Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Tips for a better description of the problem wrote:An example is worth a thousand words. If the problem is complicated to describe, take a screenshot or create a copy that you can post here so others can see what you're seeing.
For screenshots, use the .png format and crop the pic to show only what is to be seen.
For file samples, remove all sensitive data (replace text by dummy text), just keep the few pages/paragraphs needed.
See How to attach a document here.

The recommendation "take a screenshot" encourages people to do that. But these are often worthless and we need to ask for an actual ODF document, delaying getting the problem solved. Perhaps the post should recommend attaching the ODF document first. We can suggest attaching a screenshot only in cases where the difficulty is with the user interface.

Two thumbs up on MrProgrammer's suggested alteration to the Survival Guide.

+1 for the proposal.

Slightly unrelated, but why do we recommend PNG format for screenshots, given the size difference between JPG and PNG for the same image? I always use JPG at 80% quality which makes a much smaller file.

Good idea. I've changed to the following, feel free to propose something else if needed (remember English is not my mother tongue).

• An example is worth a thousand words. If the problem is complicated to describe, the best is to create a sample file where you can reproduce the issue. If it deals with the interface, take a screenshot. Then upload the file here so that others can see what you're seeing.
  • For file samples, remove all sensitive data (replace text by dummy text), just keep the few pages/paragraphs needed. See How to attach a document here.
    For screenshots, use the .png format and crop the pic to show only what is to be seen.
    Files are limited to 128kB, if it can't be reduced below this size, use a 3rd party file sharing site.

For the PNG, in most cases, 128kB is enough, it's just that users take the whole screen and don't crop it to the useful area. Since PNG is lossless, it has a better quality rendering. In some cases it's very useful.
Usually, when users post screenshots too heavy in a 3rd party site, I crop them and upload them here so that the link is not deprecated after a while.