Problem marking text

DotWin · Newbie Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 4

Hello!

I'm using OOo for over two years now at home and I'm very happy with it.
Unfortunately, I'm experiencing some problems with marking text.

I want to mark text in Writer beginning in the middle of a line and for some centimeters to the right, and this for several (many) lines down to the end of the document to delete this marked text afterwards.

With MS Word (which I have to use at work Sad

) it is possible to achieve this by pressing the ALT key and marking the text with the mouse (left button) at the same time.

Unfortunately, OOo doesn't seem to have a function similar to this, or at least I am unable to find it.

Does anyone know, how I can mark text in OOo the way I want to, or have a solution to my problem?

Thanks in advance!

Greetings, DotWin!

esperantisto · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:37 am Post subject:

There's no direct analog of ALT+select in OOo. I'd suggest to change the text select mode from standard to additive. You can cyclically change the mode clicking on the indication on the status bar, by default ist "STD", you need "ADD". Then you have to select desired pieces of text line-by-line, if you need a rectangular selection (note, you can select not adjacent text).

DotWin · Newbie Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 4

Hi!

Thank you for the answer, now finally I understand, what STD and ADD in the status bar mean. Smile

Pressing CTRL and selecting the text in the lines with the mouse does have the same effect.

Unfortunately, I wanted to avoid selecting each line, because they are so many (over 500).

This seems to be one of the very rare instances of MS Word being superior to OOo Sad

.
Hopefully, the OOo guys will implement the ALT+select feature in the future.

This time, I think that I will temporarily convert the file to DOC, take it to work, edit it with Word, and then take it back home reconverting it to SXW again.

At least, I don't have to search for the feature in OOo any more, for the time being.

Greetings, DotWin!

ftack · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:31 am Post subject:

Usually in Word processing, rectangular selections make not a lot sense. A text editor is probably more suited for your work (there are lots of open-source text editors nowadays like Scintilla or Syn). Could you elaborate a bit on your purpose? I am curious to see why users would need rectangular selection in a wordprocessor.

DotWin · Newbie Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 4

Hi!

I have to edit a text which was based on an HTML text copied from an Web page.
The text was based on a table (only text!) and I have to delete several "columns" in the middle.

Unfortunately, the separators vary, so I can't easily convert the text to an OOo table again and delete the columns, and "Search and Replace" doesn't work either, because the text in the columns is different from line to line.

Therefore the easiest way to edit the text would be by an ALT+select feature!

Greetings, DotWin!

esperantisto · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 5:32 am Post subject:

Wait, I vaguely rememeber, there was almost the same question around here. And someone posted a link to a macro allowing ALT+select. However, I'm not 100% positive about that - try to search the forum.

ftack · Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 7:05 am Post subject:

In a thread long ago, http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3001&highlight=rectangular+selection I seemed to have had the same opinion. A seach for 'rectangular selection' yields
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=19395
which was marked as a duplicate of 1596, which dates back to 2001. The issue is alive, however, but unfortunately a terget milestone is not yet set.

DotWin · Newbie Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 4

Hi!

Thanks for all your answers, although there seems to be no solution (I couldn't find a macro), yet.
At least, there are more people in need for "retangular selection" in OOo out there. Wink

Greetings, DotWin!

stephenmcleod · General User Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 11

This is being worked here:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1596

Until they add support for it, I suggest you get a copy of NoteTab or TextPad.
I believe "annoyware" free versions are available for both (they make you wait a few seconds when it starts.)

This needs to be a function which can be assigned to a button or hot key combination.

I use this a lot for thousands of lines of data when parsing EQ logs.
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AndrewZ · Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:37 am Post subject:

OpenOffice.org's new block selection mode is working nicely in the developer's snapshot.
http://openofficeorgfoo.blogspot.com/2007/12/block-selection-mode-new-feature.html

You can test it now:
http://download.openoffice.org/680/index.html

(I know this is an old post, but even if the people involved here move on, old posts live on forever through link references and search engines. I don't want others to think OpenOffice.org does not have this feature.)
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