37) > Can anyone explain how these two bugzilla databases are related to each > other? Simply read whyat you are writing to: This is the issue tracker of OpenOffice and *not* LibreOffice. It's another program. If you have a problem their software please go there. As I can see you know the link already. ;-)
OK, thanks — I must have just presumed they were linked somehow, given that LO came from OOO and so I thought any old OOO bugs that were still in current LO must somehow be managed here. Excuse me. Can you confirm that this problem does not exist in OOO? If so, that might give me some leverage with LO…
(In reply to Matthew Slyman from comment #36) > I have a degree in computer science, and I just spent about 1 hour > converting a formula into SVG graphic format. Open Draw, Insert > Object > Formula. Write the formula or import it. Click outside to finish edit mode. If not still selected, select the Formula, so it has green handles. File > Export. Make sure you have "Selection" checked. Choose type "SVG", give it a file name. OK. Thats all. Less than 5 minutes. But that is irrelevant for this issue. Use mailing list or forum to get assistance in using Apache OpenOffice.
(In reply to Matthew Slyman from comment #39) > OK, thanks — I must have just presumed they were linked somehow, given that > LO came from OOO and so I thought any old OOO bugs that were still in > current LO must somehow be managed here. Excuse me. > > Can you confirm that this problem does not exist in OOO? If so, that might > give me some leverage with LO… I hope that the reply from Regina has helped. Otherwise I would suggest that you try yourself as the options layout has changed since version 1.0.0
Thank you, although, with all due respect, I followed a similar procedure for inserting the equation last time, and Draw gave me a formula window much smaller than the size of my formula — as originally explained, the formula was clipped at about 10% of the width of the formula, clipping off 90% of the formula — and the green handles stubbornly refused to move! I also encountered the other problems I have described. The box simply remained at its default size, except when I converted the formula to a curve, when the box suddenly shrank vertically, causing vertical clipping as well as horizontal clipping. (Naturally, as is often the case when an expert gets involved; after you advised me, the problem disappeared — although I do know that the problem is there, and has not been fully resolved, because I have not updated my software in the mean-time.) So with all due respect to you, I believe there is an intermittent fault in the code that is supposed to automatically resize the box with the green handles, according to the size of the contained formula. This intermittent fault is clearly causing significant (very irritating) problems for a small minority of users, in a minority of occasions. ALSO: I have now followed your recommendations completely, and the result was: a blank formula displayed in Chrome/ Inkscape (they couldn't display the SVG that Draw exported directly from the formula: it had to be converted into a path/ contour/ curve first, to work around this issue. Only then did it produce output that was visible in my other software. I believe this is probably an issue with management of fonts in Windows — most non-technical users wouldn't guess this, but then, most non-technical users probably wouldn't try this procedure either. I've used a variety of vector drawing programs, on a variety of platforms, over several decades; and the fact that I'm finding this aspect of Draw (which is generally quite good software) to be counter-intuitive (and had to read various online help forums before coming here), is probably a sign that ideally, this feature set should be improved.
I originally posted this some 17 years ago and the developer response has been absolutely absurd - worthy of Through the Looking Glass or responding through a psychedelic delirium. Remember the resizing ability originally existed and I suggested a small logical change to make it function consistent with MS Office - I would certainly call it a bug fix. The result? Remove the feature, and when others object and call for its restoration label it a feature enhancement! Quite simply, idiotic beyond the pale. Maybe it should never be fixed and I could claim to have the longest open unresolved issue (I don't know if that's really true but it's probably close.) I understand a lot of this development is done without compensation, but this is really so ridiculous and probably could have been originally resolved with a minimum of effort. I guess I check back in other 17 ....
I originally posted this some 17 years ago and the developer response has been absolutely absurd - worthy of Through the Looking Glass or responding through a psychedelic delirium. Remember the resizing ability originally existed and I suggested a small logical change to make it function consistent with MS Office - I would certainly call it a bug fix. The result? Remove the feature, and when others object and call for its restoration label it a feature enhancement! Quite simply, idiotic beyond the pale. Maybe it should never be fixed and I could claim to have the longest open unresolved issue (I don't know if that's really true but it's probably close.) I understand a lot of this development is done without compensation, but this is really so ridiculous and probably could have been originally resolved with a minimum of effort. I guess I'll check back in other 17 ....
*** Issue 94119 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***