Highlighting text in the middle of a line.

[sboydlns]

There seems to be a bug that causes problems when highlighting text in the middle of a line. This problem is quite intermittent and difficult to reproduce. However, when I am typing along and I want to bold (or underline, etc.) a couple of words in the middle of a paragraph I press CTL-B and the next text that I type should be bold. Sometimes, this doesn't happen. Pressing CTL-B has no affect. The only way to highlight the text is to type it first, select it and then press CTL-B.

This isn't a show stopper but it gets as annoying as all get out when you are touch typing and look up to find that stuff that should be bold isn't and now I have to back up and fix it.

I am using OpenOffice 2.3.1

[foxcole]

However, when I am typing along and I want to bold (or underline, etc.) a couple of words in the middle of a paragraph I press CTL-B and the next text that I type should be bold. Sometimes, this doesn't happen. Pressing CTL-B has no affect. The only way to highlight the text is to type it first, select it and then press CTL-B.

NB: The word "highlight" has a specific meaning in word processors, so the term you're looking for is formatting characters. Highlighting means, in effect, applying a color background (such as yellow) so the text takes on the appearance of having been marked with a highlighter pen.

But anyway, that's got nothing to do with your issue. What you're describing was a bug in 2.3.0 that was specifically fixed in 2.3.1, so it's interesting that you still see it happening.

This question seems silly, but I have to ask: are you sure you're actually working in 2.3.1 when that happens? As far as I know the only way to have more than one working version of OOo installed is to install a developer's snapshot or release candidate next to a current release; but because that's possible, I wonder if you still have an earlier version as well, one that would still demonstrate this behavior.

Does the mixed behavior happen in the same session, or always in a particular document, or documents created in an old version? Do you ever work in custom paragraph styles? I wonder if it happens on something that's not a default style... or maybe something that's not the Default style. Try to keep an eye out for any of these kinds of patterns as you work. And please keep us posted of anything you find.

[sboydlns]

I am using 2.3.1. At least when I click Help | About that is what it tells me. I just installed 2.3.1 in the last couple of days. Let me do some more testing to see how prevalent the problem still is.

Thanks for your reply.