I deleted LibreOffice 6.4.something and installed to 7.3.2. All the pulldown menus have black background and the text for many of the options are black. From Googling, it is possible that this can be solved disabling OpenGL. However, it’s impossible to do this when nothing is visible. Another solution was to remove the user profile folder C:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user. For me, this did not solve the problem.
Aside from reverting back to 6.4.something, what else can I do?
Hello,
Alt+F12 will get you to the Options dialog without using the menus. This should allow you to disable OpenGL. You may then need to close all open instances of LO and restart to see result.
Thanks, Ratslinger. I didn’t get a chance to use it before encountering a command-line solution, but I did find that Alt+F12 worked for me afterward. It’s odd that neither “option” nor “F12” appears on the LibreOffice shortcut page Appendix A Keyboard Shortcuts
After opening options dialog as @Ratslinger suggested, select LibreOffice - View and untick the box Use Skia for all rendering
Thanks, EarnestAI. I was documenting exactly this in a separate answer. In that answer, I also describe how that same checkbox seems enabled when viewed from within a *.odp file, but the weird visual problems don’t seem to be present. I will leave it as is unless I encounter further problems.
The solution mentioned above worked for me. I removed the C:\Users%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user folder (saved enclosed Template folder), and put it back after quitting and restarting Libre Office Writer and Calc. Menus display in normal fashion, now.
There’s no way I am going to disable OpenGL. LO isn’t the only application I use.
From websearching, I was able to launch LibreOffice in safe mode using the following:
(1) cd “C:\Program Files\LibreOffice\program”
(2) soffice.exe --safe-mode
I then navigated to Tools → Options → LibreOffice → View
OpenGL isn’t there, but there is a enabled checkbox for “Use Skia for all rendering”, which I disabled. After exiting, I was able to open an old *.odp file without the blackness, and also without other pathologies like sheer white where there used to be scanned fax image.
Strangely, however, when I look at the Skia checkbox from within the *.odp file, it was enabled. I will leave it unless it causes problems. So while I’m not necessarily out of the woods yet, I do seem to have a way ahead that works for this isolated situation.
P.S. I found that Alt+F12 got me to Tools->Options, as Ratslinger suggested. I only tried that afterward, however, so I do not know if I would have been able to see the options when the weird visual conditions were still present.