Spacing problem in text document: huge space between words

[rjstevens71]

I'm having a persistent problem with the spacing in a text document. In the attached file, the problem is in the last line.

If you open the document, you'll see that the last sentence is currently two "words" and OO.o has inserted a huuuuge space between the two. I have verified that it is a space and not a tab character. I have also verified that it is a single space character and not multiple space characters.

The second word is actually two words run together. Inserting a space in the middle gives a three-word sentence in which the spaces between words are much too big.

Justification is turned off in my OO.o. Turning justification on (by clicking the 'justify' button on the toolbar) and then off (by clicking the 'left-align' button) does not remove the problem.

I am using OO.o 3.0.0 on Mac OS X 10.4.11 ("Tiger"), but this problem is also present on my other machine, which is Ubuntu Hardy Heron running OO.o 2.4.
The problem persists across a variety of fonts although it is more glaringly obvious in some fonts than others.

Is there some other setting I need to switch off, apart from justification? Or should I file a bug report?

Thanks in advance.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Check the setting in Format, Paragraph, Alignment, Expand last word.

[rjstevens71]

Thanks. However the "expand" setting is not available (tick box is inactive / 'grayed out') because I have selected centre alignment or left alignment. The "expand" setting is only available if you select "Justification" instead of left/centre/right.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It seems to be a bug that occurs when the last line of text is close to the bottom margin. There is no such problem when reproducing the text in Draw.

Changing the font is OK unless the text is a similar size to Comic Sans, then the problem occurs again. The large space is just a regular space, but it is being expanded, and is not shown with View, non-printing characters is on.

Replacing the space with a non-breaking, fixed width space, just shifts the problem to between older > group.

Copying the text as plain text to a new document, then reformatting it with Comic Sans 60 point, blue and red, centre justified, fixed the problem. So the bug is still eluding me.

[rjstevens71]

Is it time to report it as a bug?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It is a bit premature yet. Maybe someone can reproduce it. We have the faulty document here now if we need it, so don't delete the attachment.

Can you reproduce it starting from a blank new document? Did you copy the text from somewhere or just type it?

[floris v]

I also found that OOo tries to right-align the bottom line, even when it's supposed to be centred.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I found the problem. It is not a bug. There is a graphic on the page.

Open the Navigator and select Graphic2. Apparently someone inserted the graphic and resized it to tiny instead of deleting it.