Formatted Text in Cell Notes

OpenOffice.org 2.0

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Daniel Rentz	2004-05-24	Final
Conforms to	StarOffice Specification Workflow v0.1, Aug 2003
Applies to	Calc, API
Task ID(s)	i21253, i21254, i21255, i21256, i21257, i21258
Category	Feature

Abstract

Calc needed the ability to format text in cell notes. With this new feature the user will be able to format note text with various attributes, like bold, typeface etc. Furthermore this feature enhances the interoperability with MS Excel by providing a competitive set of features in this area.

i-Team Members

	Name	E-mail Address
Specification Owner	Daniel Rentz (dr)	daniel.rentz@sun.com
User Experience	Falko Tesch (ft)	falko@sun.com
Development	Daniel Rentz (dr)	daniel.rentz@sun.com
Quality Assurance	Oliver Crämer (oc)	oliver.craemer@sun.com
Documentation	Frank Peters (fpe)	fpe@sun.com

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Falko Tesch	2003-11-05
Development	Daniel Rentz	2003-10-15
Quality Assurance	Oliver Crämer	2003-11-07
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	2004-05-21
String Review	no strings changed/added	

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
1.0	Initial version	dr	2003-10-15
1.1	First review	ft	2003-10-30
1.2	Finalized	oc/ufi/dr	2004-05-24

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	Goals	1

3	Requirements and Dependencies	1

3.1	Requirements	1

3.2	Technical Dependencies	1

4	User Scenarios	1

5	Competitive Analyses	2

6	Detailed Specification	2

6.1	Error Conditions	2

7	Future Tasks	2

8	Legal Issues	3

9	Notes	3

10	References	3

Glossary

Term	Description
Cell note	A text box object attached to a spreadsheet cell.
Text box drawing object	A rectangular object in a document that contains some text.
AutoShape	Name of drawing objects in MS Office
Edit mode	Special state of a text box (and cell note), that allows editing the text contents. Visualized by a blinking cursor in the text.

Motivation

Cell notes, called “Comments” in MS Excel, in MS Excel have multiple ways of formatting. The user can change text attributes as well as the comment box layout itself.

Both are somewhat restricted compared to what the user can normally do with text and AutoShapes though.

Calc has currently no such feature. Cell notes in Calc have only fixed text attributes and a fixed note object layout.

To enhance the interoperability with MS Excel in this point, this specification will define the new feature of text formatting in Calc cell notes.

Goals

Cell notes should support all text formatting features known from text box drawing objects. This will increase the compatibility when handling documents from other spreadsheet applications.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

None.

Technical Dependencies

None.

User Scenarios

Scenario 1:

If a user imports Microsoft Excel documents that contain formatted comment the import will look different when opened in Calc.

Scenario 2:

MS Excel users are used to enhance the visibilty and look of comments they can add to cells. It will ease their transition to Calc if they can use their skills also in Calc.

Competitive Analyses

Microsoft Excel supports most formatting options in cell notes, except text direction/text orientation.

Detailed Specification

Calc will support all possibilities to format the text of a cell notes. If a cell note is selected and the edit mode is active (visualized by a blinking cursor), the user interface will change in the same way as if the edit mode of a common text box is entered. In detail this includes the “Format” menu, the “Object Tool Bar”, and the context menu.

The edit mode of cell notes will not have any restrictions compared to the edit mode of text boxes; all text formatting attributes known from text boxes will be supported:

Font name

Font size

Text color

Text language

Font style (boldness, posture, underline, escapement)

Horizontal and vertical alignment

Spacing between lines

Paragraph indentation and spacing

Tabulators

Text direction (LTR/RTL)

Text orientation (horizontal/vertical).

String list

No new strings.

Tab Order

None.

Key Board Shortcuts

All existing keyboard shortcuts used in edit mode of text box drawing objects.

Error Conditions

None.

Future Tasks

It will be possible to format the box that contains the cell note text, and to position the box anywhere in the spreadsheet. This is described in another specification.

Legal Issues

None

Notes

None.

References

OpenOffice.org issue: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=21253

PCD-ID: MSInteroperability-8

Formatted Text in Cell Notes

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http://specs.openoffice.org/calc/compatibility/annotation_formtext.sxw

Formatted Text in Cell Notes

Daniel Rentz

2003-10-15T14:54:08

Matthias Müller-Prove