Export or print to PDF - no text

[marcusadamski]

Hello,

I’ve just installed a fresh operating system and LibreOffice. Using LibreOffice, the first issue I have is exporting to PDF, either by:

• File-> print-> print to file
• File → Export As → Export as PDF

Using both methods, no text is displayed in the resulting PDF. Through a little experimentation, I’ve also found the lines of a table are displayed in a PDF, but again any text is not.

I’ve attached an ODF with the phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” inside a one cell table. I’ve also attached an image of the resulting PDF (forum will not allow a PDF to be uploaded) . On my system (and Google Docs), the cell borders are viewable, but the text is missing. If a document just contains text, the resulting PDF is blank.

Note: other applications on my system appear to “print to PDF” without an issue. So it’s appears to be an issue with LibreOffice, rather than a system-wide issue.

System Details:
Linux Lubuntu 20.04
LibreOffice 6.4.2.2

Any help / advice would be very welcome, as I use this feature a lot.
Thanks,
Marc

LO-test.odt
lo-test.jpg

[anon73440385]

No problem on my openSUSE 15.1 system with LibreOffice 6.4.3.2.
Are you using Ubuntu’s PPA for LibreOffice?

[marcusadamski]

No - LibreOffice is preinstalled as part of the Lubuntu 20.04 distribution. Note immediately after installation, there was an update which was carried out (not sure if LO was updated as part of the update) - but again, this was from the Lubuntu update stream.

[marcusadamski]

Actually, just reloaded the Lubuntu 20.04 live disk, opened LO Write (pre-installed) , typed in some random text then exported to PDF. Had the same result - the text wasn’t visible. So this issue can be reproduced on the live disk, without any changes

[marcusadamski]

Appears the issue has been raised in Lubuntu forums:

LibreOffice export to PDF has no text

As PDF exports work with other system apps, unsure if the issue is with LibreOffice or the Lubuntu configuration.

[anon73440385]

Could reproduce your problem, but it seems to be fixed now on Lubuntu 20.04 (not sure what action actually fixed it, but some minutes ago, I’ve performed a completely new install using sudo apt install libreoffie after having removed everything related to LibreOffice dpkg --list | awk '/ii/&&/libreoffice/{print $2}' | sudo xargs apt purge -y and sudo apt autoremove -y

[OmarBautistaGonzález]

Hello. I was dealing with the same problem, also. I recently also did a fresh install of Lubuntu 20.04 LTS… Thanks for reporting this problem, marcusadamski. However, I did exactly what Opaque suggest and I also don’t know how but this solve the exporting PDF problem with LibreOffice. Thanks, Opaque!

[holy-harp]

I have the same problem with LibreOffice 6.4.3.2 that came with Lubuntu 20.04 Omar’s (Opaque’s) solution works.

[wankelrx8]

I’m on Lubuntu 20.04 and Opaque’s solution worked for me!

[AndyLu]

For me it didn’t work (Lubuntu 20.04 LTS).

[AndyLu]

Found an answer that worked for me: SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kf5 in LUBUNTU MENU: Preferences → LXQt settings → Session settings → Environment variables. Previously, it was set to qt5. The change to kf5 did it for me, finally.

[AnnaMarczuk]

@anon73440385’s solution worked great for me! My LibreOffice installation spans over a decade, having survived several Ubuntu LTS upgrades, so it was probably some old leftover config file from a really old version causing this.

[OmarBautistaGonzález]

It seems that the problem is solved with the suggestion that Opaque wrote, with a few additions using the bash terminal:

sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice
dpkg --list | awk '/ii/&&/libreoffice/{print $2}' | sudo xargs apt purge -y
sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo apt install libreoffice

Regards,

[wankelrx8]

This works for me on Lubuntu 20.04!

[ralf3]

then if the window of Tools>Options… and its font-size are too small, and if the symbols of the symbol bar are different, just visit:

Cannot print anything, exporting to PDF produces blank PDF (Lubuntu 20.04)

I am using Lubuntu 20.04 and cannot get LibreOffice to print anything at all correctly. Either it prints blank pages, or some garbage (random [?] characters). Exporting to PDF usually the same; some PDF reader programs show errors. When opening the PDF document in a text editor, I found the following text: % CreateFontSubset failed for font “Liberation Sans” weight=5 % CreateFontSubset failed for font “Liberation Sans” weight=8 The font names and wights vary, depending on which fonts ar…

[AndyLu]

For me it didn’t work, I still have that problem on Lubuntu 20.04 LTS even after trying this solution, or that one similar to this: Text not showing when exporting to PDF or printing in 6.4.4.2 - #8 by palimaar

[AndyLu]

Found an answer that worked for me: SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kf5 in LUBUNTU MENU: Preferences → LXQt settings → Session settings → Environment variables. Previously, it was set to qt5. The change to kf5 did it for me, finally.

[PiotrSzafrański]

Make sure you have libreoffice-gtk3 installed, and libreoffice-qt5 uninstalled.

With the LUbuntu distribution 20.04.1 LTS (LXQt 0.14.1), if libreoffice-qt5 is installed, LibreOffice will use it. And this apparently kills printing and PDF exports. After I unistalled libreoffice-qt5, printing and PDF export from under LibreOffice started to work I think OK.

I did not have to reinstall the whole LibreOffice for that fix to work. My LUbuntu distribution 20.04.1 LTS was an upgrade from the previous 19 LUbuntu. No particular tweaks/tricks. After 20.04.1 LTS upgrade, LibreOffice, as others noted, stopped printing or exporting PDFs correctly.

[kim27]

This is amazing. It solved my problem. I followed the other advice and it took an hour or so to repair the damage done. Simply sudo apt remove libreoffice-qt5 solved my printing woes.

[dimpapa]

That worked without reinstalling the whole package!! Thanks a lot!!!