https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=170173
--- Comment #12 from Christian Lehmann <[email protected]> --- Concerning terminology, I just proposed subsuming paragraphs and table cells under the term 'block'. The point is that LO Writer, by its styles management, essentially presupposes a distinction between blocks (paragraphs and table cells) and inline elements (strings contained in a block). It does treat the format of table cells similarly as a paragraph style because it allows the user to choose between applying a format to a table cell (or even a row or the entire table) as opposed to applying it to a string in a cell. Thus Writer makes the user believe that it distinguishes between block-level styles and inline styles; and consequently it should do so in copy-and-paste operations, too. Please consider the point: If the user copies an entire block (paragraph or table cell or row or entire table), he assumes that the properties assigned to the block go with it on copy and paste. If the user copies an inline element (a text string contained in a block), he assumes that the properties assigned to that element (by character styles) go with it on copy and paste. In this latter case, he does not expect the properties assigned to the containing block to go with the substring copied and pasted. Nor does he want this. Given a block formatted by one style and a block formatted by a different style, if I copy material out of the first block into the second, why would I expect the format of the second block to be destroyed by this operation? But this is exactly what LO Writer does in the example that I provided: if you copy a word out of the paragraph formatted by a custom style into an empty table cell, the cell assumes that format. It does not seem that what I require is clumsy and exceptional; instead, it is principled and general. What you imply ("And I don't see a reason to ignore formatting on the paragraph level on copy") counters this principle, and one would answer: I don't see a reason to carry paragraph-level formatting along on a copy-and-paste operation that does not apply to that paragraph. It appears that LO Writer complicates the matter even further. If, in the example file uploaded, you copy a substring out of a predefined (or "system") style into the table cell, the style is left behind (okay). If you do the same out of a custom style, as said before, the style is dragged along. Thus, it appears that LO Writer treats custom styles differently than its own system styles. This, again, is not something that the user can be expected to expect. The repeatedly invoked 'paste special' option is no help in this. If one would use it to prevent pasting the paragraph style of the source into the target, one would also loose the character formatting of the string copied. LO Writer here ignores its own distinction between paragraph properties and character properties, lumping them together under its notion of 'unformatted'. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
