This post overcomes a rather obscure issue remaining in the current version of LibreOffice (4.2.5). The issue was noticed with the Annapurna font (for the Devanagari script). When a reference is made to a head word with a homograph number, there appears to be a space between the headword and the homograph number. Take this example:

Note the space before the homograph number in the variant form. If the same data is displayed using the browser the space is not there. There is no space in the data. The apparent space seems to be inserted by LibreOffice.

In order to work around this problem, two solutions have been found. The first involves modifying the style of the headword reference condensing the space. This is done with this procedure:

1. Click on the headword
2. Press F11 to display the style pane
3. Click the icon with the “a” in the tool bar of that pane to display character styles. The style for the variant form should be highlighted. (If the highlighted style is not on the screen, use the scroll bar or choose the Applied styles from the drop down at the bottom of the pane.)
4. Right click the highlighted style name. (It should begin with variantform or whatever name is appropriate for the field containing the referenced headword.)
5. From the pop-up menu choose Modify.
6. In the Character Style dialog, select the Position tab
7. Change the Spacing to Condensed and the by value to 0.8pt.

This procedure should remove the space for all fields of that type. If you have headword references in multiple fields (lexical relations for example) you would need to follow the procedure for each of these character styles.

A second way to remove this space seems like an anomaly that was discovered somewhat by accident. Normally we would want to follow the procedure above but since it is somewhat easier to apply this option, I will mention it here. The process involves inserting a field that sets the value of a variable and then making that field setting operation hidden. We are not really sure why this works but the entry headwords for main entries and minor entries set variables for the guide words in the headers and they don’t exhibit this apparent extra space behavior.

You may be wondering why what I have described so far is easier to apply. There is a tool that you can download such that after you create the Libre office ODT file with Pathway, you can drag and drop the ODT file on the ApplySpaceB4Homograph.bat file and it will apply a transform that inserts these variables and removes the apparent space. Download the tool OdtXslt tool Optional Download. When you install it, it will create a folder on your desktop with ApplySpaceB4Homograph.bat (and other .bat files).