Complex text layout

OOouser1908 · Newbie Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 4

When using OpenOffice 2.4.1 on Windows XP I noticed that copying and pasting the Hebrew text from http://tanakhml2.alacartejava.net/cocoon/tanakhml/d11.php2xml?sfr=1&prq=1&pnt=tru&acc=tru&dia=tru&enc=heb causes OpenOffice to crash. Additionally, it is not displayed correctly even when it does not crash. On Windows Vista, using certain fonts, the text can be pasted and edited and is displayed correctly.

Is there a bug in OpenOffice when used on Windows XP?

Thanks

james_h · Super User Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 883

By default, XP and Vista have different versions of Internet Explorer. Have you tried an alternative web browser like Firefox, Safari or Opera?

If you are not able to install programs on the computer you are using you could also try File > Paste Special... Paste as plain text. Since the page in question appears to have complex formatting with every word linked to a URL, this could solve the problem.

OOouser1908 · Newbie Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 4

It is nothing to do with the web-browser. I can copy and paste fine into Notepad or any other program. I have tried the unformatted text option (which is really the same as pasting into Notepad, clearing the clipboard and then copying from Notepad again to paste into OpenOffice) and this also doesn't help. For the record I was using Firefox at the time, both on Windows XP and on the Vista machine.

Is this a bug in OpenOffice or is there something I am doing wrong? Has anyone else experienced this or similar issues?

james_h · Super User Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 883

The crash does not appear to occur every time with FIrefox, but occurs almost always with Internet Explorer. The Linux version does not crash.

A possible workaround:

Go to Google Documents - it includes a web-based word processor that can save in OpenOffice.org format. Copy and paste as required. Save the resulting document locally with File > Download File As > OpenOffice.org . You can also save as a PDF file. Google Documents also lets you upload documents that you created locally so that you can edit them on any computer that has Internet access and a recent generation browser.

OOouser1908 · Newbie Joined: 16 May 2008 Posts: 4

I tried a similar workaround which failed, and that was to use the Vista machine to edit the text and then save it as an OpenDocument file using the network and then I tried to open it again on the XP machine, but even opening the saved document crashed OpenOffice. I am fairly confident that Google Documents would have no problems.