Tables: Vertical Text Direction

OpenOffice.org 2.0 and StarOffice 8 Writer

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Andreas Martens	2004-03-15	Final
Conforms to	
Applies to	OpenOffice.org Writer
Task ID(s)	i25067
Category	Feature

Abstract

A new direction attribute for table cells is introduced, allowing the user to set the text direction for table cells independent from the direction of the table environment.

i-Team Members (The specification Owner is part of the i-Team)

	Name	E-mail Address
User Experience	Falko Tesch	ft@openoffice.org
Development (core)	Frank Meies	fme@openoffice.org
Development (UI)	Gunnar Timm	gt@openoffice.org
Quality Assurance	Stefan Baltzer	sba@openoffice.org
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	ufi@openoffice.org

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Falko Tesch	2004-03-15
Development	Frank Meies	2004-03-12
Quality Assurance	Stefan Baltzer	2004-03-15
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	2004-03-12
String Review	does not apply (no new strings)	

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Owner	Change	Date
Draft	Falko Tesch / Frank Meies	Transferred to new template	2004-02-02
Draft	Frank Meies	First review, changed Word Import/Export Issues	2004-02-04
Draft	Frank Meies	Added Abstract, Motivation, Goals, Future Tasks sections.	2004-03-12

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	1

3	Goals	1

4	Requirements and Dependencies	1

4.1	Requirements	1

4.2	Technical Dependencies	1

5	Competitive Analyses	1

6	Detailed Specification	2

6.1	Word Import/Export Issues	3

6.2	Error Conditions	4

7	Future Tasks	4

8	Notes	4

9	References	4

Glossary

Term	Description
L2R	Left-to-right, a text direction
R2L	Right-to-left, a text direction

Motivation

The text direction of a table cell used to be determined by the text direction of the environment of the table. E.g., a table on a page with a horizontal layout used to have cells with a horizontal layout. An new attribute for table cells allows to set the table cell direction independent from the direction of the table environment.

User Scenarios

Tables are often used for document layout. Therefore many users need enhanced features to format text within cells. One of those formats is vertical text layout.

Also Word does provide extensive formatting on text directions that need to be imported properly into Writer.

Goals

Providing direction control about the text direction of table cells.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

None

Technical Dependencies

None

Competitive Analyses

Since this feature is a MS Office interoperability issue the competitive analyses will only take MS word in account.

MS Word XP allow the user to choose from 5 different text directions for table content by opening a dialogue from “Format – Text direction”. See  in Figure 1.

 Horizontal text, L2R, with Asian and full-width ASCII character in upright position

 Vertical text, from button, L2R, with Asian and full-width ASCII character not rotated

 Vertical text, from top, R2L, with Asian and full-width ASCII character rotated, equals vertical writing

 Vertical text, from top, R2L, with Asian and full-width ASCII character not rotated

 Horizontal text with Asian and full-width ASCII character in not rotated

Figure 1 MS Word XP Text direction dialogue

Note: If Asian language support is not enabled in Word only  are available. Also  (and ) is only available within cells.

In Word the following changes apply to cells if their text direction is changed from standard ():

Changing to a vertical text direction () will automatically adjust row height to a minimum value of 20mm if the table row height is below this value.

Any row height value above this will be left untouched.

Changing to text direction  will not change the cell's layout.

It is possible to adjust the row height to a value lower than the default value afterwards. In extreme cases the text within the cell will then be cutoff. This value will be reset once the text direction is changed anew.

Detailed Specification

Default setting is Use superordinate object settings

Basic Table Layout	Value of row height/column width	Effect on assigning new direction
Horizontal Table	Row Height below the minimum value for vertical text direction	Assigning vertical text direction to cell(s) will change the cell height to 20mm height
	Row Height is the same or greater than the minimum value for vertical text direction	Assigning vertical text direction to cell(s) will not change row height
Vertical Table	Column width below the minimum value for horizontal text direction	Assigning horizontal text direction to cell(s) will change the cell width 20mm
	Column width same or greater than the minimum value for horizontal text direction	Assigning horizontal text direction to cell(s) will not change column width

Figure 2 Table format Text Direction

Word Import/Export Issues

	Word	Writer
	Horizontal text, L2R, with Asian and full-width ASCII character in upright position	Standard Horizontal text, L2R
	Vertical text, from button, L2R, with Asian and full-width ASCII character not rotated	Use Standard Horizontal text, L2R with all characters rotated by 90°
	Vertical text, from top, R2L, with Asian and full-width ASCII character rotated, equals vertical writing	Standard vertical text, R2L
	Vertical text, from top, R2L, with Asian and full-width ASCII character not rotated	Standard vertical text, R2L
	Horizontal text with Asian and full-width ASCII character in not rotated	Standard Horizontal text, L2R

String list

Item	English	German	Comments
Descriptor	~Text direction	Textrichtung	
Drop down Listbox	Use superordinate object settings	Einstellungen des übergeordneten Objektes verwenden	
Drop down Listbox	Right-to-Left (vertical)	Rechts-nach-links (Vertikal)	
Drop down Listbox	Left-to-right (horizontal)	Links-nach-rechts (Horizontal)	
String	Alignment	Ausrichtung	
String #2	~Vertical Alignment	Vertikale Ausrichtung	
Drop down Listbox	Top	Oben	
Drop down Listbox	Centered	Mitte	
Drop down Listbox	Bottom	Unten	

Error Conditions

None.

Future Tasks

The full implementation of a 90° rotated layout in table cells is addressed with issue 25140.

Notes

None.

References

None.

Tables: Vertical Text Direction

Page 4

http://specs.openoffice.org/writer/compatibility/tables_vertical_text_direction.sxw

Tables: Vertical Text Direction

Falko Tesch

2004-02-02T15:39:35