[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 108569] [META] Page margin bugs and enhancements

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=108569

--- Comment #1 from Eyal Rozenberg <eyalroz1 at gmx.com> ---
With the introduction of the Gutter option, LO has taken another step into the
complex space of catering to the preparation of printed products.

I believe we are currently having a bit of a fractured discussion on and off of
Bugzilla on this configuration/setting space, and in more than one: 140568 and
140561 at least. So as not to further fracture the discussion, I'm making a
somewhat general comment here. I'll use the terms "LO page" for the pages we
see and edit within LO Writer; "leaf" (a.k.a. "folium") for a sheet of physical
paper onto which matter is printed; and "final page" as what the reader of the
folded and bound physical document thinks of as a page (e.g. a page in a bound
book).

So, we're talking about what we do with multiple pages we print. Relevant
factors/considerations:

* Will the printed leaves be attached to each other somehow, or kept loose?
* Do printed leaves get folded before use (binding or no binding)? And in which
pattern? And do all leaves get folded together, on in bunches? (if you're
wondering why we might fold bunches of pages separately - see this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiCRx1_Ovok)?
* Will the leaves (after any potential folding) be bound at: A corner (e.g.
with a stapler), or along one of the axes? 
* Will content be printed onto both sides of each leaf?
* Do we intend to have multiple LO pages be contained in each final page? (For
no folding and no binding, this reduces to "do we print multiple LO pages onto
each side of a leaf")
* How do we call the two axes of an LO page? A leaf? A final page? What do they
signify? Is it "short" vs "long"? "Left/Right" vs "Top/Bottom"? "Along-line
progression" vs "perpendicular-to-line progression"? "printer head moves
across" vs "printer scrolls along"? This is a particularly sticky point,
because depending on our conceptual choice, the axes may be flipped by one or
more of the following changes:
  * Increasing page "width" beyond page "height"
  * Switching between portrait and landscape (terms which relate to the
printer's axes)
  * Switching document/section direction LTR/RTL
  * Switching page direction LTR/RTL
  * Using a LTR vs RTL language
  * Using a language in which glyphs are "naturally" inserted top-to-bottom,
then RTL or LTR as the case may be
  * Maybe other actions
* For axis-bound final pages - which axis has the binding (considering the
reference conundrum mentioned above)? And which "side" is the bound one?
* If document pages have different roles/placement on final pages (e.g. front
and back side with binding and no folding) - what role does the first document
page have? In what order do consecutive pages cycle through the roles (in the
example 

Now, you might be saying: "What's with all that complex nitpicking? LO Writer
is not a print-publishing/typesetting application, it's just a word processor!
Let's keep this simple!"  - well, the thing is, once you have the features we
already have - we can't quite keep it simple; we have take more things into
consideration to avoid inconsistencies. Otherwise, we will be in a constant
state of buginess - for some of our users, some of the time.

Thus, for example, you can't say "Put the gutter on Left". Left of what? And if
I'm switching from, say, writing English to Arabic - what will the "Left" now
mean? Careful with your answer... remember that RTL language documents start
with a final-page that's to the left of the axis; are you sure you want the
Gutter on the left of that page? And what if I want 4 LO-pages per sheet for a
book fold; where is "Left" now?

Or the request in bug 140561: "Call it Inner gutter, not Left gutter" - If we
print one LO page per leaf, and only print on one side of the leaves, and with
the leaves facing up we bind on the left of the page, then - the gutter can
legitimately be said to be "Left". If we do the same, except that we print on
both sides of each leaf, then the Gutter is sometimes on the left, sometimes on
the right; so we can't just call it a "Left" gutter. And what about "inner",
then? Well, actually, a gutter is _always_ inner - since the gutter is near the
binding, and a book opens around the binding axis. There are _only_ inner
gutters. 

These issues regard not only gutters, but other items on the Page dialog. For
example: "Right" and "Left" margins are not really on the right and on the left
when we have leaf folding. Thus, Microsoft Word changes the margin field labels
when the user chooses "Mirrored Pages" or "Book Fold". 

Having said all that - I'm not suggesting that we necessarily support complex
fold-patterns or otherwise go overboard with features. Just that we keep the
physical process in mind, and also be mindful of every situation that
legitimately comes up when using existing LO features. The UI needs to cater to
all of those consistently.


----

PS - Some explanations-with-screenshots of parts of MS Word's UI choices for
margins, multipage, gutter etc can be found here:

* http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/MirrorMargins.htm
*
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/howto/create-booklets-using-microsoft-office-word-2010/

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