Why do I have to save an attachment in an e-mail to open it…Why doesn’t LibreOffice automatically open it for me?
Using a browser-based email client such as GMail and making sure your browser is set up to use LibreOffice as the ‘helper application’ for certain filetypes (ODT, etc…), I can confirm that it is possible to open email attachments directly in LibreOffice.
@hharper To understand your problem, it would be helpful to know a bit more about your specific system configuration. What operating system, email client, and version of LibreOffice are you using?
I have Windows 7, IE browser, and use Windows Live mail. Just yesterday I downloaded LibreOffice for the 1st time. I had been using Apache Open Office.
@hharper - I’m not very familiar with IE, but I can tell you how to set up the Helper Application on Firefox – you can grab a copy from that link.
In Firefox, navigate to: Edit → Preferences → Helper Applications
(it might actually be called “Applications”, without the “Helper” part)
Look in the list for entries for the filetypes you want LibreOffice to open – e.g. ppt, xls, doc, etc. These might be described as “PowerPoint presentation”, “Excel Spreadsheet”, and so forth. In the “Action” column, click on the current selection and change it to the appropriate program – e.g. for an Excel document, pick “Use LibreOffice Calc”. If LibreOffice Calc does not appear in that list, you may need to select “Use other…”, find the LibreOffice binary on disk, and add the path to it to the Action column.
A (potentially) simpler idea is to use Firefox and just try opening a ppt file or an xls file. When you try to open the file, the browser will give you a dialog box asking you what helper application it should employ to open the file. At this point you can
- Select the correct LibreOffice application
- Check the “Remember my preference” box, so your preference changes stick