I’ve noticed that image handling in Writer is incredibly slow often leading to program freeze up and crashes. This is not a RAM issue; I’m running 64 GB. Doesn’t seem to matter how the image is inserted (copy/paste or insert>image). Anyone else experiencing the same?
Doesn’t seem to matter. Performance is horrible across the board with image handling. For example:
3 png images
~170-200 KiB/each
~1700x1600/each
After inserting the 3rd image, even the tiniest bit of manipulation (scaling with corners) lags and crashes the program.
As far as optimizing in a separate program before import, sure, that’s a work around, but nowhere close to an efficient solution. Writer should be able to handle some auto compression or whatever needs to happen on import so that it doesn’t crash. No such experience with MS Word; just drag-and-drop images all day long.
I disagree. It is the most efficient solution because you’ll control very accurately various issues. PNG is a bitmap format. Consequently, any scaling will resample the image to map it on the new pixel grid. Writer has some elementary algorithms but they will never be on par with specific image manipulation programs, independently from performance.
<br<Only you, as document author, know the properties of the final work (is it targeted towards printing or screen? does it support zooming? etc.). It is then more effective to prepare your images according to these final properties, notable size and pixel density, so that Writer accepts them “as is” without any interpolation.
Your images are 1700×1600. At 300dpi, this is almost 6"×5" or 14cm×13.5cm and they need full page width. To minimise Writer attempt to flow text around them, have you set wrap mode to None? have you disabled overlap?
Also, have you created or customised a frame style? Apply it on your images and refrain from “adjusting” your images in any way with the mouse or arrow keys. This creates direct formatting which defeats the purpose of styles. Images are extremely sensitive to direct formatting, reverting formatting to single occurrences instead of factoring it. By avoiding direct formatting, you boost Writer performance (I know: direct formatting is the rule under Word because it has next to no notion of styles, and Word is prepared for this doom).
I prepare photos catalogues with hundreds of pictures, tables, page variations (with page styles) without problems, but I practise a very strict styling approach and prepare the images outside Writer exactly as they should appear.
I am also under Linux (Fedora 41), KDE desktop. For a more precise diagnostic, attach a sample file. If you consider your document as private, attach it to a private message (to contact me, click on the icon left of my name).