How to make LibreOffice show thumbnails instead of icons?

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#9

Apologies, I was a bit fast to comment.

A desktop manager is only responsible for the appearance of the desktop on screen. It offers an API to window managers to position elements on the desktop and won’t interfere on its own with these “elements” (windows and icons among others).

The piece of software to check is the file browser: it opens windows on the desktop to display folder contents or positions icons in a special folder called “Desktop” or equivalent to give the illusion the icons are deposited directly on said desktop.

The file browser can parse file and folder contents to compute an ad_hoc icon. Here, with the KDE desktop manager, I have the choice between Konqueror and Dolphin file browser. Both of them have a menu Configure>Configure xxx. The details after that are a bit different, but you end up in a General category with a Thumbnail tab. There, you have a list of MIME types (disguised under human-friendly names) with a check box. Whenever a box is checked, the file browser will read at least a few blocks of the designated files and, thanks to plug-ins, compute a relevant icon.

The question is now: is there an ODF plugin?

Unfortunately, i’m afraid the answer is “no”. Fedora distro does not provide one by default and I guess no one has developed such a plugin. To add to the difficulty, no universal plugin can exist because it has to integrate with the file browser API.

#10

Thank you so much for this information which I’ve saved.
In OS Windows, the thumbnail business was a matter of a minute to sort out. OS Linux is another story.
Especially, a greater lot of questions how to get rid of thumbnails rather than to create them.

#11

To revert to standard icons, you just uncheck the box in the file browser config dialog. Getting rid of thumbnails and reclaiming disk space is another story. With Fedora KDE, they are stored in ~/.thumbnails/. I haven’t checked in they are stored in the same location under MATE. ls -al is your friend to discover all the hidden files and directories in your home folder.

#12

Thanks. My Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS has “File Management,” already configured to show thumbnails, and that to no avail. I also checked out my Synaptic PM – all the stuff which has “thumbnails” and “thumbnailer” in it’s hard names has been installed. As for the hidden files, I guess, they are hidden from such “super-users” as me. So, let 'em be.

#5

This is a Ubuntu question. On my Linux-Mint system you can change your icon if you do not wish to use your supplied one. Right click the icon on your desktop, select PROPERTIES then click on the displayed icon. Find the thumbnail you want, select it and away you go.

#6

Petermau, I tried what you’ve suggested. It didn’t work. Thanks anyway. Igor

#7

I think the OP wants an icon reflecting the contents of the file, hence the name of thumbnail, just like a picture is displayed as a reduced view on the desktop. The icon is not a “static” one chosen from a library (your proposed solution) but a “dynamic” one, different for each file.

#8

Agree. As per “Dictionary Of Computer And Internet Terms” (Amazon.com: Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (Barron's Business Dictionaries) (9781438008783): Downing Ph.D., Douglas, Covington Ph.D., Michael, Covington, Melody: Books), icon – a small picture on a computer screen that represents a particular object, operation, or group of files… thumbnail (from the artists’ term thumbnail sketch) – a small image of a graphics file displayed in order to help you identify it.
That way the book differentiate the terms. My question, however, has nothing to do with a desktop (on the which I keep nothing but a “wallpaper” as they call it). I mean ODT files within a folders, just that.

#13

As it’s correctly said above, it’s Ubuntu question.
And, as far as I could get from and tried myself, the official PPA is no longer maintained.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/78297/ooo-thumbnailer-doesnt-work
It seems, the case is closed for the time being.

#14

And, as far as I could get from ask ubuntu and tried myself, the official PPA is no longer maintained

As far as I see, latest updates on https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ubuntu/ppa are from end of Mar 2019, making 6.2.2 available

#15

Is it relevant to “Ubuntu question?” Probably I have that 6.2.2. via my regular “apt-get update.”
Will check it out. Thanks

#16

Ah, sorry - when you wrote “official PPA”, you meant “official PPA of a random application referred to by an Ask Ubuntu question I cited” (= “official PPA of ooo-thumbnailer”), not the official PPA of LibreOffice packaging team, which is usually most relevant “official PPA” here on Ask LibreOffice.

#17

Sure. And regarding Libre 6.2.2., my Terminal answered: “Most of the packages in this PPA have only experienced minor testing – in fact it is the place to enable a wider audience to test packages before they are published into the distro proper. In general, this PPA is not for the average user to install without a closer look…” and so on. Well, I’m that “average user without a closer look.” :slight_smile:

#18

sorry, i didn’t realize i was being ambiguous

i’m using win 7

and i do have image icons for odt files, not docx files (office)

i wish i could have posted inline screenshots, that would have clarified things a lot

i’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to clarify this …
and i didn’t realize i was posting multiple times, i’m going to have to figure that out also

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update

my apologies a second time around. for some reason, i found this in my inbox, and thought it was mine, as i posted a similar question on bleepingcomputer.com. ya know, some of us aren’t as organized as we’d like to be

#19

I’m afraid you answered the wrong question. Please double-check you really intend to give additional information to this one. I had a look at your account and could not find a sensible question.

In addition this looks rather like a comment and should not be provided as an answer which is reserved for solutions on this site.

#20

it could be that i was following this thread because i have a similar question

#21

thank you for checking that

#22

Do you agree to delete this “non-answer”? If so, click on the delete link under your “answer” or I can do it on your behalf.

#23

As this question has NEVER truly been answered with a legitimate reply, I’ll try to help.

The easiest and quickest solution to get true thumbnails (embedded snapshots of the actual document - not blobs), was found my grandfather. He simply installed an older version of “OpenOffice” (4.14, I believe), removed the desktop shortcut and proceeded to populate all of our folders with REAL sample pics of the ACTUAL docs! No muss. No fuss. Simple, quick, easy!

Glad To Help,
Lexa

#24

The main question would be, if your grandfather uses Ubuntu and wich version.
.
Actually 4.1.14 seems to be the current version for OpenOffice at End of 2023, so I guess we will never see 4.14, but as both suites use the same .odt .ods … file format a working thumbnail generator would show contents for both suites on the desktop.
https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html

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