[Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

Help with installation and general system troubleshooting questions concerning the office suite LibreOffice.
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CannedMan
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[Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

Post by CannedMan »

I prefer to work in picas, as it is a typographical unit which relates to everything else when typesetting. However, for most settings, LO (and as far as I can remember, AOO as well) changes this to ‘chains’ or ‘lines’ in most windows. Font size is of course displayed in points (as expected), but anywhere else where I would expect to see picas, this mysterious unit ‘chains’ (and sometimes ‘lines’) shows up. What is it and how can I get rid of it?
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Picas swapped for chains and lines
Picas swapped for chains and lines
Last edited by CannedMan on Tue Jun 16, 2020 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LibreOffice 7.6.7.2 (X86_64) on Windows 10.0 (19045)
JeJe
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Re: Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains.

Post by JeJe »

Windows 10, Openoffice 4.1.11, LibreOffice 7.4.0.3 (x64)
Bill
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Re: Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains.

Post by Bill »

I don't see this in LO 6.3.6.2 or AOO 4.1.7. I do see it in LO 6.4.4.2. However, there may be a translation error in your version. The units probably should be "characters" and "lines", not "chains" and "lines". The English version of LO 6.4.4.2 shows "ch" and "line" on the Paragraph dialog. There is an option Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > General > Settings > "Enable char unit" that controls the units. When this option is disabled, the "ch" and "lines" units on the Paragraph dialog change back to "pc".

"Chain" is a unit used in land measurement. It is 66 feet.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
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CannedMan
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Re: Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains.

Post by CannedMan »

Bill wrote:I don't see this in LO 6.3.6.2 or AOO 4.1.7. I do see it in LO 6.4.4.2. However, there may be a translation error in your version. The units probably should be "characters" and "lines", not "chains" and "lines". The English version of LO 6.4.4.2 shows "ch" and "line" on the Paragraph dialog. There is an option Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > General > Settings > "Enable char unit" that controls the units. When this option is disabled, the "ch" and "lines" units on the Paragraph dialog change back to "pc".
Cheers, mate! That solved the issue; I’d have never thought of it.
Bill wrote:"Chain" is a unit used in land measurement. It is 66 feet.
Yeah, and 1 acre is 1 chain (22 yards) by 1 furlong (which is 10 chains = 220 yards). It makes sense from a practical point of view (but most people forget that that’s where those measurements came from).
LibreOffice 7.6.7.2 (X86_64) on Windows 10.0 (19045)
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CannedMan
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Re: [Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

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I do not know whether there have been any relevant changes made to the latest editions of Writer/LibreOffice, but this solution unfortunately no longer works.
LibreOffice 7.6.7.2 (X86_64) on Windows 10.0 (19045)
cwolan
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Re: [Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

Post by cwolan »

It seems to work with version 7.3.7.2

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OpenOffice 1.1.5 – 4.1.16
LibreOffice 3.3.0.4 – 26.2
Windows 7,10,11 64-bit
Bill
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Re: [Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

Post by Bill »

It's a bug related to Asian and CTL language settings. See Comment 9 in this bug:

Bug 101895 - Paragraph dialog units shown as "ch" and "lines" when "Enable char unit" is enabled by default
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
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CannedMan
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Re: [Solved] Pica as measurement unit is recalculated to chains

Post by CannedMan »

@Bill I take it from the above that I will have to disable Asian support to get rid of the bug then.
LibreOffice 7.6.7.2 (X86_64) on Windows 10.0 (19045)
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