Bug#630466: libreoffice: HTML exports from calc suck
On 14 June 2011 12:08, Rene Engelhard <rene@debian.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 11:41:12AM +0200, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>> Other software being broken is not an excuse for all software being
>> broken. By this approach no bug would ever be fixed.
>
> Exporting HTML *always* is suboptimal.
So just dumping the sheet to /dev/null can be also called HTML export
because HTML export is always suboptimal and nobody said that that any
particular feature of the sheet would be represented in suboptimal
exports.
>
>> >> - the "automatic" colors (the default black on white) are not recorded
>> >> in the export. I am not sure if these "automatic" colors can change.
>> >> LibreOffice does not seem to respond to theming of other parts of the
>> >> system. Either way, the "automatic" colors must be exported for the
>> >> document to look correctly when viewed in a web browser which may
>> >> have text and background color different from LibreOffice.
>> >
>> > Then you should have done your table in a way this doesn't hapen
>> > or format it so that the scenario doesn't happen or use a website
>> > design where it doesn't happen. Don't expect HTML export knowing what you
>> > will use it in it can't. And HTML doesn't have "automatic colors" anyway.
>>
>> The "automatic" colors in Calc are exported as undefined in HTML. That is wrong.
>
> And that is bad how? You get black if you don't specify fonts. As said
> above, either fix up the HTML after it or use a website design which works.
I tried doing some tables in OpenOffice.org which, unlike LibreOffice,
actually picks system colors. In there "automatic" is theme color so I
guess this precisely replicates the sheet behaviour (which would be
also visible in LibreOffice if its theming worked).
>
>> >> - the text automatically spanning multiple cells (when it overflows a
>> >> cell and the neigbour cell is empty) does not do so in HTML
>> >
>> > Of course not. The text is in one cell. That it just overflows that cell
>> > is so, but how should Calc know? it's text *inside that cell*. If you don't
>> > proper formatting in your sheet, don't blame others for that,
>>
>> It does know, how else would it render the text over the other cells?
>
> Because it _renders_ it this way. The *content* is assigned *to that one cell*.
> What gets exported is not rendering but *content*.
Then go ahead and remove all formatting to make the HTML export like
90% smaller.
BTW it's completely possible to make cells overflow in HTML although I
am not sure how difficult it would be to get effect similar to what is
shown in the sheet.
>
>> >> - alignment is not reflected in HTML. Specifically I use right and left
>> >> aligned columns next to each other with increased indent added to the
>> >> left aligned column. There is no space between the two in the HTML
>> >
>> > ... which easily can be workarounded by fixing the HTML to use cellpadding.
>>
>> Then the HTML export should include it. It sets all padding explicitly
>> to 0 resulting in this issue.
>
> Or you fix the padding up if you need it.
Why should I need to fix up my padding if I exported it from sheet
that has it already?
It's not like padding is not possible or even uncommon in HTML.
>
>> What is it then?
>
> Nothing. A not ideal export and someone who thinks stuff he hasn't specified
> should be exported.
There is no unchecked checkbox that says "export formatting", HTML has
formatting so I expect that the exported HTML will have the formatting
I specified in the sheet. If I wanted fromatting-free export I would
use CSV.
>
>> If the HTML export is not meant to be useful then disable it completely.
>
> You so far haven't shown that it isn't useful, Just not useful for
> you specific case - which can be solved by a bit of post-processing. >you
> don't just embed whatever calc exporrts into your site without checking
> ot anyway, do you?
I do not include it in any site. I just exported the sheet to HTML so
that I can send it to people that don't have LibreOffice installed.
Is that too much to ask to have export that resembles the actual sheet?
And no, it's not feasible for everyone to have Excel, gnumeric,
OpenOffice and a half dozen other applications to read any native
sheet format you can think of.
Regards
Michal
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