Hello,
I’ve discover a strange behaviour of Layout (LO2021). When I put a .txt file into LO (via File>>Insert, or just drag and drop) it automatically creates reference to file. So - any change in original txt file causes change in layout. Great!
But it works only if I don’t make any format change for this text box in LO. If I just change style (i.e. font size) this textbox in LO will not update anymore.
When I make some changes in txt file and then save it, Layout will see that the link needs to be updated (reference in Document Settings is highlighted on red) but after update the link - text in LO is not updated.
Is this a bug or I missed something?
This is correct. It’s similar to what happens with a SketchUp viewport if you make modifications to it. In a viewport, those modifications override the scene settings. With the .txt file, your edits override the formatting in the .txt file and effectively disconnect the text box from the original reference. The solution is to not override the format settings (font, size, etc.) in LO. Instead do that in the text file. You might consider use the .rtf format instead as it will give you more control.
I would say it is a bug. The standard procedure for any page layout software is to import a text file (any format) and set its formatting to fit the look wanted on a page. When the text contents then change, it must update with no need to import it again. With structured text formats like Word documents, the updating happens even when styles etc. formatting features have been tweaked in the layout application.
The current behavior is similar to working with viewports and the SketchUp model. If you override scene properties such as Camera position in LayOut, changes to those properties in the scene in SketchUp will not show up in the viewport. Would you consider that a bug, too?
But changes to the model in SketchUp do show up. Text content is analogous to model content, and IMO text formatting is analogous to the scene properties. Especially with files like .txt where the formatting shown is totally determined by settings in LayOut. TXT files have no font or size or paragraph format.
This is an interesting thought, to be able to preserve the link to a plain text file even after formatting changes have been applied inside of LayOut. We would still have to sever the connection if changes were made to only certain sections of text (bolding/italics/etc.), but if the only things modified were font type and size for the entire text block, we might be able keep the connection intact.
Text file doesn’t have any format. It’s just a text (just a content without format). If I use rtf than it can be acceptable, that changing format (i.e. fonts) breaks the link. But when I use txt - the link cannot be broken just only I change format of displaying it. In my opinion - it is not intuitive.
Just see the xls connection. There is option to link text (content) AND display format, and changing formating for cells in LO doesn’t break the link with original xls file. The same should be introduced when we speak about text files (both: .rtf and txt).
That is my opinion.