[PLUG] Resolved: Loosing columns in LibreOffice Writer

[Richard C. Steffens]

On 05/30/2013 07:10 PM, King Beowulf wrote:
> On 05/30/2013 05:44 PM, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
>> ...I can
>> generate a three column page in LO Writer, and it prints fine. The
>> problem comes when I save, and then re-open the file. Instead of having
>> three columns, I have three pages.
> Works fine here with LO Writer Version 4.0.2.2.  I opened an old MS Word
> 97 doc, coverted to 3 columns, saved, it reopened fine.  I don"t have WP
> docs so can't test that one.
>
> Now, when you save your document, did you explicitly say to save in ODT
> format?  I think, LO, by default, tries to save back into the original
> file format and the conversion to WP my be gimpy.

Thinking you might be on to something I tried again, starting with a new 
document opened from within LO Writer (as opposed to using the default, 
which I have set to .doc, since that's what I have to use for the work I 
do.) Instead of copying and pasting anything, I typed each line in sort 
of generically -- "Line one, line two," etc. When I finished the first 
column I inserted a manual column break and pasted a copy of column one 
into column two. I repeated that for column three. Then I saved as .odt, 
.docx, and .doc. I opened each, and they all looked correct.

Next I took a copy of the .doc version, selected all, deleted, and typed 
in the text I usually use. I copied and pasted some text from a .txt 
file. As with the preceding test I inserted manual column breaks and 
pasted column one into columns two and three. I saved it. Since it was a 
.doc, it saved as .doc. I shut down LO Writer and reopened what I just 
saved. The three columns became three pages, again. However, I noticed 
some blank lines that hadn't been there before. After deleting the blank 
lines I still had three pages. But when I inserted a manual column 
break, moved to the newly created column, hit delete, the text on page 
two moved up into column two. I repeated the process of deleting blank 
lines that shouldn't be there in column two, inserted a manual column 
break, and hit delete. Then I did the same thing for the text that moved 
up into column three. When I was finished I saved, closed, and reopened. 
This time the page looked like it should.

I also figured out how those blank lines got there. Sometimes, when I 
paste in some text, it wraps to the next line. To keep things lined up I 
insert a tab at the beginning of the second line. However, even though 
it now looks right, it's not. What I need to do is insert a new line 
character at the end of the first line, and then insert the tab at the 
beginning of the second line.

Anyway, I now have a process that works. And more importantly, I can 
produce a template I can hand over to someone else so that they can do 
this task on their copy of MS Word in the future.

Thanks for giving me the hint to take a more step by step approach to 
tracking down the real problem.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens