It takes 7 minutes to load an .odt file (800 kB) with one large table- SOLVED

English
#1

I have an .odt file with a large table which contains a lot of direct formatted text (italics, highlighted text… without styles applied). There are 450 pages, 130 000 words and 800 000 signs and automatically created table of contents within the 800 kB document. There is also plenty of text, but the file size is rather small. There are no pictures or drawing objects.

My problem is: it takes ca. seven minutes to open the file since Writer is not responding for a long time. It is not an exception, it normally works like this. (When the file had 300 pages and 700 kB, it took two minutes to open it — it is not much larger now but the deceleration is much more considerable.) The CPU and memory usage are sometimes (rather rarely) up to 100% (due to Writer) but mostly they are 50-60% (and then, the problem remains the same).

My LibreOffice is updated (see my configuration below). Under former versions, the problem was also present. I also tried it on another device (with Win11, higher performance, 24.2.3.2 LibreOffice) and the time it takes to open the file is not very different. It seems not to be a hardware issue or an issue related to software version.

If I open another, 4000 kB .odt file (one or three pages, some images, drawing objects included), it loads immediately.

If I copy all contents of the “difficult” file and insert it to a new .odt file as unformatted text, then save this new file and open this new file, it loads immediately.

However, to change all direct formatting and replace it with styles would take an eternity, I guess. (It cannot be automatically deleted since the information I have from direct formatting is important for me.)

I tried to follow some advices I found here and elsewhere (nothing worked):

1/ I restarted Writer in a safe mode.

2/ I created a new user profile.

3/ I disabled this settings:

a/ Tools - Options - LibreOffice - View: Use hardware acceleration,

b/ …: Use anti-aliasing,

c/ …:Use Skia for all rendering,

d/ - Tools - Options - Load/Save - General: Load printer settings with the document

4/ I turned off wifi and my printer.

I would really appreciate your help. I deal with the file daily (without any exaggeration). I am also used to search within it (that´s why I don´t want to create more smaller files instead). I can´t load the file here as it contains some confidential information. I can load some sample, but I´m not sure it would be helpful.

Version: 24.2.5.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: bffef4ea93e59bebbeaf7f431bb02b1a39ee8a59
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: default; VCL: win
Locale: cs-CZ (cs_CZ); UI: cs-CZ
Calc: threaded

#2

Large table: how many columns and rows? In other words, do your cells contain relatively small-sized text?
Have you allowed table to split across pages (likely yes)? What about the same for cells?
Has your document ever been a DOCX at some previous stage? This would add a tremendous dose of problems.
Is your direct formatting only “minor” (say italic and bold)? Or deeper, involving indents, spacing, margins, bullets, list numbering, …?

A small 1-page sample would be appreciated.

#3

Thank you for your answer. I attache a sample.
Sample.odt (189.4 KB)

There are aproximately twenty rows at one page. I use Calibri 12 as a font.The table is setted to split across pages (it is, if I simplify it, one large table; at the end of the file, there are also two smaller tables but their content is similar as in the sample).

I cannot rule out that the file (more preciselly, some „predecessor“ file which I then copied) was created as a .doc file some years ago, but i don´t think so.

#5

I don’t see anything weird in your document apart from two points:

  • width of your table is manually forced instead of adapting automatically to page width
  • the tremendous amount of direct formatting:
    • there are 539 occurrences of paragraph direct formatting
    • and 237 occurrences of character direct formatting
      These numbers come from your unabridged document. Much fewer are used in the sample.

I don’t see any signature of DOCX pollution. It may have been a DOC but this obsolete format is cleaner than DOCX.


Follow @mikekaganski’s advice to see if this improves the behaviour.

In the future, learn how to use styles. From personal experience, you never need more than 15 paragraph styles (heading n family included) and more than 15 character styles. This will give you a dramatic decrease in file size.

#7

Thank you. Styles: yes, probably I will try when I have time. As for my file, I splited the table and now, it has 4000 kB instead 800 kB, but it loads immediately.

#4

This is the problem. It is a known problematic setup; just split it each 50 pages or so (even without empty paragraphs in between), and it will be fast.

#6

Thank you! After hours of efforts, this is the only solution that works!

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.