[Solved] Doc's Bullet Formating Changed after Upgrade to 4

[freezeframer]

I have a document (actually many) created with OpenOffice 3. None of them look the same when I open them in OpenOffice 4.
The location of the bullets have all been indented from original positions.
The spacing between each bullet and the beginning of text has tripled.
And the beginning of the text for additional lines of a multi-line bullet no longer align with the first character of the first line of the bullet.
I found that I am unable to reformat it to get it to look exactly the same. (For one I cannot get the bullet moved back to the left margin.)
But if I copy the entire document and paste it into a new text document everything is perfectly fine - i.e. looks like it did in OpenOffice 3.
(I accidentally discovered the work-around when I went to upload a sample of a document for this post.)
Any ideas what might be causing this? Is it a bug?

[John_Ha]

Please upload: (Use the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max) or use a file share site for a larger file.)

1. an example file with the problem and confirm whether you are saving as a .doc or as a .odt
2. a screenshot of the file using v3 if possible
3. a screenshot using v4. (GIFs will be best)

It is extremely unlikely it is caused by upgrading from v3 to v4 - something else is causing it. The fact that copying and pasting fixes it suggests it is a slightly corrupted file.

As a new poster you will find much useful information in the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials, the up to date Writer guide and the Writer Manual. May I suggest you bookmark the pages.

Press F1 to access the Help screen and search for your problem

The chapter headings in the manual are:

1 - Introducing Writer
2 - Setting up Writer
3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
11 - Using Mail Merge
12 - Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies
13 - Working with Master Documents
14 - Working with Fields
15 - Using Forms in Writer
16 - Customizing Writer – Keyboard shortcuts.

When a pop-up window opens, click the Help button for extensive help on that function - it is often more comprehensive than the manual.

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt.

[freezeframer]

Here are the snapshots. #1 is before the upgrade. Both files are using the .sxw format.
https://www.mediafire.com/view/c6cbpx39 ... pshot1.png
https://www.mediafire.com/view/7aa7wad7 ... pshot2.png

[John_Ha]

Please upload a copy of the actual .sxw file.

Note: .sxw files are completely obsolete - you should be saving as .odt files.

[freezeframer]

Here is the sample document as depicted in snapshot1. It is an sxw file. If I open it in OpenOffice 4, save it into the .odt format and then open it in the .odt format the formatting is still off.

[John_Ha]

Highlight some text in a second level bullet or place the cursor in the text. You will see that the problem is caused by Format > Paragraph > Tabs ..., which has set a tab at 61.03 mm. If I delete this tab the text jumps left to the "tab provided by the bullet style definition".

You can also see the tab by highlighting some text in a second level bullet or placing the cursor in the text - the tab appears on the tab bar. Delete it by dragging it left-wise off the bar. Note that the "tab provided by the bullet's style definition" then re-appears at the correct setting.

It seems there is some slight corruption in the file. Try this. File > New > Text document. Now go Insert > File ..., and insert db-concepts-notes.odt. Save this new file. This fixes all the bullets in one go.

I do not know why this is happening other than .sxw files are obsolete. See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt..

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[John_Ha]

Another way to fix it is

1. Edit > Select all
2. Change all from Default to Text body. This fixes the bullets.
3. Change all back to Default if required.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[freezeframer]

Highlight some text in a second level bullet or place the cursor in the text. You will see that the problem is caused by Format > Paragraph > Tabs ..., which has set a tab at 61.03 mm. If I delete this tab the text jumps left to the "tab provided by the bullet style definition".

Regarding the tabs, It looks like the page I selected for a sample happened to be the only page from my document that had accidental tab entries for some of the bullets. Those accidental tabs only exacerbate the problem I originally described. Regardless, the tabs aren't the issue.

It looks like the problem arises from the fact that I have been erroneously using the ruler's "paragraph" left indent triangles to position my bullets and the text that follows. Because it worked, or appeared to work, with version 3, I did not realize they were intended to be used to format indentations for paragraphs only. Without checking, I thought it was a short-cut to using the menu's Format > Bullets and Numbering > Position-tab to format the bullets. When I reset the ruler's left paragraph indent triangles to the default position, and use the menu's Bullets and Numbering position tab to format the bullets, the problems disappear. I cannot explain why the problems seem to go away by inserting the old version 3 document into a new version 4 document. But when I tried to edit the version 4 document, other bullet formatting abnormalities began to appear that caused me to scratch my head and take a closer look at the documentation. Sorry to waste your time.