Hi,
am I correct in saying that there is now no option to just save the changes you’ve made to a file without saving as a new file?
I can only find “save as” and various other options but not just save.
This situation seems to be new since I did an upgrade to my linux zorin os and downloaded a new version of libre office.
The files also now all seem to open in read only with a banner asking whether I’d like to edit. ok so I click edit.
But then when I want to save the file I have to create a new file?
I don’t want a new file as at the end of a few hours I’ll have about twenty files to deal with won’t I?
Is there any way to just save the work to the same file like it used to and then “save as” when I deem it to be necessary?
Or if not can I download the older version of libre?
Though I’m on linux I’m not very computer literate so would prefer gui based answers if possible.
Many thanks
Justin
Check file permissions first. Do this in the file manager of your desktop manager (you didn’t mention it: GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, LxQt, LightDM, MATE, … to cite the most common).
- as you reinstalled (just an upgrade,uh?), have you same user name as before?
- see the file permissions: three of them are available
- owner (the user who created the file; thus my question about same user name)
- group (for access by users in the same group as the owner; by default, all users are in group users)
- others (for users who are neither the owner nor in declared group)
The file may also be located in a “foreign” directory, i.e. one in another user’s home directory or on a remote server.
The fact that File>Save has disappeared highly suggests that this is a file permission problem. This menu item is disabled if the original file can’t be written to.
When providing more details, mention LO version.
PS: tell us also from which Linux version you upgraded to which version. If your original version was rather old, you may bump into an issue where user id were previously allocated from 500 (if I remember right) while they now start at 1000. Depending on how you upgraded, your files may not have been updated. Then your user name (even if same as before) is decoded as 1000 while your files are tagged as 500. This can be fixed by a command line in a terminal but, as it is “dangerous” for your files, check first the other possibilities.
You may try the keyboard: Ctrl+s is the usual key-combo to save directly. This will work, if only the “save-icon” and menu vanished. If also key-config is altered this will not help.
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Sorry - read your question again. I thought you could not find the Save-Button, but as your file is noted as read-only there have to be another cause.
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My best guess is your user id being changed during upgrade, so you are maybe not the owner of your own files…
Ajlittoz, Wanderer, thank you both.
The manager is Xfce with Thunar file manager.
My user name is the same as before (ugraded from Zorin 15 to 16.2)
The problem is half solved however as I’ve now found the permissions dialogue in Thunar and am therefore able to change the settings for individual files. That is a great help, but I wonder is there a way to make that a “global” setting for all files and folders?
I looked around everywhere in the graphical zone and couldn’t spot anything, so if there’s a terminal command I could cut and paste that is not too complicated I might even gird my loins and try that!
Cheers
Justin
Actually there is not, as access rights and owner are stored for every file individually. But there is a command-line-option -R for the command chown, wich can go downwards all folders below . for rxample.
Permissions are changed with chmod command. chown is used to change the owner (or group) of the file. In a terminal, type the following commands:
cd
chmod -R ug+rw,o+r,o-w .
First command is entered only in case you are not already at the root of your home directory.
Second command is a bit complicated because it will touch both files and directories and it is better to avoid messing up the x bit (allowing access to directories and marking executable files like programs and scripts). I assume the x bit is already correctly set. User and group can read and write files, others can only read. If you prefer not to allow group write, modify command as:
chmod -R u+rw,go+r,go-w .
Don’t forget the final dot as it is not very visible in the command.
I’d be careful with (or rather not use)
cd
chmod -R ... .
because changing permissions from the $HOME directory on is certainly not wanted… (e.g. it will render the ~/.ssh/ directory unusable because ssh and openssl tools will complain about the directory and files not being private, and may break other things as well). Rather explicitly specify which directory trees are to be changed, i.e. only those where documents are stored.
Also, not setting the x search/traverse bit on directories may have the effect that while reading a file when the complete path was given is possible, but finding the file when traversing the directory is not. To keep with the last example, setting user all permissions and group and other only read permissions on the Documents directory, use
chmod -R u=rwX,go=rX Documents
where the capital X sets x on all directories, and on files only if some user already had it.
As a work-around, you could continue to use SaveAs with the default (existing) file name, but with the extra effort of having to answer Yes to over-write the old file with the current (editted) one and the default file name. It should work fine, although it is tedious with the extra click.