Text is black on dark theme using "Appearance: System" and "Color: Automatic"

[IronRod]

Running the most recent version – version info at bottom – installed via Flathub.

As noted in the title, the text is showing black on a dark system theme. I expect “Automatic” to provide light text on a dark background.

My LM 22 system is set to dark mode:

The LibreOffice options show “Appearance: System” (which is what I want but I haven’t changed this and it was set to this by default) and “Customizations->Color: Dark Automatic” – see this image:

I tried explicitly setting “Appearance: Dark” but that didn’t change anything.

What else do you recommend? I have looked at several other articles on the forum – notably this one – but none have provided a resolution.

Version: 25.2.0.3 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: e1cf4a87eb02d755bce1a01209907ea5ddc8f069
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 6.8; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Flatpak
Calc: threaded

$ cat /etc/os-release
NAME="Linux Mint"
VERSION="22.1 (Xia)"
ID=linuxmint
ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"
PRETTY_NAME="Linux Mint 22.1"
VERSION_ID="22.1"
HOME_URL="https://www.linuxmint.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://forums.linuxmint.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://linuxmint-troubleshooting-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://www.linuxmint.com/"
VERSION_CODENAME=xia
UBUNTU_CODENAME=noble

$ uname -r
6.8.0-53-generic

[EarnestAl]

I think try this, How to show margins - #6 by EarnestAl and then set the LibreOffice theme to Dark (same page of Options) after allowing LibreOffice to restart

[IronRod]

Thank you. I looked at several of the available themes and have settled on the “Light Application Colors” for now. This is certainly better than the default which was nearly unworkable.

[TheDetour]

I can confirm that this is the case. I uninstalled and reinstalled to attempt to fix this.

Seems to be a problem with Calc and Writer at least.

[vsfoote]

At 25.2.03 the default “Automatic” setting on the new Tools → Options → Appearance panel (a new framework for handling color scheme) is overly sensitive to user change from anything but the ‘System’ radio button.

What is expected (and noted in the release notes) is to install a new Appearance theme extension and use that.

The default os/DE provided ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ color sense is what delivers a dark document color with light foreground color when the os/DE is in a dark sense.

If you want a ‘Light’ color theme as had been default through 24.8 release, you should install the ‘Light Application Color’ extension and select it and allow LibreOffice to restart. While one of the other Appearance extensions might be more appealing, YMMV.

When you are working with the Appearance themes (and not os/DE “Automatic”) the ‘Light’ and ‘Dark’ radio buttons will work (but will trigger restart of LibreOffice).

At 25.8, and perhaps later for patches in the 25.2 release cycle the default Automatic theme has already been improved–it can be manipulated and the radio button toggled without muddling the UI and document layout.

For now apply one of the Appearance themes. If you’ve ended up with black text on a dark background, you’ve got a muddled “Automatic” theme and you need to clear your profile and start over. Then install and use an Appearance theme.

[TheDetour]

How does one clear a profile? To my knowledge I haven’t used a profile so I’m not real familiar with that functionality. Interestingly, on my work laptop, the appearance options for System (I am a dark system user pretty much universally now) seems to work fine - but I also do NOT use a profile there either.

[EarnestAl]

The user profile stores, your settings, templates, user dictionaries, autocorrect words, AutoText items, macros, etc. Take care to back it up before resetting it. There is more information here, LibreOffice user profile - The Document Foundation Wiki

For the moment, it might be best to just install and use one of the preset themes in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance

[TheDetour]

I appreciate the info. It’s weird that it is working on one PC but not the other.

It isn’t CRITICAL that dark mode work everywhere for now so… maybe I’ll just wait for the Document people to fix this.

Appreciate it again and thank you.