https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=83071
--- Comment #18 from Albrecht Müller <[email protected]> --- Hi Cor, You may be right when you assume that in 95%+ of cases the concepts of outline numbering don't cause any problems. You can go the way you describe, get what you want, and don't have to worry about the concepts of outline numbering. The story behind this error report may clarify things: I had a RTF report generated from an UML tool and tried to use LibreOffice to print it. I also wanted to fix a few things that the tool does not handle smoothly: Get the header lines numbered, insert a table of contents, reformat some pictures, make sure that some individual pages are printed at odd page numbers and other common stuff. So I thought I am pretty well in this 95%+ comfort zone. I spent about a week trying to get this paper copy, analysed why things did not work as expected, read and created bug reports. Then I gave up, activated an old Word 97 installation on an old machine, and got my document printed within a couple of hours. So after I lost a lot of time the only solution I know of is: Use the Microsoft tool. Case closed. What went wrong? - Maybe it is not possible to use LibreOffice to handle my report for the simple reason that it does not support the necessary RTF format. I was not aware that this might be a problem until I created bug 83204 and noticed Word 2010 reporting the use of a "compatibility mode" when it opened the test example. As LibreOffice did not report any problems with the file format, I tried to find out for what reason some of the headers were plain text while others had the correct header format. So the RTF import should provide information that helps to answer my questions that are still open: Does LibreOffice support the RTF format I need or not? If the format is supported, is there a bug in the RTF import or is the effect I observed a consequence of some concept I do not understand yet? - I was not aware that this Outline Numbering tool exists. Therefore I started pressing F11 to get the Styles and Formatting window. Here you seem to get all what you need to define the outline style: Paragraph formats for headers, outline levels, and list styles containing outline formats. I needed some time to understand how the Numbering Style dialogue works, and when I finally was able to create the style I realized that it did not work as expected. I did not get a hint from the user interface that I might be on the wrong track. Therefore I considered the observed behaviour as an error. Only after I somehow stumbled over the Outline Numbering tool I could correct my wrong idea of the concepts behind the numbering. That's why I proposed the additional buttons that lead to the Outline Numbering tool. - Of course I tried to find help information by pressing the corresponding help buttons in the windows I used but did not get any useful information. On a second thought I would say I feel it is pretty hard to develop a correct idea of how outline numbering works if you happen to start from the wrong place. I don't think changing the summary is a good idea as it suggests that this problem can be solved on a bug by bug basis. In short, I see the root of the problem in the interaction of: - Problems in the user interface (missing feedback, access to functionality not at expected locations, "Outline" denotes different things in the Outline Numbering tool and in the Numbering Style window, etc.), - Missing help information and - Plain bugs. Solving this problem requires activities in different areas like RTF import, harmonizing various parts of the user interface, writing and translating help information, etc. I fear that fixing all these things requires more resources that are available to this project and I therefore will not see this problem solved any time soon. I know of some failed attempts of municipal authorities to switch to Linux and a corresponding office software. In Munich where such a project succeeded there is now a discussion about switching back to Microsoft products. I guess that problems like the one I described here are an important cause of these failures and the current discussion despite the fact that they may be in the 5%- part of cases. Regards, Albrecht -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
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