Blinking Text Keeps Blinking Despite Turning It Off

First, I never selected for my text to blink in the first place. One day I opened a doc and there it was. Googled and found out what to do, did it and it worked.

The problem? Every time I open the document or a few others, the text blinks again. I switch it off and it’s off, but when I open it again, guess what? It’s BLINKING!!! Every time I open the doc (there are a few like this) I have to turn off the blinking.

It makes me want to scream…confession, I have screamed…on many occasions!!! HELP PLEASE!!!

I’m on Windows 10; and Libre Version says 5.0.

You should also consider updating your LibreOffice software – you ought to be on at least v. 6.0.6.

You don’t say how you arrived at this state of affairs, so you should do some forensic work to get to the root of the problem.

I would start by looking at how your LO text was created.

1. If your text was copied from another document, eg a website, and simply pasted into yours, I don’t see how you can know what else you might have brought along with the text. It might even be an author’s hint about breach of copyright. Even websites where the author welcomes further distribution can bring complications.

Strange effects can be avoided by using Paste Unformatted Text (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V). But this also also means you might have to do a lot of editing to make the text read correctly (indenting, bullets, headings, italics, etc).

2. If your text was correctly typed in LO your forensic examination should look closer to home.

I suggest start by looking at how the offending documents were formatted and the template used for your documents (all LO documents, even ones created by pressing Ctrl+N, are based on a template, whether you know it or not).

Direct Formatting

  • Open a file that blinks.

  • Select Edit>Select All. Then select Format>Clear Direct Formatting. If this stops the blinking, it was started with direct formatting. Your problem will be how this happened. I have usually found it is text copied from another document (see above), a forgotten session exploring the application, or a malicious joker has got at the PC.

  • Undo the changes made to the file, then remove the Blinking tick from Text Effects as decribed below. Save the file and do the same for other faulty files.

  • For advice on formatting see Chapter 4 of the Writer 6.0 guide. You can download this as a PDF, free of charge, from English documentation | LibreOffice Documentation - Your documentation for LibreOffice .

Check the template

If the above doesn’t stop the blinking, check the template used to create an offending document (and it is good practice to check even if you think direct formatting is the culprit)

  • Create a new document using the template that was used to create a blinking document. Open the Styles and Formatting sidebar (if necessary)

  • Right-click on the name of the paragraph style used for some text that blinked. Select Modify>Text Effects and check that the Blinking box does NOT have a tick in it. No tick means the template would appear to be OK.

  • If the Blinking box has a tick (which is unlikely), remove it and save the file as a template replacing the original. For advice on this see https://help.libreoffice.org/Writer/Creating_a_Document_Template .

  • If you can’t find a paragraph style with the same name as is used for the text causing trouble in your offending document it has been added after the offending document was created. You should turn your inquiry to “how?”.

  • If the template caused the problem, replacing it will not put existing documents right. You will have to go through them to remove the Blinking ticks. You will also need to investigate how the template came to be wrong in the first place.

Check for a modified style

  • If the problem is still there, open a file that blinks.

  • Right-click on the paragraph style of some blinking text and again check for a tick in the Blinking box. If there is one, the style was added or modified after the document was created. Take out the tick and that file should be OK, but you will need to do the same for other faulty files. And start thinking about how the change occured.

I hope this helps.

I don’t know how it started. Its actually my name and address that blinks…didn’t copy and paste it from online. Iliterally just opened it one day and there it was…blinking. When opening a few others, same thing. Just my Contact info though, not the body of my doc.Just tried the right click thing and the box was unchecked. Went into format and character and the blinking box had a check. Re-opened and cleared formatting and it stopped. Now hv one double space separating address line

I highlighted it and selected single space but nothing happened. I’m the worse on the computer, I do just the basics. …OK I just deleted it all and re-typed it. Closed it and re-opened…NO BLINKING!!! Thank you sooooooo much!!!

Your welcome. These infernal machines are hard to live with, but we can’t live without them in today’s world. Hope it all goes well now.