[Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

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neil_Boekend
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[Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by neil_Boekend »

Hello

I use Openoffice 2.3.0 on a XP machine.
I work a lot with images and drawings, but it seems to be impossible to select multiple objects:
I start with clickin image 1. Next I try to add image 2 to the selection:
  • ctrl-click fails (wich it should be)
  • shift -click fails (wich the help files say would work)
  • a big box around it fails (both a part of the image in the box and the complete image in the box)
Shift click results in image 2 beiing slected, and image 1 not. A big box results in a lot of text beiing selected.
I want to select multiple objects so I can group them.

Is this a bug? Or am I the only one who has it?
If it is the latter, does annyone have an idea how I could fix it?
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Tagged thread as Issue (link to a bug report). Moved it to Writer forum also.
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Select multiple objects

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

No, it is not a bug, it just isn't a feature that's available in Writer. If you want to group several objects together, use Draw, then paste them into Writer.
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foxcole
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Re: Select multiple objects

Post by foxcole »

You might want to vote for this issue in the issue tracker:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=28125

This was filed in 2004, is marked as an enhancement and is low priority (P3) so I wouldn't look for this to be fixed any time soon... especially because it does have the Draw workaround.
Cheers!
---Fox

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papaiso
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by papaiso »

I believe that this is a bug as there is an option for grouping objects. Why is this option there if then you are unable to select multiple objects?
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

Welcome to the forum, papaiso!

You can select multiple graphics objects (lines, shapes, etc.), and you can group/ungroup those.

What you can't do is select multiple text frames, or a mixture of text content and graphic object(s).
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The Cynergist
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by The Cynergist »

acknak wrote: You can select multiple graphics objects (lines, shapes, etc.), and you can group/ungroup those.

How?
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Hagar Delest
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by Hagar Delest »

Shift + Click.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

Hagar de l'Est wrote:Shift + Click.
Or, open the Drawing toolbar and use the "graphics select" tool (leftmost button, arrow icon), and drag out a rectangle around all the objects you want to select. Only graphics objects can be selected this way.
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by OOO user »

I am using OOO 3.3.0, and have the same issue. Can not use "Shift + click" to select multiple objects inside a Frame. I believe this is a very common bug in OOO.
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ghz
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by ghz »

I have imported a photo into a OpenOffice document and then added four rectangles for annotations. However, I am not able to group these objects. Using Word I simply Shift +left click and then right click to Group.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

ghz wrote:I have imported a photo into a OpenOffice document and then added four rectangles for annotations. However, I am not able to group these objects. Using Word I simply Shift +left click and then right click to Group.
This doesn't work in OOo Writer because the image does not come in as a graphic element but as a frame. Since you can only select/group graphic elements, the framed image breaks it.

The best way (IMO) to handle image+annotations is to make it in OOo Draw, then copy/paste it into Writer.
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denisedwagner
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by denisedwagner »

Updating the documentation would be a big help here. If the frame vs. image/object issue is documented elsewhere a hyperlink would be good. I'm fairly new to the OpenOffice software, and this was extremely frustrating...more so because the doc indicated it should work, without a whole lot of discussion about as to why it might not. Tried to jump into OO Drawing to create the elements there, but I ran into an issue trying to switch orientation to landscape (couldn't find the settings). That's a different post for a different forum.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

Hi! Welcome to the community forum!
denisedwagner wrote:... the doc indicated it should work, ...
Do you remember where you found that?

Problems can be reported against the documentation but we need to know exactly where the problem text is found.
Tried to jump into OO Drawing to create the elements there, but I ran into an issue trying to switch orientation to landscape ...
Feel free to start a new thread but if the ultimate target is a text document, then the orientation of the Draw part doesn't matter. When you arrange the items in Draw and then copy/paste into Writer, the Draw page orientation has no effect at all.

In any case, each OOo application is exactly the same for this: Format > Page > Page > Paper Format > Orientation
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denisedwagner
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by denisedwagner »

Thanks for page orientation info...OCD issue on my part: Just really awkward drawing on Portrait when final will be landscape.

As for online help: In OO.o Writer, click Help.
Click the Index tab in the OpenOffice.org Help - OpenOffice.org Writer window.
In the Search Term field, type 'selecting' and then click objects.
Topic to the right is Working with Groups.

There are also related links titled Grouping Objects and Selecting Underlying Objects. All of this goes out the window, though, once you introduce text.

Keep in mind that users (such as myself) who are are coming in from programs offered by Microsoft and Adobe aren't confronted with distinctions among picture, text boxes, objects, etc. Basically, if it's on the page you can group it.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

Ok, I see what you mean. It's not technically wrong but it is misleading when you expect everything on the page to use the same selection mode.

And it's especially confusing that images--depending on how they get added to the document--may or may not have a Writer frame. images with a frame can't be selected or grouped with other graphic elements; images without a frame are treated as graphic elements and they can be selected and grouped with other graphics.

I have no idea why it was done this way but graphic elements in Writer are a totally separate class of object and they have almost no connection to the text elements.

All that goes into my recommendation to avoid working with graphics in Writer except in the very simplest cases. Do the graphics in Draw and then copy/paste into Writer. And even that has its own set of issues.
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by windowshater »

Sorry guys, but this is 100% a BUG, even two bugs. Here's the proof:

I already had grouped objects in several groups, but now ungrouped one of them just to move one object a little bit around inside that group, then regroup it, done. Would normally take me 2 seconds.

But: This time round, I have no idea why, OO Writer let's me ungroup and move the one object, but then no longer offers "regroup" AND no longer let's me shift-select all objects to rebuild a new group of them.

Further, the colleague above is right: If it wasn't meant to work, right-click mouse wouldn't show all the options for grouping objects (but it does), AND I would never have been able to group all my objects in the first place.

However, as said, I have no idea why it suddenly does no longer work (and that bugs me enormously :ucrazy: )

Should I find out the reason, I'll report back here.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

I believe yours is a different issue. It's confusing because the original posts talked about selecting "objects" but it's actually dealing with images, which behave differently.

You can definitely select multiple graphic objects, group them, edit the group, ungroup, re-group, etc. However, you can't work that way with anything other than graphic objects--any text, text frame, table, image, etc. will not respond to multiple selection or grouping.

If that doesn't help clarify what's going on in your document, I strongly suggest that you start a fresh description of your situation in its own, separate topic.
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by windowshater »

If it's okay, I prefer to leave it here for easy encounter. People find things per search, and that is how I arrived here too.

>However, you can't work that way with anything other than graphic objects--any text, text frame, table, image, etc. will not respond to multiple selection or grouping
I am sorry to say: That appears to be wrong. Like I wrote before, I had already grouped many objects to several groups, and each group comprises Basic Shapes and Texts. It still works well for all the groups I left untouched, but the one group I tried to rearrange yesterday no longer works as per my earlier description.

I haven't found a solution yet, hence I can't say more right now what might cause the issue - or why it worked for all the other objects contrary to your expectation.
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acknak
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by acknak »

windowshater wrote:... each group comprises Basic Shapes and Texts. ...
Sorry, I wasn't clear.

You can work with any graphic object made from the drawing toolbar, including texts. If you try to include any part of the document that didn't come from the drawing toolbar (or possibly pasted in from Draw or some other software) then it can't be selected or grouped with graphics objects.

I don't know if that is what's causing your problem or not.

If you need a specific suggestion, we will probably need to see the document.
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by windowshater »

acknak wrote:Sorry, I wasn't clear.
You can work with any graphic object made from the drawing toolbar, including texts. If you try to include any part of the document that didn't come from the drawing toolbar (or possibly pasted in from Draw or some other software) then it can't be selected or grouped with graphics objects.
I don't know if that is what's causing your problem or not.
Sorry I was planning to reply right after I found out but, windows did honor my name here: The past two weeks I've been wishing HELL may engulf Bill Gates, out of nowhere(!) suddenly this new win 8.1 stopped my wireless LAN and I had no clue why and what to do. Now it's working again but I still wish Bill goes to HELL! How can someone behind such a crap system become so rich? :geek:

Back to you: Yes I guess you hit it spot on. I created those objects with the drawing toolbar (as I usually do). It seems though that if you then later make a *change* to such object, OO doesn't "remember" that it was created with the drawing toolbar. Not sure. I couldn't yet replicate both situations parallel. Hence I won't mark this as solved just yet, in case someone else still has the problem too (in which case I could not explain how to make it work, it's rather "luck" for me).

I certainly believe that all the help info and hover notes should reflect what you wrote (but yet, they don't, they pretend it "will work").

Thanks again for your help acknak.
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by BluGoat »

This is Disappointing. 2019 and still unable to do a mind map in Libre Writer. You still cannot select and group a number of drawing objects in which you can enter text. This is an important business function. Business charts are not something that should be done in Draw. As a couple of previous posters mentioned, these functions are seemingly offered in sub-menus but the functionality is not there. Objects should be able to be 'connected' and if not, at the least grouped (with text) in them...or, am I missing something?
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Re: [Issue + Workaround] Select multiple objects

Post by SketchMan3 »

BluGoat wrote:This is Disappointing. 2019 and still unable to do a mind map in Libre Writer. You still cannot select and group a number of drawing objects in which you can enter text. This is an important business function. Business charts are not something that should be done in Draw. As a couple of previous posters mentioned, these functions are seemingly offered in sub-menus but the functionality is not there. Objects should be able to be 'connected' and if not, at the least grouped (with text) in them...or, am I missing something?
Cosign with this. It's quite a functional oversight. These types of things are what holds free opensource software back. Lack of simple intuitive functions because "there's a work-around".
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