Please add a lock zoom feature on LibreOffice

English
#1

Please. I’m begging.

I’m on a MacBook, running macOS 10.15.7 (I cannot afford a more advanced system at this time and will not for a long time). The only application that I have trouble with the zoom is LibreOffice, and I use it in other applications. (Okay, sometimes I have trouble in Firefox, but I also use it in Firefox.)

I want to lock the zoom at 100 percent and not have it dance about on me. I am not even using a modifier key when it happens. Even if there is a system extension I can buy, I can’t afford it, and that’s assuming I can run it with my antiquated system.

Please. There must be a way to lock the zoom, and I desperately need it.

Thank you.

#2

You have entered “Base” as the tag. Is it really the “Base” component of LibreOffice to which your question refers?
If not, please change the tag accordingly.
Which LibreOffice version are you working with?
In which file format are you saving?
What zoom level is available when you open a new document?
Have you entered your first and last name under Extras > Options > LibreOffice > General?

#3

The zoom factor starts at whatever level was set when you last closed the application. This zoom factor does not change unless you voluntarily modify it. There is a slider at bottom right of the window when the status bar is enabled:
AskLOZoom

I know that some graphics card, e.g. nVidia, have a built-in zoom which is independent from OS or applications. This zoom feature is controlled by the card driver. The key combination is generally undocumented, at least in the OS manuals. You may have triggered it accidentally.

Answer @Hrbrgr’s questions so that we can identify the issue.

#4

@Hrbrgr

I think so. I use Writer and Calc, and I want the zoom frozen in both. I suspect if I start using other parts, I will want the zoom frozen in those as well. Do you advise some other tag?

Sorry! I do know better than to leave that out! LibreOffice 7.5.9.2 (X86_64), build cdeefe45c17511d326101eed8008ac4092f278a9 .

LibreOffice Writer (.odt) and Calc (.ods).

It starts as 100 percent but like I said, it dances all over the place. I assume I am hitting the trackpad when I don’t mean to. It’s an oft-complained about problem with the MacBook, but my system is too old to run the third-party solution.

I can’t find the place to which you refer. Under LibreOffice > Preferences... > User Data, I have my first and last name and initials, and they have been there for several versions of LibreOffice. (I forget how long I have been using LibreOffice, but a very long time.)

@ajlittoz, I have the graphics is native on my MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), which the ‘About this Mac’ says is Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB.

Did I miss any questions?

Thanks!

#5

Then the tag is common because the problem is “common” to several components.

Does the trackpad zoom requires two-finger touch? Sorry, I have no longer Macs. My laptop has a trackpad with a dedicated area at right for vertical scrolling or other special function. These functions are only activated when my finger is there. On the main area, I need two fingers at least to trigger “special” features.

#6

It says I need to pinch in and out, which is what I do when I do want to alter the Zoom.

The problem is that, given the size and placement of the trackpad, it is very common for other parts of the user’s hands to touch the trackpad. The trackpad assumes that is two fingers, and for whatever reason, when I do it, it triggers the zoom.

I cannot just turn it off, though. I am not young (pushing sixty), and my eyes don’t adjust as well as they used to. I need my computer to do the adjusting.

Thank you.

(How do a leave a blank line in this system? The preview for the post looks correct, but the post doesn’t!)

#7

There is a discrepancy between Answer (where everything is correct) and Comment (blank lines are suppressed). My trick is to add <br> at start of paragraphs to cause a blank line in-between.

I’m afraid this is intrinsic to the OS. However, you can add a custom keyboard shortcut with Tools>Customize (this menu item may be located under Preferences in MacOS):

  1. in Keyboard tab
  2. select *View` in Category
  3. click on 100% in Function
  4. click on LibreOffice radio button at top right (because you want this function available in all components)
  5. choose an available Shortcut Key (or replace a used one you’d prefer)
    but take care the same key is not used in Writer and Calc specific settings because it would take precedence
  6. press Modify

This doesn’t disable the trackpad zoom function but you can quickly recover from it.

#8

@ajlittoz (Thanks for the <br>!)


The only Keyboard settings I can find are for the whole system, not just LibreOffice. And this is the closest to what you describe.

Screen Shot 2024-01-12 at 8.40.47 AM
Screen Shot 2024-01-12 at 8.40.47 AM672×586 115 KB



Of course, that doesn’t allow me to individualize by application. I need it frozen in LibreOffice and usable everywhere else.


I do have a View listing in LibreOffice, but it won’t let me post the image. Let me know if you want to see it, but I don’t see a way to do it there.


Please may I have a freeze zoom feature now? There really is no other way for me to do it.

#9

Feature requests

View | Zoom should give you some zoom options but it doesn’t have a freeze/lock option; note that it is at the very bottom of a fairly long list - you may have to scroll a little.

Shortcut keys should be accessible from within LO via Tools | Customise.

#10

Well, I *think* I filed an enhancement request. (I hate Bugzilla/GitHub/GitLab/etc. It's for programmers and I am not one.)

I don’t have a long list for Zoom anywhere. Not in LO, not in the OS, a very sadly short list is all I see.



Okay, there is a long list here.


There is a way to get it back to 100 percent, but I can already do that with my trackpad. What I want to do is to not have to do that.

Thanks. . . .

#11

The dialog you show is very different from the other platforms (Linux, Window$). I would never have imagined platform-customisation could do such a thing as to change the overall appearance of configuration dialogs.

#12

The only image I shared was within the macOS preferences, not LO.


The LO prefences under View make no mention of zoom or keyboard. I also poked about in Customize…, but I could find nothing that allowed me to freeze the zoom.

#13

tdf#159156

#14

Let’s look at the problem from the other side. Zoom jumps are just one manifestation of trackpad’s paranoid behavior, aren’t they? Do you need a trackpad that just interferes with your work? Or do you actually sometimes use it for its intended purpose?
If it is not needed (not needed every minute), then perhaps it would be easier to turn it off? In fact, if you connect a mouse, you will be able to block the trackpad and it will stop interfering with your work.

#15

I use the trackpad constantly. I have had a trackpad for all my computers since the late nineties or early aughts, I forget which. I really don’t like mice. Never did. (Well, the computer ones, anyway. . . .) I tried trackballs and trackpads and trackpads won.


Besides, this computer is a laptop, quite literally. There is no room for mousing.


I don’t understand. What is the huge deal with a lock on a setting? Why not do it?

#16

Well, maybe the developers are thinking about thousands of users with new and very large monitors and are afraid that if they fix zoom at 100%, then all these users will start writing a demand to return it to how it was because it’s too bad?

Update Okay, if you want it done, do it yourself. How good are you with macros? Perhaps something like this script

Sub setMyFavoriteZoom(Optional oEvent As Variant)
Const MY_FAVORITE_ZOOM = 119
Dim oViewSettings As Variant
  oViewSettings = ThisComponent.getCurrentController().getViewSettings()
  If oViewSettings.ZoomValue <> MY_FAVORITE_ZOOM Then oViewSettings.ZoomValue = MY_FAVORITE_ZOOM
End Sub

If you assign this code as a handler for the appropriate event, then with each accidental (and even intentional) zoom change, the macro will restore the zoom value specified in the first line of the macro. Yes, this will not block the change, but will allow you to immediately return to the desired value.

#17

I am not asking for it to lock as a default. I am just asking for a toggle that says “Freeze zoom at [field in which a percentage can be entered].” Or just a click box next to the zoom level that is “Lock”.

I am not a developer/programmer. If I was I’d be on Unix rather than Mac. And the whole point is to have it stay at a level. I can always get it back easily enough; it’s having to constantly get it back that is the problem. It sounds like a macro may not do what I need anyway.


I could do a little coding back in the nineties, but there’s no way I could get up to speed now. My brain is not what it was when I was in my twenties and thirties or even forties. My fifties, for reasons beyond my control, have not been kind to my brain or my coordination. Please consider that you may find yourself there someday, too.


If someone would code a macro that would actually freeze the zoom for me, I would be content with that. I just am spending all my time fighting the Zoom in LibreOffice. I’d hate to have to leave it—I’ve been for Open Source since I first heard about it all those many years ago.

#18

No, thanks, I’ve been there before. To be honest, I liked it there more than here. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I did a little research, trying to find a solution from LibreOffice - so far without success, the intervention of developers who know this part of the program better will be needed. An alternative solution would be to change the behavior of the trackpad on the operating system side. For example, this free program could probably help.
image

It could help, but it won’t. You said you are using macOS 10.15.7? Unfortunately, the MagicPrefs home page reports that

image
image1012×240 30.4 KB

What can we do, none of us are eternal, especially free programs are not eternal.
Anyway, you can try. If it doesn’t work out, then there is also an alternative - BetterTouchTool. These are asking for money

Other words that Google told me on the same topic - Mos, GestureBlocker, HandsOff, StayFocusd, KillSwitch
I didn’t bother researching information about them (after all, my touchpad hasn’t worked for many years, I connect a bluetooth mouse)

#19

I love the TL;DR :slight_smile:

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