I did a major LibreOffice update yesterday only to be confronted this morning with Microsoft Word documents sitting on my desktop this morning instead! I do not use Microsoft Word at all! They are trying to force me to use their program! can anyone help me figure out how to make LibreOffice my default and block Microsoft from doing this garbage?
The garbage was there long before LibreOffice. It started with Windows 95 when some genious decided that it would be a good idea to hide the most important part of a file name away from the user.
mytext.odt
mytext.doc
mytext.docx
are all shown as
mytext
although it is technically impossible that two files in the same directory are equally named.
At the same time, the “family name” of a file, the file name extension (.odt .doc .docx), is the part which determines the application which is responsible for a file by default, in particular when you simply double-click on it.
MS Windows keeps a list about which application can handle which file types and which one should handle a file type by default (on dbl-click). Windows identifies the type of a file by its file name extension while hiding away this extension from the user.
Furthermore, MS Windows does not show any icon that describes the actual type of file. Instead it displays some logo representing the default application or its vendor.
When you don’t know anything about the hidden file name extension, you will never understand the simple mechanism that is triggered when you open a file. Even worse, many Windows users can not distinguish between applications and data files because data files are represented by application icons.
When MS takes over full responsibility for all your office documents, it does not change a single byte of your documents, not even the file names. It just displays another set of icons indicating the appllications which will handle your files in the event of a double-click. Since too many users do not understand this computer game, MS can “convince” some users to use Microsoft applications with all office documents even if there are other programs installed.
Do yourself a favour and uncheck “hide extensions of known file formats” in the Explorer options. This is the first thing I do when I’m forced to use a Windows PC. Windows will still hide away some extensions from you i.e. .lnk from links). At least you will see the full names of your own files which are the result of your work.
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And to add to excellent @Villeroy’s comment (which could equally be an answer, at least partially), save your files as .odt. I suppose that you saved your documents as .docx on the erroneous belief this is the “universal” format.
You’ll meet much fewer problems saving native format. At a minimum, you’ll avoid conversion when loading your file and conversion when saving it. The adverse effects are cumulatively catastrophic and damaged your formatting beyond repair.
How can you know the file type of some document created some weeks ago or created by someone else without seeing the full name while seeing an icon that indicates a product rather than the file type?
Answer: Open the file with LibreOffice and call menu:File>Save As… You get a save dialog with a list box indicating the current file type. Cancel the dialog unless you want to save the file under another name, to another place or as another file type.
menu:File>Properties… also indicates the file type but this information may be wrong if the name extension is wrong. For instance, when you rename myfile.ods to myfile.doc you make the extension lie about the file type. Windows thinks, this is a Word document and when you open this file with LibreOffice, the properties dialog gives the wrong information “Microsoft Word Document”. However, the save-as dialog indicates the true file type “ODF Text Document (*.odt)” regardless of the wrong name extension.
In my honest opinion, this flaw of MS Windows contributes a huge part to computer illiteracy all over the world.
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P.S. I filed a bug report about the File>Properties dialog being cheated by wrong extensions.
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=145003
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Can you describe step by step as to how I can accomplish this?
Okay, I figured that part out thus far! Thank you and God bless you!
What can you tell me about the (recommended) sharing wizard?
Okay. I unchecked that. Thank you!
What can you tell me about this stuff? Is any of it relevant to fixing the problem?
In actuality - I have been given no other available options that I could see than the .odt. format which has left me scrambling to figure out how to save without encroaching the file I am trying to save - onto an already existing document.
I finally did figure out a workaround but this journey has been harrowing for me to say the least!
Thank you so much!
Avoid spawning so many short messages in a row! You’re making difficult to read the thread.
When you last message is the last one, your best option is to edit it to add stuff at the end.
I know this is different from common forum sites, but this is not a forum. It aims at being a Question & Answers one, not a free discussion. Comments are tolerated when information doesn’t fit in a strict Q&A paradigm (such as requesting additional information or adding “off-band” explanation).
You did not encroach your file nor did Microsoft. You can open any office document with either Microsoft Office or LibreOffice in several ways.
Just 2 of them:
- starting the wanted application first and then use menu:File>Open …
- right-click an icon and choose Open With… and then the application you want to use right now.
The second option provides an option “Always use this app to open .xyz files” where “Always” means “by default” or “on double-click” actually. You are still free to use any suitable program for your files (although this freedom of choice is carefully hidden from you).
If you check this “Always” option, the chosen application will be the default application and all icons will change for this file type.
P.S. somehow it is possible to tell Windows 10 “never not touch my personal preferences” but I forgot how to do that.
@Villeroy
In Windows, select
“Settings”,
“Apps”, then
“Default apps”, scroll down and select.
“Select default apps by file type”.
You can now specify which app to use to open the file for each individual file type (there are a lot of different types).
Example:
Yep. Difficult to recall when you have no Windows PC at hand. Both methods do the same. In the Explorer window (right-click>Open With…, Always open…) you change the default application for one file type on the fly. In the Windows settings you can do the same more systematically for many file types.
You can set LibreOffice as the default. Microsoft will still reconfigure any Microsoft-compatible document as default-microsoft with major updates.
I stopped this somehow. I installed the old MS Viewers for doc(x), xls(x) and ppt(x) and made them the default applications for all these file formats. The viewer apps are no longer availlable but still work flawlessly. You may find the installers on old Magazine DVDs or in some dark corners of the internet.
ExcelViewer.exe, wordview.exe, PowerpointView.exe and FileFormatConverters.exe. The latter adds the ability to parse OOXML.
P.S. The viewers work well with Linux/Wine as long as you don’t open more than one document at the same time. Wine does not support document windows within a main application window (or I don’t know how to enable this).