How do I stop LO from opening files in different formats from those they were saved in before closing them?

English
#1

I am using LO v7.4.7.2 on Windows 10. I have used LO from even the days of OpenOffice and have maintained nearly all my documents in .odt. I have only ever used MS Suite formats for files SENT to me, NEVER for files that I have created from scratch.

Only in the last couple of months (I’m afraid I don’t know if it related to a specific LO Version Download), I have found a really annoying LO habit. My particular files of focus have been documents that have been updated regularly from about >15 years as they are almost my working templates and I retain all the old copies of each file that has been updated.

In one example of such a file (it does this with all my long-saved files), from its original birth to the present version, it was written with Default Paragraph Style, Times New Roman Text and 8pt Text Size. However, whenever I close this file that format, text style and size get changed ‘automatically’ to something that I have never ever used but only in parts of the file. The reason I know this is that upon opening the file, I can immediately see that all the spacings and page settings have changed ‘of their own accord’ and the number of pages used by the file has increased.

So, if I sweep the whole file (highlight from the top of the first line on the first page and use Page Down and End) then the Boxes for Default Paragraph Style, Text Style and Text Size all go blank and all the page settings are awry. Whilst highlighted I then change all those settings back to my preferred options. If I then save that document the settings do not again change but if I CLOSE the file and reopen it, it will again have included ‘rogue’ choices of its own.

If I trawl through the document line-by-line, I can find paragraphs and even paragraph separators, where my preferred settings have been changed in terms of Paragraph Style to not be 1 line separation, to be Sans Serif Text Style and 12pt Text Size, none of which I have ever used.

I have searched all manner of sites on line to find an answer as to how to prevent this happening but, as of yet, unsuccessfully. No one else seems quite to have this exact issue.

Just to re-emphasis my point, I stress that this document has only ever been written in .odt and never in any other format. It has never been written in anything else other than Default Paragraph Style, Times New Roman Text Style and 8pt Text Size.

I have tried all manner of things, including reformatting the document and then copying and pasting each paragraph separately into a fresh document and saving that but LO still reopens the new document in a mixture of different formats not chosen by me.

This document includes IPP and can’t be revealed. It contains lots of meaningful coloured text for specific characters used and it would take a lifetime to trawl through each character to correct it, one by one, from some sort of whitewashed starting point.

To me there is some sort of generic issue with LO that is retaining a memory outside/above the specifics of the chosen formats that I am unable to change.

Who can help me with this, please? Thanks for reading all this and I apologise for stealing your time.

#2

Well without looking at one of your files or a sample of, we can’t do anything. Can you replace real text with dummy text and make a 1 to 3 pages sample? Make sure the behaviour is still the same; Does it happen on newly created files?

From your description, it looks like you don’t use styles and everything is done manually. This kind of direct formatting is generally sticky/persistent and causes problems opposite of yours.

I am not familiar with Windows, but I read that updates under this OS frequently need cold boot to settle things. Eventually, if this is not enough to fix the situation, you can try resetting your user profile, losing your customisation, from Help>Restart in Safe Mode.

#3

aj: Thank you very much for responding. I have noted the content of your reply and I will attempt to answer your Q’s:

  1. I will do as you ask and create a new file with similar traits to the files in question, even with nonsense text, which will include differing text alignments, bullet toggles, numbered toggles, paragraphs, Bold and Underlined text, coloured text and characters as well as a Table. I will make the file at least 3 pages long. I THINK the issue only affects documents with complex variations as set out above, rather than a fairly normal, uncomplicated text.

  2. Yes, that’s correct, I do not use STYLES and only use Default. In the main that’s because I like to control the toggles myself accordingly and in the relevant locations.

  3. I regularly cold boot Windows and due to the fact that I have to run my PC for VERY extended hours I am often frustrated by Forced Reboots that occur at times when the PC is running overnight and I am not in attendance, unawares of an update that requires immediate reboot. In the case of the latter it means I can’t apply an option for a suitable time of my choosing for the Restart (MS do NOT anticipate that anyone using Win10 will be trying to run the OS for nearly 24 hrs around the clock).

#4

In fact, using styles will make that so much easier, especially when you want to keep your formatting consistent.

#5

Floris, thanks for your contribution.

Part of the reason for keeping to [Default] styles is that the approach taken, or the road travelled, doesn’t particularly conform to the standardised or generic approaches. From the outset of a few, very old but constantly updated files, the initial document was simple in nature. As research indicated new parameters for the topic to which the document referred, so the styles and toggles had to be embellished and often this meant inserting new paragraphs or toggled inserts (or even deleted) into the already-established format.

The documents grew incrementally rather than being a known, total-entity which could have been pre-planned from the outset. For instance, one such document of 29 pages has several hundred updates/versions, first started >15 years ago.

The mystery is why all was fine for >15 years and yet something has changed in the last 2 months or so.

#6

I hope you’ll grasp how powerful and user-friendly styles are. With a correct approach, i.e. semantic vs. visual, you separate look from contents. You can then work separately on these two aspects of a document: the topic and how it displays. Styles are worked on on their own and magically your document appearance updates without the need to track any specific formatting occurrence.


Newbie’s approach to style is to create (and name) them with the visual result in mind, e.g. 12pt, red, bold. The most fruitful approach (and the only reasonable one for long-standing document) is to consider styles as a way of semantically tagging your text: this paragraph is a heading, this one my main discourse, this one a note, a comment, a quotation, … The same goes for words inside paragraph: emphasis, strong emphasis, trademark, foreign word, math variable, irony, important, caveat, … This is a meta-addition to your text. Then you give the various styles distinctive characteristics. I don’t think this significance will change a lot across your reviews. But you can change “important” from red to underline or flashy yellow overhighlight from the style without looking at the text itself.

Another example: somebody request your text double-spaced so that this reader can annotate. Well, you only change a few paragraph styles (eventually only Default Paragraph Style because all others inherit from it) and you’re done.

#7

aj: I have created a document as discussed earlier, which I now download, but it is NOT recreating the symptoms of my issue.

I guess that is because it’s not been messed about with, updated and resaved hundreds of times over a span of 15 years and so some (let’s call it) specific-document DNA that causes the problem described previously is not present in this pre-planned document.

Somehow there is a ‘signature’ in the problem documents that can’t be erased by tried-and-tested or obvious measures. With the problem documents, resetting the whole document to my preferred options for Styles, Text Style and Text Size, before Saving, which SHOULD resolve the issue, just doesn’t, implying that there is almost a deeply-embedded signature in it that I can’t see or that LO has some trait that doesn’t conform in some specific circumstances.

The mystery continues.
Trial nonsense document for identifying an issue 2023.07.24.1.odt (32.9 KB)

#8

I can’t draw definitive conclusions but I have some clues.

Above all your document is exclusively direct formatting and this creates some problems.

As an example, I take the size of the number when you toggle numbering.
Your text is 8-pt direct configured. Paragraph beginning is even bold underlined. When you toggle list numbering, Writer inserts a sequence number and a tab. You can’t format these manually because you can’t really select them (it looks like but they are not actively selected). Their appearance is the default one at time of number/bullet creation. I insist on “time of creation” because direct formatting depends on context. And in the case of bullet/numbering, it is even worse because the Format>Bullets & Numbering or toolbar button have been provided for quick’n’dirty enabling and also for compatibility with Word feature. However, since it is a one-size-fits-all feature, you can’t tell if you’re numbering a brand new list or if you’re continuing an existing list. This implies a lot of twists in the implementation.

The reliable way to do it is to use list styles but understanding the concept and its difference with the toolbar button is relatively advanced topic.

So back to your toggle. The number has to be formatting anyway. By default Numbering Symbols is applied. I checked it and you don’t request any font size change. So, the number should be 8pt instead of 12pt. It should not be bold though this could be a consequence of being added in a region where bold is in effect. I could not find which direct formatting was responsible for it (but you have so much!)

Notice also that your numbering is not consistent: some of them are bold while others are not (within the same list!).

Another bad consequence of your vertical spacing with empty paragraph (another form of direct formatting):
My computer is not Windows and Times New Roman is not available. It is replaced by another serif font which has not the same metrics. I don’t think this changes the number of lines in your paragraphs because they are short. However the vertical size of the font is not the same and page start begins to drift. I have already a 3-line offset at page 3, assuming “N.B. Page x …” is the first line in the page.

I blame direct formatting for all the glitches I can see, but there is no conclusive evidence about one mistake on your part. Contrary to common belief, direct formatting is not intuitive and it requires expert skills to really master it because there are many weird behaviours behind the scene.

#9

The problem with the changing font size is that you don’t even really use the paragraph style Default. If you want to have all text in Times New Roman and at 8 pt, then you should modify the paragraph style as such. Instead, it has the default font that LibreOffice ships with, and font size 12, which neatly explains why your numbered list gets its numbers so large - they’re based on the default paragraph style as it is defined, not as you have manually overridden it.

As to using styles, you can start using styles now, or whenever you want. It’s never too late to start with it. It doesn’t matter that your files are old. You can add new character styles when you need them. You can define character styles for your differently colored text, for instance. You can then use Edit - Find and Replace, turn on regular expressions, click Format and set the color that you used, say Dark Red 2, find all instances of dark red 2 colored text, close the dialog window, apply the new character style to all instances and go on until you have done them all.

#10

aj: Thank you for this. I will review your response content several times over to try to grasp my best way forward, when taking into account both all your responses and also floris’s. Watch this space.

#11

floris: Thank you for your assistance too. I will review your response content several times over to try to grasp my best way forward, when taking into account both your responses and also aj’s. Watch this space.

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