How to fix GUI after changing DE / Setting up GUI on GNOME [Need help]

[AlexanderKoen]

Main problem

Hello. I have been using Libre Office on the KDE desktop environment and recently changed my desktop environment to GNOME. After that i have a problem with Libre Office - icons are not looking correctly on my new DE.

The main problem - icons on the toolbar are too bright and are almost practically invisible.

I already have tried reinstalling Libre Office and deleting /home/.config/libreoffice to reset my settings, but it didn’t help. What could i do to make my Libre Office look on GNOME like cleanly installed app.

Here is how Libre Office looks like in the light/dark theme:

Light:

[mindoe]

Hi and welcome have you tried changing the icon theme by:
Tools → Options → LibreOffice → View → Icon Theme → Theme

there is a drop down menu. There you can see all the icon themes installed in your OS or user only.

KDE and GNOME come with different default icon themes since they are based on different GUI toolkits. Try out what’s there in the drop-down menu and maybe you are fine.

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Also you can add icons on libre office only from the button on the right

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System-wise (or user-wise, i.e., for use in your folders as well) you may add icons by finding them online (i.e., I like to use Full Icon Themes - Gnome-look.org but there are other places, maybe even on GNOME’s repo/app store). If you download any new icon themes you just put them in /home/<your-user-name>/.icons as an uncompressed folder.

[AlexanderKoen]

Thank you for help. Yes - i was able to successfully use other Icon Theme.

Also i now understand which problem i am dealing with - Libre Office dark theme doesn’t work, but Libre Office used icons for dark theme as default. It’s what made them unusable:

Now i need to find a solution to be able to use dark theme.

[AlexanderKoen]

Black theme:

Additional information:

1. My LibreOffice crashes when i switch my theme from Light to Dark.
2. I have only automatic scheme.
3. I am using Nobara (Fedora) distribution and i have libreoffice-gtk3/4 packages installed.

UPDATE:

I figured out the problem - dark theme UI doesn’t load properly on my system. I have changed GNOME to the dark theme, but Libre Office dark theme doesn’t work on my system.

[mindoe]

also this doesn’t look like a dark theme. the entire UI should be dark in the dark theme. like this (notice my icons are white, for dark themes). do you mean you changed the GNOME theme to be dark maybe?

[AlexanderKoen]

Yeah, it’s a problem. I figured out that dark theme UI doesn’t load properly on my system. I have changed GNOME to the dark theme, but Libre Office dart theme doesn’t work on my system.

[ajlittoz]

You didn’t mention which Linux distribution is yours. LO can interface various desktop environment but this requires installing an ad hoc package.

Under Fedora, these packages are names libreoffice-zzz where zzz is x11 for a generic DE-agnostic (ugly) interface, gtk3 or gtk4 for Gnome and related, and kf5 or kf6 for KDE. The number (3-4, 5-6) specifies the version of the widget family (GTK3 or GTK4, Qt5 or Qt6).

Note 1: don’t use Answers for posts which are not solutions. Additions to previous posts are done either by editing them or using Comments.

Note 2: your screenshots show you have configured Writer with tabbed UI. Avoid it because it tends to perpetuate Word workflow and encourages direct formatting which will play nasty tricks on your back rather sooner than later. Learn how to use styles.

[AlexanderKoen]

@ajlittoz

You didn’t mention which Linux distribution is yours. LO can interface various desktop environment but this requires installing an ad hoc package.

I am using Nobara (Fedora’s fork) distribution.

@ajlittoz

Under Fedora, these packages are names libreoffice-zzz where zzz is x11 for a generic DE-agnostic (ugly) interface, gtk3 or gtk4 for Gnome and related, and kf5 or kf6 for KDE. The number (3-4, 5-6) specifies the version of the widget family (GTK3 or GTK4, Qt5 or Qt6).

Libreoffice gtk3 and gtk4 are installed on my system.

@ajlittoz

Note 2: your screenshots show you have configured Writer with tabbed UI. Avoid it because it tends to perpetuate Word workflow and encourages direct formatting which will play nasty tricks on your back rather sooner than later. Learn how to use styles.

I use Libre Office mostly for university work and in some cases using styles is srtictly prohibited. Thanks you for advice anyway - styles could help me in cases where i could use hem.

[ajlittoz]

@AlexanderKoen

in some cases using styles is srtictly prohibited.

Very surprising! Universities are supposed to be bleeding-edge in every domain. They also have stringent requirements for layout. They can’t be achieved easily without styles (everything is possible with direct formatting but this is painful and leads frequently to inconsistencies). I don’t see the rationale regarding this ban.

[AlexanderKoen]

Yeah, i don’t see too. I am learning in the Russian university and some aspects of our study could be too conservative even if it’s a good IT related university.