Experience and suggestions with creating a brochure

Hello,

As my first project with OnlyOffice (ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, version 8.0.0.99 (deb)) I edited a brochure of 36 pages (a bicycle tours catalogue, pdf-download). It is a docx-file which consists mainly of text, pictures and a long table over many pages. Previous versions I edited with Libre Office, which I used as a template for the OnlyOffice file. Surely OnlyOffice has less functions than LibreOffice, but it worked quite well in the end and resulted in a file with a stable layout (which was the main reason why I switched from LibreOffice) Nonetheless I found some hindrances and suggestions for improvement on my way, which I want to communicate here:

Hindrances:

  1. Insert image from file does not find images with capitalized identifiers, e.g. PNG
    PNG

  2. Table cannot flow around images / images cannot be fixed on the page
    This was already suggested: Wordprocessor: How to fix a picture to a page to wrap a table around it? - #4 by Alexandre

  3. Paragraph styles cannot be updated within tables (context menu entry missing).
    Context menu in text (first image) and tables (second image):
    Styles_in_Tables_1

Styles_in_Tables_2

  1. A table cannot be split in two.

  2. German help text for keyboard shortcuts (hot keys): Repeat CTRL+J must be CTRL+Y

  3. Cropping images sometimes only works with large jumps (e.g. at the beginning the border of the image seems to be kind of magnetic, but infinitely variable from the center onwards). The same applies to zoom in/out.

  4. There is no page view, e.g. double page as in a book to judge the layout of the document

  5. No tabs can be inserted in the table (e.g. for right-aligned text) because the focus jumps to the next cell when the tab key is pressed. However, copy and paste from another part of the text works.

  6. One cannot see, when a font of an imported file is not installed in the system. The font name is displayed the same as installed fonts. A hint to the missing font (italic font name, star in front of the name, red font name or similar) would be nice.

  7. A tabulator (right-aligned) cannot be set at the right border of the text space with the mouse (it always vanishes in the moment you touch the right border with the mouse). The only possibility is to set it numerously in the paragraph settings

  8. Picture inside a text form is possible only as a letter. No text wrapping alternatives as in normal text mode are possible.
    Textbox

  9. Pictures over the whole page with “behind the text” attribute cover the footline (are in front of the text in the footline)
    Behind_text

  10. Images in table cells, inline (text wrapping “on the character”) are largely outside the cell.
    Here I found the error: As mentioned, I started with an imported document and here the paragraph line spacing was not set:
    outside
    As soon as I set the spacing to 1.0, the image fills the table cell completely as supposed.

  11. Images in table cells with text wrapping without circulation, have an empty row in the cell below the image. To reduce this empty space you have to set the line spacing in the paragraph settings to the minimum.
    empty_row

  12. Hyphenation for individual words or paragraphs cannot be set individually (e.g. do not hyphenate the word or hyphenate it elsewhere when automatic hyphenation is wrong).

  13. Footers sometimes disappear. They reappear when you edit the footer, add a character and delete it again. Unfortunately I cannot show this behavior, because it is not reproducible.

Suggestions

  1. The buttons for the paragraph styles cannot be sorted in order. I would like to have the most used styles at the front of the list to easily select them

  2. It would be helpful, if one could set own keyboard shortcuts for user paragraph styles. Thus one could quickly assign header and text styles.

  3. No settings for pdf export are available (display single page/double page, embed fonts, reduce images, protect, page excerpt, etc.). This was already suggested: Add the ability to adjust PDF quality
    My workaround for a smaller web-file was to use ghostsrcript.

  4. There is no possibility to create shadows for text (only for frames)
    shadow

  5. It would be nice to be able to paste text without format

  6. The left and right sidebars can only be hidden and shown via the menu
    sidebars
    It would be nice to hide and open the sidebars directly with the cursor, especially on small screens. E.g. with a slider or an x-button like this:
    sidebars_2

Now my file is at the print shop and I’m quite excited for the resulting brochure in paper. I want to thank you for this great software and the support in the forum. I am very happy that it was easy to learn and that it worked very reliably.

2 Likes

Hello @ToxyLT :wave:
I quickly reviewed your text. Some parts of your sentences will need clarification.

Our forum follows the scheme ‘One topic - one issue/suggestion’.

Could I ask you to separate your request into individual ‘improvement suggestions’?
It would be more convenient for both us and other users.


And of course, I want to thank you for your interest in the product and for taking the time to provide feedback :hugs:

I was allowed to open 20 new topics. The last two have to wait at least a day …

1 Like

You’ve done a really great job. Thank you!