[Solved] AOO 3.4 Calc : no background color in cells

[salmond]

After updating to 3.4 I notice when I open my .odt file that there is no color displayed. I checked the cell format and it shows a color, but no color is displayed in the cell on the screen.
I have checked options for 'view' but see nothing there to help.

To eliminate any corruption in the existing files as a source of trouble, I opened a new file in Calc and tried to format the background color. It took the formatting but is still white on the screen. If I right click and check again the formatting still shows the color. Unfortunately I can't see it when viewing the file.

Any suggestions? Many thanks for reading this.

[RoryOF]

I'm not a Calc expert, but it is worth trying /Tools /Options/ OpenOffice.org : View and disabling hardware acceleration. On my system the background colour takes and displays. If disabling hardware acceleration works, then you should check for the latest drivers for your video card.

[salmond]

Thanks RoryOF but that didn't do the trick. I made the change to no hardware acceleration. The problem persisted.

Just in case I closed down Calc the reopened it and checked that the no hardware acceleration setting had stuck and then reopened the file and tried again. Still no joy.

It was worth a try and thanks for the suggestion.

[RoryOF]

I attach a small sheet with three coloured cells. Please try if this displays OK.

[Hagar Delest]

You can try to reset your OOo user profile, configuration files from the former version might corrupt the new profile.

Please add '[Solved]' at the beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[salmond]

Thanks for the test file, RoryOF. I'm afraid it displays as pure white. No joy.

I see the next suggestion and will give it a try, but have to get off to work just now. Will be back in a couple of hours.

[RoryOF]

If the test file doesn't work, it indicates a problem on your computer, either hardware or software. The software soution of deleting or renaming the User Profile cures a large proportiion of OpenOffice faults. The hardware acceleraion is the first step on hardware testing. Try the User Profile reset as suggested by Hagar.

[salmond]

Gentlemen,
Many thanks for all the suggestions. As suggested I followed Hagar's tutorial for resetting the user profile.
The first change, renaming the registrymodifications.xcu file didn't solve the problem, but it did cause Calc to revert to an old default directory. This happens to be a drive letter that no longer exists, so I had to change it to open a file. I also seem to have gotten back some headers. But no help with the background colors displaying.

Then I went on to the next step suggested by Hagar and renamed the user folder. Again no joy.

I would like to revert to the old version of OpenOffice, but I have the sinking feeling that the 3.4 install overwrote or deleted first, all the configuration files for the older version. Still I could go back to the old version with a blank profile and see if the color displays properly. I'll wait to hear if you guys think that makes sense and if so, give it a try.

I can't see it being a hardware issue as if worked fine before the 3.4 install. I suppose there could be a concurrent failure somewhere, but it seems a highly unlikely coincidence and also very unlikely that all other graphics would then still seem perfect. The issue as far as I can guess, and I'm certainly no expert, seems likely to me to be a configuration or setting that the install assumed as a default which is somehow in conflict with my OS setup. If it hasn't made any permanent change to the OS anywhere I should be able to uninstall and reinstall the older version from my old setup files and then hopefully regain the normal display.

Once again I appreciate all your time. Many thanks.

[RoryOF]

My test was on AOO 3.4 on Ubuntu 11.10. I'll try on a Windows machine shortly.

[RoryOF]

I've just tried on a Windows XP machine using AOO 3.4. Behaved perfectly - colours displayed.

[thomasjk]

The sample file displayed the colors correctly in WIN 7 with Libreoffice 3.5.

[RoryOF]

Just as a test, please download and try the attached file (a PDF). Does it show three colours?

[salmond]

Hi RoryOF,
Thanks for the .pdf file. It displays three nice colored bars for me no problem using Adobe Reader.
Cheers.

[RoryOF]

OK; that proves your system is displaying colors OK. Sometimes high contrast or non-standard display schemes hide display elements. At this stage I think the best option (drastic) is to completely uninstall OpenOffice using something like Revo Uninstaller at its most aggressive and then to reinstall. A simple reinstallation of OpenOffice does not remove older configuration information, which information is likely causing the problem, hence the need for an external uninstaller such as Revo.

[salmond]

Hi RoryOF,

I followed your advice and installed Revo Uninstaller. I used it at the most aggressive level and uninstalled 3.4. I then rebooted just to clear things and then reinstalled from scratch.

Unfortunately the problem remains. I think I will uninstall the same way and try reverting back to 3.2.1 and see if that works as it used to.

Hopefully it will. I'll let you know.

Cheers.

[salmond]

Hi RoryOF,

To update you, I uninstalled 3.4 and have now installed 3.2.1 and still can't see the colors. I created a new file and formatted a cell background yellow but it displays as white. So it's not likely anything wrong with the files.

Now I'm really stumped as I can't even get back to where I was. It's probably something very simple, but what, I don't have a clue at this point.

If anyone comes up with any new ideas, thanks in advance. Cheers.

[Hagar Delest]

If you revert, reset the profile.

[salmond]

Hi Hagar,

You say 'reset the profile'... But if I uninstalled using Revo at its most aggressive and then reinstalled, the profile should have reset, shouldn't it? I assume by 'reset' you mean rename the user folder. Not sure that I am following you here.

[acknak]

... if I uninstalled using Revo at its most aggressive and then reinstalled, the profile should have reset, shouldn't it? ...

Hagar can say for sure, but I don't think Revo should touch the OOo settings profile. The profile is just a set of plain data files in the user's personal area, and there's no way for Revo to know they're different from your own personal files.

[Hagar Delest]

there's no way for Revo to know they're different from your own personal files.

I've never used Revo or CCleaner but I think so. They can spot if a path stored in the registry is pointing to a missing file (in the profile for example) but the whole user profile is not a very well known place for the OS.

Firefox does it better IIRC: when you uninstall I think it ask if the user wants the complete removal, including personal configuration (i.e. the FF profile stored also in the Windows user account).

[acknak]

... Firefox does it better IIRC: when you uninstall I think it ask if the user wants the complete removal, including personal configuration (i.e. the FF profile stored also in the Windows user account).

Hey, it sounds like that's something OOo could use also: add an option to the installer to handle refreshing the profile.

It would be so much easier all around if we could just tell people to use the installer to reset the profile.

[Hagar Delest]

Had never thought about that indeed!
Will post in our brand new UX forum then!

[salmond]

Hi RoryOF and Hagar,

I think I have found the answer to the display problem. It has nothing to do with Open Office settings.

When we came up blank here, I started googling around to see if I could find something generic that affected other spreadsheet programs and after much reading found the following post:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/801847

I hope it is alright to post a link in this forum. The thing that worked for me was in the last post in the thread.

Baiscally the problem is with a Windows7 High Contrast setting. The above mentioned thread told me that. I then had to figure out if High Contrast was on and how to turn off the High Contrast setting. In Windows7 go to Control Panel - Ease of Access - Ease of Access Center - Make the computer easier to see -- From there you will see the first section which allows you to tick a box which activates a keyboard control to turn High Contrast On and Off. I used that and then opened Open Office and voila I could see my cell background colors. Hallelujah!

Many sincere thanks to all of you for your suggestions. I only hope this may help someone else with the same problem some day. I will look for the way to mark the post 'solved'. If I can't find that, please mark if solved for me. Once again, thanks. Cheers.

[Larry Blake]

Thank you very much, SalmonD

I'm running Windows XP, so my solution was slightly different (went to Control Panel>Accessibility Options>Display, then unchecked the Use High Contrast Box). But it worked. It had been bothering me -- I keep track of my IRAs with Calc, and the background colors weren't showing up. It's a feature I use to keep track of some rows more easily. Every time I opened that spreadsheet, I would try to put back the background colors.
Fortunately, I found your solution.

[.dib.]

Thank you! I had the same problem, but the high contrast setting was switched off! I needed to switch it on and then off, now colors are displayed.

[ssho]

To pay back the good deeds you helped me to solve my same problem. Let me add this:

Open Office 4.1.1, year 2015, window 7.

Alt-Shift-Prtscreen toggle the display, the colors came back for me. If Alt-Shift-Prtscreen has no effect, go to Control Panel -> Ease of access center -> Make the computer ease to use -> Chose a high contract theme.

Does computer have to be that difficult to use!?

[plasbats]

Hi,
I got into the same problem, not only with Calc, but also with Impress, after moving to Windows 10. Following advices, I had also installed "high contrast" in the settings area. Getting back to normal solved the problem.
Thanks to all of you!

[dcapn88]

Thanks plasbats for your reply. Changing the display screen to a "not-high contrast" them solved my problem with Calc too.