LO Writer is very slow to open somewhat large files (6-7MB). This has been happening for a couple of days only, presumably since an update of LO, altho I don’t recall one taking place. Perhaps lost in a bigger distribution upgrade.
I do use styles, but… I have 2 systems on different partitions (on different HDs), both with KDE Neon Plasma 6.3.5, Ubuntu kernel 6.11.0-26 and LO 24.2.72.
I have tried to use styles consistently, but unfortunately when changing systems, things come out differently. I confess also to some confusion with templates. The result is that sometimes I have the body text style with Liberation Sans instead of Nimbus Sans L;Arial. I fix it by making sure body text is in terms of the latter, then selecting the offending paragraphs and applying body text by double clicking on it.
Could this leave me with some direct formatting which could slow down loading?
As I said, the problem is only around for the last couple of days. And I tried loading an older version of the file, but the same problem persists.
This is a new question as suggested elsewhere on this forum. But I see I have a reply there which probably answers my questions. https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/very-slow-opening-of-large-writer-file/111466/24
You have a very inconsistent formatting with style/direct formatting (DF) conflict.
Body Text is configured for Liberation Sans. You have overlaid your text with DF for Nimbus Sans L;Arial. Though the release notes say this syntax is accepted (I checked the notes), I am not convinced it works in all cases despite success.
I could not determine exactly what happens when none of the fallback fonts are available. I end up with some sans font, but which one? Why sans and not serif? I didn’t find which setting ultimately selected the final font.
Anyway, Your problem probably stems from your DF and your inconsistent overrides in the paragraph styles.
Default Paragraph Style is set for Nimbus Sans L;Arial
Body Text overrides the font with Liberation Sans
you “fixed” the override with DF to Nimbus Sans L;Arial; from there on, everything goes awry.
I’m surprised because I usually/often “fix” the font by changing the paragraph then telling LO to redefine body text from that. You said that would push the DF into body text and delete it in the paragraph.
I inherited “LIberation sans;Arial” when I moved from Windows many years ago. I thought Arial was nice and clean-looking at the time. I have no idea what Serif might mean nor what Liberation Sans is without. Arial is not in the pull-down menu, so I’m guessing it’s not defined on this system.
Is there a way to fix this adequately, if not perfectly, without converting the whole thing to a text file and starting over?
Thanks very much for all your comments and suggestions.
Configure Default Paragraph Style for a “nice” font you have on the “main” system (the one you use most often). Nimbus Sans L is a version of Nimbus Sans using Adobe sources. freely licenced by URW++. However if I remember right, it was available only as a “Type 1” font, which is no longer supported by LO. It has thus been removed from the standard set fonts by many distributions. As such, it does not appear in my Fedora.
I suggest you try Free Sans or Liberation Sans (a bit smaller and wider than the former).
I don’t like sans-type (also called Gothic) fonts for the main topic. I prefer serif-type (with small strokes at end of glyph “legs”) for it as I find it makes line continuity more visible and improves readability. The best example is New Century Schoolbook but this is not freely licenced font. I chose TeX Gyre Termes (from the GUST open project).
I reserve sans-type fonts for headings to make a clear distinction between them and my main topic. I use Gill Sans for my headings. The point about its licence is not completely clear. It seems to highly depend on local legislation about design. Mr. Gill passed away in 1940, so the font should be in the open domain since 2010. But many details are to be taken into account. So, check in your country.
Define the font for your discourse in Default Paragraph Style or configure more globally in Tools>Options, LO Writer>Basic Fonts (Western). Make sure the Font tab in Body Text is in “transparent” state. If you want a different face for your headings, configure the font in paragraph style Heading which is the ancestor of all Heading n.
This is stored in the document (style dictionary) but the selected font may not be present on the current computer. Instead of trying to create a “universal” style configuration (with all the problems you met), customise the font substitution table in Tools>Options, LO>Fonts where you can tell how a missing font is replaced, e.g. Comic Sans MS by Free Sans. Doing so, you don’t change your style definitions. You simply tell Writer how to replace a missing font without impacting the document. Be aware that the substitution font may not have the same metrics as the original one, resulting in different line wraps. Consequently the substituend may be carefully chosen.
I have changed this. DPS (why do you use DFS?) is now set to Liberation Sans. So is Body Text, but it’s set to inherit from DPS. But changing the font in DPS does not change text in Body Text. Obviously, this is because Body Text is set to Liberation Sans. How do I make it really inherit from DPS? I suspect this is why you mentioned a transparent state for the font tab, but I can not find such a thing in edit style.
Typo. Probably because I am obsessed by direct formatting. Thanks for mentioning my inconsistency. I fixed the comment.
Inheritance is a tricky thing.
You can change inheritance in the General tab (or with mouse drag’n’drop) but it does not change what is forced in the various tabs of the style dialog.
You start from a state where you forced Font in Body Text. This forced setting is not removed when you change the inheritance if any. The only way to return to “transparent” state is to go the the appropriate tab (Font in this case) and to press Reset to Parent button. All settings in this tab are restored to “transparent” state. Therefore you need to force again those you want to override before pressing OK.
Check in General tab that no font face name appears in the summary.
Tricky indeed. I reset Body Text and it is indeed “transparent” now, because a change in DPS changes Body Text paragraphs. But Body Text still says it is of the Liberation Sans Family, so I can’t see anything which tells me that it’s in transparent mode.
I suppose I must now go through everything I set to Liberation Sans and reset it so it will inherit changes in DPS.
Attributes display either their “forced” value or their “inherited” value (when transparent). The GUI can’t show “transparent” state. I find this a severe limitation. The only way to check for “untouched” attributes is to go to General tab. Everything listed there is “set” some way or other. Attributes not listed are in “transparent” mode.
This may be the cause of inconsistency. What you write is CSS syntax to choose Nimbus Sans and to fall back to Arial when the former is not found. I am not sure if this is accepted by Writer. I had issues with it a couple of decades ago. Syntax of font selection has been extended to account for fonts with configuration parameters. I don’t remember if the semicolon is accepted the same as in CSS. From a quick test, it does not seem so. At least, results are inconsistent.
So, don’t try to mimic CSS. Choose a single font in your style definition. If the font is potentially not installed on the current machine, use Tools>Options, LO>Fonts to configure the replacement table.
Yes. Applying a paragraph styles has effect only in the paragraph layer. Direct formatting lives in the upper layer and always overrides styles (this rule is not a blunder; it is logically necessary to provide easy solution to non-trivial issues – but don’t use it routinely; formatting with DF requires super expert skills to achieves deterministically what you want, contrary to common belief). The only way to get rid of typographical DF is Format>Clear Direct Formatting or Ctl+M applied on a selection. Be aware that some DF (usually the non paragraph or character styles related DF) are not cleared by the command. This is one of the numerous traps of DFs. Once again this limitation is not a mistake.
Most responsiveness problems come from the stress caused by direct formatting and inappropriate usage of “objects” (non-text additions like frames or worse drawing objects). As soon as a document is larger than 3 pages, styling becomes mandatory. Otherwise, maintenance and tuning of the document is a nightmare. DF is encoding as unique (=unshared) directives everywhere it is applied. On the contrary, styles are recorded only once and simply “referenced” from the application location. This contributes both to file size reduction and performance boost (because Writer no needs to compile again and again new formatting directives).
You may not have notice progressive performance degradation if you don’t update frequently your machines. For example, my computer is already at kernel 6.14.9, KDE 6.14.0, Qt 6.9.1 and LO 25.2.4.3.
I have highly sophisticated technical documents in the 300-500 pages without problems on a now ageing computer. But I follow a very strict semantic styling method.
This is one of the equivocal terms in LO microcosm.
For laymen, a “template” is simply an example document to be copied as a starting state for a new one.
In LO parlance, a template is a special document, with extension .ott, containing styles and initial text. When you start a new document from a template, there is no need to copy first the template because it is protected against overwriting. It automatically creates an Untitled.odt targeted into your default documents directory. The new document remains linked to the template, so that changes in the styles of the template file are forwarded to the dependent documents when you later open them. Template and documents remains in sync, benefiting from your style tuning.
Changes to initial text are never forwarded because this could result in data loss. I use initial contents in my templates to provide a full document “skeleton” with cover page, legalese, front material, TOC, one empty chapter, alphabetical index. It is easier and more reliable to erase data than to add recurrent text without error.
I upgrade my system almost every day (apt dist-upgrade). Curiously, tho, I have 2 systems between which I alternate every few weeks. I just switched to the other yesterday, and the delay on LO file opening is not there. So what else could be wrong? In any case, thanks a lot for your help on this and the other post.
I still don’t see the difference between Paragraph style and Body Text. Aren’t they applicable to the same thing?
Styles attempt at tagging “semantically” block of text with different significance. But specific significance can be a pin-point nuance of a broader one. Think, e.g., of Heading 1 which is assigned to chapter heading among generic Header. Writer provides then a method to manage your styles in “families” where you have a root or ancestor like Heading under which you find all Heading n. In this concept, all descendants share the same attributes as the ancestor (until an attribute is overriden). Consequently, changing an attribute in the ancestor (like a font face to highlight headings) is immediately forwarded to all descendants without the need to modify them individually (as long as the attribute is in “transparent” state).
Thus, out of the shelf, styles are organised in several “families” to ease formatting tuning (without action on text; this is the magic!): Body Text, Caption, Header & Footer, Heading, Index, Table Contents.
But they are all “united” under DPS which is the ultimate ancestor of all. Do not read Default in the name as the-style-to-be-used-by-default but as the-location-where-I-can-define-my preferred-default-attributes.
So, to make sure you don’t create unexpected side effects on “families”, don’t use DPS for anything in your document. If you do, you’ll tend to modify it to fit the usage where it is applied, forgetting about the side-effects (and trying to fix them in the family sub-roots or deeper will be worse). DPS has a major role in creating a personal look for your document but stop at this aesthetic role.
In Writer, main topic is supposed to be styled Body Text. This is is major difference with M$ Word where your text is styled Default Style by default. Remember that Word has a far less sophisticated (and far less powerful) approach to styles.
Ok, this doesn’t change my template. It’s a choice made when I write the document. I’m starting to see how this stuff works. You explain it more clearly than the Writer Guide. I’m going through my documents now to see what styles I actually use and it’s not enormous, probably less than 20.
