https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=123285
Bug ID: 123285
Summary: DATA LOSS: Writer's bundled paragraph styles dropping
characters from text.
Product: LibreOffice
Version: 6.2.0.3 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)
OS: Linux (All)
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: Writer
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Created attachment 149039
--> https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=149039&action=edit
Before and After screenshots of the breakage annotated using Draw.
Hi all. I upgraded from 6.1.4.2 to 6.2.0.3 last evening and am now seeing some
truly odd behavior. My install is from the Linux x86_64 RPM batch but I very
much doubt that the issue I'm experiencing is OS specific.
BACKGROUND:
My current use case involves manuscripts and screenplays in traditional
"old-school" typewriter format, thus mandating 10pitch mono-space fonts with
two spaces between sentences and after colons, etc. The key point here is that
I always keep the AutoCorrect Options' "Ignore double spaces" setting
unchecked.
PROBLEM:
Since the move to 6.2.0.3, I've been noticing that if a sentence division
within a paragraph breaks between two lines (i.e. one line ends with a
<PERIOD><SPACE><SPACE> combination and the following sentence is pushed to the
next line) my upcoming Carriage Return will cause the two spaces at the
division to be reduced to one space and all characters at the beginning of all
subsequent lines to be themselves replaced by spaces. The paragraph will then
reflow with the text mangled. Confusing right? Hopefully the attached
screenshots will clarify what I'm describing.
EXPERIMENTATION:
I haven't been able to determine what's causing it, but I have discovered that
the issue only plagues the most fundamental Paragraph Styles bundled with
Writer. I've so far confirmed the problem to affect the "Caption", "Heading",
"First Line Indent", "Hanging Indent", and "Text Body Indent" styles. Others
will probably manifest the issue as well, but I haven't tested them all.
"Default Style" and "Text Body" are unaffected!
Based on the above, I wondered if paragraph indentation was causing the
problem. Nope. I fiddled with the properties (indentation, linespacing, etc.)
of the various out-of-the-box styles and could neither induce the bug in those
unaffected, nor prevent it from occurring in those that were. I created a
number of custom styles at various points along the style tree and none of them
displayed the problem. This was weirdly true even if I "cloned" a
malfunctioning one. For example, I created an unmodified child of "First Line
Indent" and it did *not* inherit the issue from its parent.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
1. Open a new blank document. Some steps below assume a new instance of the
Default (A4) template. You'll likely also want to Toggle Formatting Marks
(CTRL+F10) to visible.
2. Confirm that Tools -> AutoCorrect Options... -> Options Tab -> "Ignore
double spaces" is unchecked.
3. Populate the document with enough text to produce a paragraph several lines
long and ensure that at least one line breaks (that is to say, *ends*) on two
space characters. In my screenshots I used the following:
---
Here is a short sentence demonstrating this very peculiar bug. Here is a short
sentence demonstrating this very peculiar bug. Here is a short sentence
demonstrating this very peculiar bug. Here is a short sentence demonstrating
this very peculiar bug. Here is a short sentence demonstrating this very
peculiar bug. Here is a short sentence demonstrating this very peculiar bug.
Here is a short sentence demonstrating this very peculiar bug. Here is a short
sentence demonstrating this very peculiar bug. Here is a short sentence
demonstrating this very peculiar bug.
---
4. Set the paragraph style to "First Line Indent". If you copy-pasted my text
from Step 3, set the font for all text to Liberation Serif (if it isn't
already) and change the font size to 14. This should cause a two-sentence
division to break across the 4th and 5th lines with two space characters at the
end of the 4th. If you didn't use my text, use whatever font and size you
please (it doesn't seem to matter) but, again, make sure at least one line ends
with two spaces.
5. Move to the end of the paragraph and press ENTER.
CONCLUSION:
I fully expect the paragraph to have become mangled. If no one else can
confirm or reproduce this (mis)behavior I'll scream and pull my hair out.
Well, no, not really. Instead I'll revert to 6.1.5.x in the meanwhile but
still be very, very annoyed.
Seriously though, I'm tempted to mark this bug as CRITICAL because data loss
can occur if a user fails to notice the characters disappearing, saves the
document, and then closes it. If they are lost, putting all those missing
characters back one-by-one, after-the-fact, across multiple paragraphs in a
large document would be an absolute nightmare! Note that CTRL+Z *will* undo
the damage if it's caught in time while the document is still open.
Thanks in advance to all those who look into this matter, and thanks in general
to everyone for all your continued hard work.
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