I can open it using the shortcut it placed on my desktop but just don’t understand why it doesn’t show up in the list as I’d like to add it to the windows screen that has all the apps on it like I did by adding "control panel, Publisher etc. for easier access.
I am using Windows 8 but if you go to the Tile View and start typing Libre Office does it come up in the list? If so you can right click and “Pin to Start Menu”.
I know some things. And they make the problem even more mysterious
Here goes;
Win 10 creates a database from a set of start menu locations.
C:\windows\startmenu is a general one. There are others including user\startmenu
And some items (esp “Modern” apps ) appear from a mysterious place.
The database collects all these locations to generate the startmenu
But I moved my LibreOffice shortcuts folder from its default …\startmenu\libreoffice\shortcut names
to my own custom folder \startmenu\office\ shortcut names
However, on the start menu LibreOffice still appears where it was originally.
BUT if I right click on one of these shortcuts in the LibreOffice startmenu folder ( you can’t right click a folder itself) and choose “Open file location” it opens the correct start menu folder where the shortcuts actually are.
So somehow the database of start menu items thinks that it should display the LibreOffice shortcuts folder under “L” but has kept track of where the actual shortcuts inside it are.
I’ve not found quite this with any other programme, though I have had some that don’t appear at all until at some random point the database seems to refresh and Hey Presto, there they are.
So, it appears there may be something that particularly affects LO
Edited because I’ve experimented a bit.
I was able to add a shortcut to the Libreoffice exe into the part of the start menu I wanted it and it shows in “all apps” now. So I deleted it from where it was before . But when I tried to do the same for the writer component It wouldn’t show. Which suggests that Windows recognises libreoffice.exe as a windows file and accepts the shortcut, but the individual programme files are not recognised in the same way for some reason.
The following information is drawn from LO under Linux. However, I previously used LO/OO under XP & know from that experience that the back-office arrangements are very similar.
(Lots of this info is an attempt to assist @Terry-in-Finchley)
The main LO binaries are called ‘soffice.bin’ (look for ‘soffice.exe’ under Windows) + oosplash:
:~$ locate soffice.bin
/opt/libreoffice5.0/program/soffice.bin
:~$ /opt/libreoffice5.0/program/soffice.bin --help
LibreOffice 5.0.0.5 437e4abdf9e72fd0a6e6f8697a0e659bc77f9b10
Usage: soffice [options] [documents...]
Options:
--minimized keep startup bitmap minimized.
--invisible no startup screen, no default document and no UI.
--norestore suppress restart/restore after fatal errors.
--quickstart starts the quickstart service
--nologo don't show startup screen.
--nolockcheck don't check for remote instances using the installation
--nodefault don't start with an empty document
--headless like invisible but no user interaction at all.
--help/-h/-? show this message and exit.
--version display the version information.
--writer create new text document.
--calc create new spreadsheet document.
--draw create new drawing.
--impress create new presentation.
--base create new database.
--math create new formula.
--global create new global document.
--web create new HTML document.
-o open documents regardless whether they are templates or not.
-n always open documents as new files (use as template).
# (lots & lots more!)
Notice all the parameters to launch the individual Apps under LO (eg --writer for Writer). soffice.bin is located on my Debian system under ‘/opt/libreoffice5.0/program’. The same dir also contains shell executables (the equivalent of Windows batch-files) for each App in the same dir. Here is just one example:
:~$ ls -al /opt/libreoffice5.0/program/swriter
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root root 64 Aug 2 22:39 /opt/libreoffice5.0/program/swriter
:~$ cat /opt/libreoffice5.0/program/swriter
#!/bin/sh
cmd=`dirname "$0"`/soffice
exec "$cmd" --writer "$@"
I think that this arrangement is behind why all the shortcuts in win10 show up under ‘L’ for LibreOffice, since they are all launched from the same binary (executable) file. However, the individual Apps are bound to be available, probably via Batch-files (or something similar) as above.
If this helps then please tick the answer (
)
That does explain the paradox. To me it’s the answer.