Vertical alignments at page areas

for Writer fly frames

MS-Interoperability

Document - ID	Specification Owner	Last Change	Status
	Oliver-Rainer Düsterhöft	2005-01-20	Final
Conforms to	
Applies to	OpenOffice Writer
Task ID(s)	IssueZilla task 18732
Category	Feature

Abstract

Introduce vertical alignments at page areas for Writer fly frames, which are anchored to paragraph respectively to character.

i-Team Members

	Name	E-mail Address
Specification Owner	Oliver-Rainer Düsterhöft (OD)	oliver-rainer.duesterhoeft@sun.com
User Experience	Falko Tesch (FT)	falko@sun.com
Development	Oliver-Rainer Düsterhöft (OD)	oliver-rainer.duesterhoeft@sun.com
Quality Assurance	Michael Rüß (MRU)	michael.ruess@sun.com
Documentation	Uwe Fischer (UFI)	uwe.fischer@sun.com

Approved for Implementation

	Approved by	Date
User Experience	Falko Tesch	11/07/2003
Development	Michael Brauer	11/18/2003
Quality Assurance	Michael Rüß	11/19/2003
Documentation	Uwe Fischer	11/06/2003
String Review	<not needed, because no new strings>	

Document Change History

Rev. Level	Change	Initials	Date
1.0	Initial version	OD	2003-10-17
1.1	minor adjustments due to FT's comments	OD	2003-10-21
1.2	correct definition of area 'entire page'/'page text area'	OD	2003-10-31
1.3	add i-Team member for documentation and minor formating; add approvement of FT	OD	2003-11-07
1.4	include subchapters 6.4 and 6.5 due to MIB's comments; add MIB's approval	OD	2003-11-19
1.5	definition of page areas, if attribute 'Follow text flow' is off: remove exception for objects anchored inside table cells	OD	2005-01-20

Contents

Glossary	1

1	Motivation	1

2	User Scenarios	1

3	Goals	2

4	Requirements and Dependencies	2

4.1	Requirements	2

4.2	Technical Dependencies	2

5	Competitive Analyses	2

6	Detailed Specification	2

6.1	Impact on user interface	2

6.2	Definition of area 'entire page'/'page text area'	2

6.3	MS Word import filter	3

6.4	Impact on file format	3

6.5	Impact on API	3

6.6	Error Conditions	3

7	Future Tasks	3

8	Legal Issues	3

9	Notes	3

10	References	3

Glossary

Term	Description
floating screen object	This term denotes the objects 'Writer fly frame' and 'drawing object' in Writer and the objects 'text box', 'graphic', 'frame', 'picture' etc. in MS Word.
Writer fly frame	Floating screen object containing normal Writer content (text, tables, sections, columns, etc.), graphics, or OLE content.
drawing object	Floating screen object known for the draw application – e.g. rectangles, circles, lines, arrows, etc.
anchor [of a floating screen object]	Content the floating screen object is connected to. In Writer this could be a paragraph, a character, a page, or a Writer fly frame. In MS Word this is always a character.
layout environment [given by an anchor]	Surrounding environment the anchor is in. If the anchor is a paragraph or a character this could be the document body, a table cell, a footnote/endnote, the page header/footer, or a Writer fly frame. If the anchor is a page or a Writer fly frame, its the page respectively the Writer fly frame.

Motivation

MS Word and Writer have different approaches on anchoring and positioning objects in documents. To enhance interoperability in between these products as well as to lower the threshold for users to migrate to Writer it is mandatory to adapt certain behaviour from Word and integrate them into Writer. Aligning Writer fly frame, which are anchored to paragraph respectively to character, at page areas addresses one of these differences.

User Scenarios

Scenario 1

A user receives a complex Word document from a business contact and opens it in Writer. Her business contact made extensive use of objects in his Word document, such as frames, graphics and the like.

Since such objects heavily affect the document layout a proper positioning of these objects while import is mandatory for an acceptable results.

With the feature covered by this specification the user will receive in most cases a 1:1 copy of the imported document.

Scenario 2

A user migrating from MS Word to Writer will expect to position frames, objects etc. the same way in Writer as he is used it from Word.

This specification will partly cover this issue and allow the user to ease the migration learning curve by giving him the same and/or similar features like in Word at hand.

Goals

Provide the possibility to vertical align Writer fly frames, which are anchored to paragraph or to character, at page areas. These new alignment can then be used by the MS Word import filter to improve our MS-Interoperability.

Requirements and Dependencies

Requirements

The specification already considers the new option 'Follow text flow' [specification found here] to be implemented.

Technical Dependencies

Not known.

Competitive Analyses

The competitive analyses will consider MS Word only since this specification is about MS interoperability. Since the Detailed Specification is based on a direct comparison that need to be implemented a competitive analyses is not needed.

Detailed Specification

The vertical alignments 'entire page' and 'page text area' with the positions 'from top X cm', 'top', 'center' and 'bottom' will be provided for Writer fly frames that are anchored to paragraph and to character. Writer flyframes that are anchored to page already support the above alignments.

Impact on user interface

In format dialog for Writer fly frames on pane 'Type' in area 'Position' the selection list for the vertical alignments will be extended by the entries 'entire page' and 'page text area' for Writer fly frames, that are anchored to paragraph or to character. No new strings for these entries are needed, because these entries are already supported for to page anchored Writer fly frames.

Definition of area 'entire page'/'page text area'

The area defined by 'entire page' respectively 'page text area' depends on the layout environment, which is given by the anchor and the value of the new option 'Follow text flow'.

If the new option 'Follow text flow' – see above given reference for detail about this option – is activated for Writer fly frame, the area of the layout environment is taken as the page area to determine the areas 'entire page' and 'page text area'. The layout environments are:

Table cell, if anchor is inside a table cell.

Writer fly frame, if anchor is inside a Writer fly frame.

Page header/footer, if anchor is inside page header/footer.

Footnote/endnote, if anchor is inside a footnote/endnote.

Document body, if anchor is inside document body.

If the new option 'Follow text flow' is off the area of the page where the anchor is located determines the areas that are defined by 'entire page' respectively 'page text area'.

By this interpretation it's assured that a Writer fly frame, which has to follow the text flow, doesn't exceed its given layout environment.

MS Word import filter

The MS Word import filter can use the new provided vertical alignments to reflect the corresponding alignment attributes of the floating screen objects in the MS Word document.

Impact on file format

None.

Impact on API

None.

Error Conditions

Not known.

Future Tasks

For completing improvement on this new MS Word interoperability issue the following adjustments have to be specified and implemented:

Considering the wrapping mode of a floating screen object in the area outside its given environment. This needs some re-work in the layout engine to avoid loops causes by the fact that the anchor position can now be influenced by the position of the Writer fly frame an vice versa.

Layout algorithm for floating screen objects as MS Word applies it to its floating screen objects for imported documents. MS Word seems to calculate a position of a floating screen object as it has the wrapping mode 'wrap through' set without reflecting of a changed anchor position by a negative positioned floating screen object. For this a fully understanding of MS Word layout algorithm and a compatibility flag is needed.

Legal Issues

None.

Notes

References

Related PCD document chapter can be found here.

Related specification for new option 'Follow text flow' can be found here.

Required - Give references to related documentation, such as engineering designs, technical specs, and other sources for related units. Also include links to documents that other sections in this spec need to refer to, such as user opinions usability test reports.

Vertical alignments at page areas for Writer fly frames

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/home/od138299/publishSpecs/specs/www/writer/compatibility/vertical_alignment_at_page_areas.sxw

Oliver-Rainer Düsterhöft

2003-10-16T16:35:26

Oliver-Rainer Duesterhoeft

Falko Tesch