[Solved] No text in OpenOffice dialogs on OS X 10.10

[captainkirkwood]

After updating to Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite), dialog windows in OpenOffice 4.1.1 were missing text labels on virtually every UI element (buttons, lists, checkboxes, etc.). In some lists it appeared that the text labels for all options were overlapped on top of one another.

In searching through the community forums, I found an old post for a similar sounding problem on Ubuntu:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=10183

The solution suggested by Bubba123 on that thread also solved the issue for me on OS X 10.10, with some slight adjustments (these steps updated for AOO 4.1.1 options on OS X):

• Go to OpenOffice > Preferences ... from the menu bar
• With the selection in the left pane (you won't see the text), press the down-arrow key until "Options - OpenOffice - View" is displayed in the dialog title bar
• Uncheck the first 2 checkboxes, near the top left of the right pane
• Click the left-most button on the bottom of the dialog (this is the OK button, and was highlighted for me)

As was the case with Ubuntu in that prior thread, the issue appears to be related to fonts. The unchecked options are "Use system font for user interface" and "Screen font antialiasing". If you have any documents open, you may need to quit OpenOffice and restart for the changes to take effect (I had everything closed, so I'm not certain if this is required).

Interestingly, I checked with a colleague also using OS X 10.10, who was not experiencing this issue. I'm not sure what might be different between our system configurations, but once these options were unchecked and the changes applied, text has begun appearing in dialogs again for me. Figured I'd share in case anyone else is experiencing the same problem.

[Starfox]

Thanks for sharing that captainkirkwood, I had exactly the same problem driving me crazy and couldn't fix it since I couldn't see the text in the dialogues. You're blind instructions worked a treat!

[ana_o]

Hi, I am having the same problem but in my case OO won't even launch properly so I can't carry out the fix as suggested. When I launch the app I get this blank dialogue box with 4 buttons, one highlighted in blue (all without text). Have tried them all but the app won't ever launch. Can anyone help please? Much appreciated.

[RoryOF]

Have you downloaded through http://www.openoffice.org/download which redirects to a SourceForge server? If not, you should download only from there. If so, please check the integrity of your download by the methods described in
Apache OpenOffice - How to verify the integrity of the downloaded file?

[ana_o]

Yes I did download it from there! I tried to check the integrity of the download via Terminal, not sure if I did it right but I didn't get the 'good signature' message instead got something ending with: nas-MBP:~ ana$ gpg --verify <installation_file>.asc
-bash: installation_file: No such file or directory

[smiklos]

I am having a similar problem. After I open OpenOffice and select document, it allows me to go through the set up and save of the document but once my saved version is up it wont allow me to do anything. Click on anything, for example the option to create table in design view is up but when I click on that it does nothing. Thanks for all your help!

[scottcombs]

I've recently had the same issue with OpenOfiice on the Mac platform. All of my 6500+ fonts are OTF format and are managed by FontExplorer X Pro. There were 2 solutions to the issue that I found.
1) Use FontBook and manually load fonts into the /Users/[your home folder]/Library/Fonts folder.
2) Go to FontExplorer X Pro->Preferences->Font Requests and add OpenOffice to the list with Automatically activate requested font if possible feature.
I will say I had no issues before I converted all my fonts with FontForge to OTF format. I'm guessing this had some factor in the issue.

[AlHager]

Help. I've tried to solution suggested for opening a .docx document. Document just remains blank. I've closed it and OO, reopened and still no text visible. Suggestions? Thanks

[RoryOF]

Try AbiWord - this often works with .docx OO doesn't like. You can then copy and paste into OO if you wish.