Hi! I’m new on this forum. I’m using Linux Mint as my OS. I have my personal checking account activity on a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet which is buried a few levels down in my personal business financial folder. On the spreadsheet are cells containing hyperlinks to pdf files of various bills and receipts in various folders on my computer. The links work fine. For convenience I have place a link to this checking account spreadsheet on my desktop. From there, the links don’t work anymore. I don’t know if this a problem on any other OS as Linux MInt is all I use. Any solution to this problem, or am I stuck with it?
For convenience I have place a link to this checking account spreadsheet on my desktop.
This may be a problem of using a link to the original account spreadsheet in connection with setting Tools -> Options -> Load/Save -> General -> Option; [x] Save URLs relative to the file system (Did not make a test, hence just a comment. Try to disable the option [of course while editing the account spreadsheet, since this is a document specific setting] and test once more).
My shortcut is a symbolic link made using Nemo file manager on Cinnamon desktop. I tried disabling the “Save URLs relative to the file system” option but it didn’t help. By the way, this option doesn’t seem to be document specific, as least not on my machine. Every spreadsheet on my computer has the option disabled now. My version of Calc is 5.1.6.2. The linked spreadsheet will work if it’s kept in the same folder as the original, but what’s the point in that? Will keep trying, but if it’s not able to perform as I hope, it’s not a huge deal. Thanks for your help so far and let me know if you have any other ideas.
How did you deduce this?
Sorry, I’m a comparative newbie and not that familiar with ODF zip containers. What I assume you mean by “document specific” is that the selected option only applies to the specific spreadsheet document that I make the change in. When I select “Save URLs relative to the file system”, it is selected on all the spreadsheets on my computer, whether previously saved or newly created, just like toolbar customization. Anyway, whether or not the option is selected does not seem to have any influence on the behavior of my hyperlinks.
To continue my discussion:
This is the location of my checking account spreadsheet on my computer:
/home/john/Personal_Business/Financial/Citizens_Bank
And this is the location of the document I’m trying to link to;
/home/john/Personal_Business/Utilities/Water/Statements
Interestingly, I have discovered that when I make or edit the hyperlink in the original spreadsheet using “Insert Hyperlink”, the Document Path displays this:
file:///home/john/Personal_Business/Utilities/Water/Statements/02-12-2021.pdf
When I then make a symbolic link to the spreadsheet and move it to my desktop and edit the hyperlink, this appears:
file:///home/Utilities/Water/Statements/02-12-2021.pdf
No wonder it can’t find the document; it has the wrong path.
But if I use the Function Wizard and type =HYPERLINK(….) it travels perfectly. However, this method is more laborious.
SOLVED
Well, I figured it out. Opaque, you were right about it being involved with “Tools → Options → Load/Save → General → Option; [x] Save URLs relative to the file system”. But I have to save the file after changing the option and before making the link to the desktop. OK, i goofed on that, but just saving the spreadsheet file immediately after changing the option doesn’t work. You have to make some other entry on the spreadsheet itself, so the “Save” icon in the toolbar changes to indicate an unsaved spreadsheet, otherwise it doesn’t take.
However, changing the Load/Save option in one document changes it for every other Calc document on my hard drive, both new and existing. That means if you have a mix of spreadsheets where you want the relative option used and some not, you have to check the option before every time you save it. For me, that’s not a problem. I’ll always want references saved absolutely, not relatively.
Thanks again for your help. I hope this discussion is of use to someone else.