Since I began recording the medical progress of my wife on here I have been keeping a diary of the most relevant posts.
All has been fine, until just now.
I keep nothing on the computer but instead all files are on 2 separate hard drives. As I update the diary each time I send it to the 2nd of these drives.
I was given advice here a short while ago
Default Font Size in Libre Office
as to how to arrive each time at the bottom without scrolling, ctrl+End has worked perfectly, until now.
Suddenly, now I open the file a panel appears briefly at the top with a jigsaw piece in it and the words Object 1. This disappears after a couple of seconds and takes with it the top half ot the first line of the diary.
Also ctrl+End no longer works.
I also notice that in the second drive, as well as saving the basic up to date Diary, it has also saved, up to now, 5 other copies. As these are not saved as such they are not complete copies of the whole diary.
Any ideas of what I could possibly have done wrong, with one stroke this morning.?
I keep a daily diary using Word, which when I open I see the first page of my diary, but in the bottom RH corner of the screen is a symbol which when clicked on Iām sent immediately to the last diary entry.
I downloaded Libre Office just now and found that Shift F5 takes me to the last sentence written in a long document if thatās any help.
Another route would be to deinstall Libre Office and reinstall if somethingās gone awry. You donāt lose any documents or text by doing this.
OK thanks Iāll try that, when I get a moment, all go here just now.
Edit: That does not work for me, either shift+F5 or ctrl+End.
I did see a box bottom left saying how many pages there were and that if I clicked on that and put in the page number I want, 98, it would take me there. Didnāt work but the 2nd time I tried, it did. Very strange.
A bit wary about deinstalling and reinstalling though. Donāt even know how to do it.
If Ctrl-End is no longer working, that would typically be a bug, introduced in a recent update, assuming that you have auto-updates on (if you installed from MS Store) or if you did a manual update yourself.
Alternatively, the default shortcut key combinations, such as Ctrl-End, are stored in a XCU file which can occasionally get overwritten or damaged when an update occurs or an extension is installed that has overwritten some configuration setting. One way to check whether it is a problem with your configuration file is to start LibreOffice in ādefault configā mode. You can do this via the Help menu in a running LibreOffice session (you donāt have to have a document loaded, you could just have the StartCenter running, for example). In the Help menu, there should be an entry something like āRestart LibreOffice in default configurationā, then click on āContinueā.
Now try and load you Writer document and see if you can use the Ctrl-End shortcut.
If you canāt, that would imply a problem with your configuration file. As most people probably donāt do backups of their LibreOffice configuration files, you might find that youāll have to restart LibreOffice with a purged configuration file (How to Reset LibreOffice to Factory Settings).
With regard to the multiple incomplete copies you see being created. These are the result of either:
the option āautomatic backupsā being activated, in which a copy of the active document is saved every X minutes (default 10 min I think) ; and/or
the option autorecovery, in which, in theory at least, the parts of the document structure and content which are in RAM at the time of a crash, are saved and can be used to restore a document that was being worked on. See here.
I read recently that one of these options is now on by default in the latest version of LibreOffice, so this might be the reason why you are now seeing these files.
Rather than going straight for the reinstallation, I would try restarting with a default configuration, and see whether that solves the immediate issue of the keyboard shortcut.
If it doesnāt, and the default configuration behaves the same as your current configuration, then a bug may have been introduced in the code which has changed the keyboard combination for something else (or it could have been done deliberately, or is collateral damage from a related change to the keyboard shortcuts in general).
The jigsaw puzzle piece is a sign that an inserted OLE object, i.e. an object from an another application, or an object from another module of the LibreOffice application, is no longer recognized or available. What was the object that you might have inserted and that is no longer available ?
Someone else appears to have experienced the same thing as you, or something similar, here.
Blimey @RicePudding that is really interesting but also, for this committed non-techie person, really frightening.
Before I touch anything let me tell you that, although ctrl+End is no longer working I now see (it may have been there before but unnoticed by me) a vertical sidebar to the right. If I click on the āpageā icon in it it takes me to the last page. So if, terrified by my ignorance I do nothing, it seems I have found a work around. Till the next mystery pops up anyway.
On the subject of what I may or may not have introduced to cause an unwanted reaction, the only thing I can think of is sometimes I copy and paste whole sections of responses from the SF thread, rather than simply the text. Could that have something to do with it.?
Now armed with that further information, what is your advice, to leave it alone and use this page icon or do one of the things you suggest, and which?
EDIT: I have discovered what an OLE object is (you thought Iād know without being told didnāt you? ) and to my untrained eye it appears that copying and pasting whole posts from here including the name and avatar panel may have been my undoing.
If so, if I go back and delete all those and replace them with plain text, will that solve the problem or is the ādamageā already done to that document?
If that is the case can I simply copy all my text and paste it into a completely newly created LO file, or is that too simplistic?
I just downloaded and installed Libre Office Writer again, and all is functioning as it should. Shift + F5 brings me the last sentence in a long document like lightning. I copied and pasted my current 3 - year long daily diary into Libre Office.
I am as perplexed as @david_Spardo is sometimes when things go wrong and how to put them right.
And often the advice I am given, by Googling, regarding programmes messing me about, is to simply un-install and re-install. Wouldnāt that be an easier option for a non-techie to try? It takes but a few minutes to do.
Nothing will be lost. Libre Office would be sued, and all other such websites, if you lost documents when uninstalling their programmes.
Your diary is located in your external hard disk where it is safe. If your computer went for a Burton and you got another one, in which you download and install Libre Office anew, you will have access to your diary again.
To un-install Libre Office, download and re-install it, took me about 7 to 8 minutes or so, using my tabletop computer with Windows 10.
Before uninstalling, see what version you have. Open Libre Office and click on āHelpā in the menu at the top of the page. A drop-down menu will appear - click on āCheck for Updatesā. A box will appear and prompt you to download and install the latest version. You can download and install it from that same box.
Try that first if you donāt have the latest version.
Well I have downloaded the latest version but the old problems continue and it keeps asking me on opening if I wanted to include links in the documents and, perhaps stupidly, I said yes. Perhaps thereby importing all the original problems? But I didnāt want to remove those links before I had chance to modify them. Donāt know why it asks me every time though, that could prove annoying.
The disappearing, after a second or so, jigsaw panel at the top of the screen is not a problem and I have eliminated the cutting in half horizontally of the top line, which is the title of the file, by deleting it and re-writing it one line further down.
So far so good and the loss of ctrl+End matters not as one click on the page icon to the right does the same job, but slightly quicker.
I noticed though that after I copied it to the 2nd external drive it had again made an additional copy file.
I think before I take any further action in de-installing and re-installing LO I will gradually go right through the document and delete all the imported links from SF. Will take some time though, it is 98 pages long.
In general, if you find a workaround that suits you and doesnāt bother you too much, thereās little point in changing anything.
If you do this, when you paste the content, use the keyboard shortcut combo āShift Ctrl Cā to paste the content as text only, otherwise you risk copying and pasting some hidden controls / code that may end up perpetuating the issue.
This function is also available via the Paste Special menu entry in the main Edit menu.
If you have copied direct from a web page Libre Office may have saved the pages as html and not.doc. it might pay you to try and open the pages by right clicking on the document and click open with web browser.
Pleased to hear you say that as, with my very poor knowledge of such things I am always worried I might commit a major error. It has been known.
BTW Tried that @digitracker but was not offered the choice on right clicking.
I think the best thing I can do is use the page icon to get instantly to the bottom each time, but in the meantime gradually work my way through the document eliminating all the things copied directly from SF apart from pure text, and see where we go from there. I might then pluck up courage to de-install and re-install LO. Should be not harming as I can disconnect both external drives before doing so.
All I can say is that having downloaded LO I find it works wonderfully, even has a built-in thesaurus, and the Shift + F5 is lightning fast to the last sentence written on the 234th page of my diary.
Iām like you, frightened to do something Iām not sure about in case it leads to impending disaster! Be assured that de_install and re_install will not affect your documents. And you have the added assurance that your diary is well away from the computer, very safe, during the process.
I have just spent over half an hour painstakingly going through the whole document removing anything that is not pure text copied from the SF thread.
That is all name panels, avatars and even smileys.
It seems to have done the trick, no jigsaw at the top, ctrl+End takes me to the bottom and the irritating panel that had started to pop up each time asking if I wanted imports to be confirmed, is not there. Didnāt matter what I chose to answer it would not go away, till now.
Weāll see, but if it is successful it will mean a little more work in future merely copying text and, where necessary, typing in the name from whom it originates. But it will be a small price to pay and a lesson learned for the future.
Once you have copied the text, I presume that you are pasting it into Libre Office. There is a way to paste it as plain text - leaving out all the formatting, links etc.
In Libre Office, choose Edit - Paste Special - Paste Unformatted Text.
Or, right-click (where you wish to paste the text) to open the context menu and choose Paste Special - Unformatted Text.
This lists all of the objects in your document, including hyperlinks. You can right mouse button click on an entry in the Navigator and will see a range of optional commands which are context-sensitive in regard to the object. If you canāt delete the objection in question via the context-menu, you should just be able to select the object and then press the Delete key (or Backspace on macOS) and hey presto, it should be removed from the document.
) and to my untrained eye it appears that copying and pasting whole posts from here including the name and avatar panel may have been my undoing.
