Text background colour is half-height (changed between V25.and 26.2.0)

English
#1

I’ve got ODT Writer documents where I’ve given some of my text a filled background using “Character Highlighting Colour” button on button bar - to remind myself where I need to flesh out details based on a summary marked with highlighter.

With previous versions of Libre Office Writer, the highlighting was the full cap-height of the text (eg 11 point Times New Roman) but the same documents when opened in V26 display just a narrow band of yellow that is less than the x height of the text) and I can’t see anything on the dialogues or in the help which allows this to be configured.

Is this a bug?

Example (screenshot from Writer) https://i.postimg.cc/xCyZMvmZ/Image1.png

image
image705×52 32.7 KB

Later… it only seems to happen with this particular document which was created with V25 or older. If I create a new document in V26, the highlighting is full height. Likewise for other documents that I created with V25. The text:span attributes in the context.xml files for the old and new documents are the same - of the form:

<style:style style:name=“T7” style:family=“text”>
<style:text-properties fo:background-color="#ffff00" loext:char-shading-value=“0”/>

So maybe it’s something about the way that all paragraphs of that style are implemented. Is there anything in the Style properties dialogues that I should be looking at?

#2

If you are using Windows, click Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View and tick the box Force Skia software rendering. Allow LibreOffice to restart. Has the problem gone?
.

I did briefly check with a parallel version and saw no problem. I removed 26.2 though because it was using my work user profile, not a new one as it was supposed to.

#3

Ah. I;ve completely screwed up Writer now :frowning: Force Skia software rendering was already ticked, so I tried unticking it. I can;t get Writer to start now - so I can’t get to the Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View to tick it again. Looks like I may need to to a total unintall and reinstall of LibreOffice unless there’s an easy workaround.

#4

One thing I have discovered. The problem only affected the default style, and I found that a paragraph that used Body Text was OK. So what was different about the paragraph attributes.

As I started replicating the settings on the “bad” style into the attributes for a paragraph with Body Text style, I foudn that I’d changed the line spacing to Leading 0.05 cm. That seems to be what was affectign the display of highlighting - but the exasctly same document is OK in V25.2.72 on Windows 7.

It looks as if upgrading from V25.x (whatever the highest version was) to V26 has changed the way it treats lines whch are spaced with inter-line leading.

When/if I can get Writer to start again, after EarnestAl suggesting about Force Skia and my turning it off, I’ll investigate fruther with other ways of specifying line spacing.

#5

Grrr. Repair of LibreOffice from MSI doesn’t fix that change to Skia. Looks as if it will be a total uninstallation and reinstallation :frowning:

#6

I would never recommend unticking Force Skia software rendering for Windows, if it is unticked then it should be ticked. Re-installing won’t help.

There are different ways to reset the user profile, but you should make a copy first. I would use the manual method:

  1. Close LibreOffice
  2. Open Windows Explorer, click View > Show and check that Hidden items is ticked
  3. Paste into the address bar %APPDATA%\libreoffice\4 and press Enter
  4. Right click user folder and right click drag it to below the existing folder, release and select Copy here.
  5. Rename the copy to user2026-02-06

You could now open LibreOffice and click Help > Restart in Safe mode. Confirm restart.

  1. In the dialogue click Configure > Disable hardware acceleration (OpenGL, OpenCL, Vulcan). Apply changes and restart
  2. When LibreOffice opens, click Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View and tick Force Skia software rendering. OK. Allow LibreOffice to restart

1. Open user folder and delete registrymodifications.xcu

#7

Thanks for starting to guide me through the process. I’ll check this thread in the morning (it’s just gone midnight here) and save/reset the profile. I’ve found the user folder so I’ll await your further instructions.

I wish I hadn’t thought of trying it unset: the way you phrased it made it sound as if the default state was unticked and I shoudl try ticking it, so I naively thought “if it’s already set, let’s try toggling the state”. Big mistake…

#8

It was, reading through the release notes it seems that has finally changed.

I am guessing here but the issue you encountered is probably a combination of fixed line height and a new change to LibreOffice noted in the Release notes
" Writer now takes line spacing into account for field shadings. In this way, bottom of some letters (e.g. “Ç”, “ş”, “g”, “p”) will not be cut off because of the “field shadings” background layer. (Bayram Çiçek, Collabora) tdf#167527 "

#9

Normal service has been resumed. Many thanks.

In the morning I’ll experiment with various paragraph options in the style that I’m using and copy them gradually to the paragraph specification which displays correctly, to see whether my first thoughts are correct that it is the diffrence between Line Spacing = 1.15 lines (works) and Line spacing = Leading 0.05cm

Ah just seen your comment about “Writer now takes line spacing into account for field shadings” which I’d seen in the release notes but hadn’t appreciated its effect on highlighting.

I wonder if it’s an “unintented consequence” because if Leading spacing is offered to give “11 point on 13 pt” or whatever (by specifying leading of 2pt which is approximately 0.07 cm, rounded down to nearest 0.05 cm by LibreOffice), it shouldn’t affect other things. Exactly line spacing isn’t critical for me - I’d been playing ages ago - so I’ll change to Proportional 1.15 or whatever.

#10

It is probably worth posting a bug report, How to Report Bugs in LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Wiki

Definitely a result of setting Leading to 2 pt., other settings seem fine
Highlighting26-2-0_131771.odt (17.9 KB)
Highlighting26-2-0_131771.pdf (24.7 KB)

#11

Raised a bug 170635 – Highlighted text background colour is not full text height if paragraph line spacing is Leading V26 but not V25

Impressum (Legal Info) | Datenschutzerklärung (Privacy Policy)   Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license.