Lost hyperlinks Witer 5 to Writer 6

Upped to LM 19.1 Cinnamon with LO 6 from LM 18.3 Cinnamon and LO 5.x. docx files in Writer 6 do not have the hyperlinks from Writer 5.x. I created chapter index page with link to the chapter. What happened and how might I be able to restore the links?

Unless you have stringent constraints, always save files in native format in any application. .docx spec is not public and has been best guessed with the help of retro-engineering. Don’t expect full compatibility. Many things changed between 5 and 6. Your issue may be a side-effect. If you must cooperate with M$ world, prefer .doc. which is known to be more reliable. Or send your file as .odt since M$ claims to be able to read those files (imperfectly, I admit).

If you can, downgrade to LO 5 and save your files as .odt. This is the simplest solution.

I chose .docx because it was supposed to be the open standard and would handle new features in xml. The .doc format is exclusive to MS and headed for the dustbin. If docx is an open format to incorporate new features then it is then a HANDICAP to use Libre Office while the rest of the world has compatibility with docx. If a LO user is to share and utilize documents with the world and .docx is the open standard to do so, the Libre Office must get itself into THE GAME! Secondly, it used to be that a new version of an existing program was downward compatible, so that old files would display correctly with new version. Whose idea was it to upgrade the program with the idea to throw your previous files created in the previous version away? I have NEVER heard of this before! Apologies do not cut it. .docx is the new standard and Libre Office MUST make what was created in LIBRE WRITER 5.X compatible and usable in LIBRE WRITER 6! What would be so difficult to understand about this concept? This CANNOT be an insurmountable problem for the good people at LIBRE OFFICE!

You’re right. LO Writer is working with THE open standard which is ODF and M$ Office pretends to be compatible with this standard but is not (voluntarily for obvious commercial and locking reasons). .docx is not an open standard. It has been partially published and Microsoft itself doesn’t apply it fully to its products (again voluntarily).

If you really want a common agreed de facto standard, send your files pdf. Of course, they won’t be editable.

BTW, I"m no LO developper nor affiliated in any way to The Document Foundation. I’m only a power user who has switched from M$ world to LO after years of frustration with a product plagued with many design flaws (as well in ergonomics as in feature concepts, not speaking of instability with complex documents).

That said, I’m ready to help you, but describe a bit more technically what are your hyperlinks and how you manage it. Without this information, don"t expect any useful advice.

You don’t tell the version of LO you use currently (please note that “6” is not a version; the proper version number has at least two parts; and the third is also really necessary when talking about bugs - because it tells the micro revision which is bug fix release); so first please check if the problem is reproducible with current versions (6.1.5 or 6.2.1).

If it is, then please file a bug report, attaching the file that was created in 5.x, which is intended to contain the links. It looks like a regression, indeed.

The advice to always keep your files in the program’s native format is always good, for any software. No software can offer you perfect support for foreign formats. Especially when the foreign format is built around different base principles, as it the case with ODF and OOXML. By the way, that is also true for MS, which would never be able to give perfect support for ODF, without the major architectural changes to, say, Word. It is not about politics or somesuch; it’s about fidelity of saved data.