Libreoffice Writer: very slow with big documens? Tried to disable JAVA runtime but cannot?

English
#1

Greetings
I am working on a large document (about 700 words) and libreoffice writer has become quite slow when performing mundane, regular tasks like back space, paste etc.

  1. I tried to disable java runtime in tools > options > advance > unclick " Javascript runtime environment’ but it does NOT de-select? When I deselect it, click apply, ithe checkmark comes back on its own? I also tried clicking OK then going back into there and its still selected?
  2. is JAVA causing the slow down?
  3. If yes #2 above, why is it not de-selecting?
  4. Know any other reason why its so slow?
  5. I have a fast laptop with more than enough RAM?

Thanks

#2

Here you have a large document: Designing With LibreOffice
It opens within a second.
No, Java has certainly nothing to do with your issue.

#3

First steps to take before submitting a bug

Libreofice Writer: taking up LOTS of RAM : like 8 gb?
#4

Thanks for reply BUT

  1. My documents open FAST
  2. But they are taking 2 to 5 seconds to say, erase a line, bold some small amount of text and other functions are VERY slow

Should I submit a bug or something else?

#5

If the document is direct formatted (overriding styles with different fonts, weights, sizes, colours) then there could easily be slow down with a 700 page document. Every bit of direct formatting requires a separate description to be written and to be read.

For a different question a while ago, I pasted the Writer Guide (good use of styles) into itself to make a 1500 or 2000 page document. It took a bit longer to open fully but once open it operated at a respectable speed.

If the document is properly styled then look at the page linked by @Hrbrgr
.

BTW Java seems irrelevant to your issue

#6

Ok how would I make my large document FAST with libreoffice?

Do I have to change formatting or something?

its’ a DOCX file

#7

How to open files from MS-Office 2007 or 2010 (.DOCX, .XLSX,…)?

How to resolve common compatibility issues with ODF files

#8

I will look at those documents, BUT:

  1. Do you think if I try to resolve this problem that I will lose lose of formatting, images, bolded text, indented text, bulletted text with this potential resolution?
#9

Create a backup just in case, or/and only work with a copy of your document.

#10

is there a way to make all the formatting DEFAULT to make it faster?

IF yes: will I lose information, formatting etc?

IF YES< how do I do the above?

#11

This is the reason. DOCX format is based on different principles than ODF. In particular it knows only of paragraph styles. Everything else becomes direct formatting when handled by Writer (simply because there is no other way to translate the alien format).

In addition, if you already had numerous edit sessions, your document has been likely sliced into “pages” (each page has its own single-use page style). Look at the style sidepane, character, page and list view. You should see zillions of weird style names (page styles like Converted123 are not “weird” but are an excellent indicator of the problem).

If this is the case, your document is damaged beyond repair.

The fix is to create a blank odt document, then paste your present narrative as unformatted text and apply styles to it. Of course, you’ll need to design appropriate styles and customise built-in ones.

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#12

Save your document as .odt. Always work in native format and only File - Save a copy of you need to export to a foreign format.

Then you would need to work out how many pages styles you need, probably a maximum of 5. The main body of the work can be converted to Default Page Style, that will take a bit of time I guess. You might want a separate page style for the first page of each chapter. You also probably want different page styles for the introductory pages and for appendix.

Set your desired font in Default Paragraph Style but don’t ever use that style in the document. The main body of your work should be done in Body Text which should get the font from Default Paragraph Style.

Set the font for headings in Heading paragraph style, Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. should pick up your setting for font. You might have to set font size, you can use a percentage (of Heading paragraph style).

Note that if you have set any of the parameters manually already, you might have click the relevant Reset to parent button in the style dialogue page to enable it to inherit from its parent style.

See the Writer Guide for information on styles, download from English documentation | LibreOffice Documentation - LibreOffice User Guides

Also see Designing With LibreOffice, https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/

#13

yes looks like I had A LOT of work ahead of me pasting everything into a separate ODT file
Thanks in advance

#14

As the main body of the work is likely to be in Body Text, you might find it easier to apply that style to everything and then just add Heading and other styles as you go through.

#15

I took hours but I did the following:

  1. pasted the origial document WITHOUT formatting into a new ODT file.
  2. It appears MUCH faster now but is still slow when inserting information into the document?
  3. Any idea why #2 above is happening even with #1 above?
#16

Are you consistent with your paragraph structure? If you wrongly typed Shift+Enter (new line/line break) instead of Enter (end of paragraph), you create “monster” paragraph. I met circumstances where this plays a key factor in performance. The issue is exacerbated in some contexts, like table cells. It looks like Writer needs to cache the whole paragraph text before distributing it on the paper (computing page breaks).

A line break is not at all equivalent to a paragraph break, even if superficially you think you get the same visual effect.

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