[Issue] Automatic changes to drawing objects on opening

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Writa
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[Issue] Automatic changes to drawing objects on opening

Post by Writa »

I have a major problem. :shock: I have been using OpenOffice 3.something for YEARS and very happily with very few if any problems and I have been putting off updating for precisely the problem I'm having NOW. However, I recently (about 4 days ago) took the plunge and installed 4.1.10.

BIG MISTAKE! :shock: Immediately, I am sorry as it has ruined several of my Writer documents as it does not seem to work properly in one particular regard.

I am having two presumably related problems:

1. The first problem, the lesser of the two (although it IS extremely annoying) is that whenever I choose a fill colour and a line colour from the drawing object properties tool bar and then proceed to draw a shape, the fill and line colours both reset to what I presume is the default colours of 'blue classic' & 'grey 6' respectively and the drawing tool, therefore, will ONLY draw objects in those colours!!!! The only way I can draw objects in other colours, is to select previously created objects and change these values AFTER creation.

2. The second problem is one that I assume is related to this first problem and one that is TOTALLY NOT OK!!! When I open previously created files that had drawing objects in them, OpenOffice 4.1.10 changes the line/outline colour of EVERY drawing object in the document as soon as it is opened to grey 6 (which it always seems to default to and goes back to)... AND I MEAN EVERY SINGLE ONE. If you save the document at any point, the new colours OpenOffice has chosen are now saved for every single one off your drawing objects and it has ruined your document unless everything you had made was supposed to have grey 6 borders and lines. It doesn't seem to change the fill colour for some reason though.

This is unbearable and unusable for any document that contains drawing objects. I have just ruined a document that took me two months to create and compile with thousands of drawing objects in it because I didn't notice and I SAVED!

What is going on? Have I hit a weird setting and not realised? As I say, I have used an earlier version of this program for probably 10 years or more with no hassles. Is it me?

Any help greatly appreciated. :D
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Sun Sep 05, 2021 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Tagged [Issue].
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
Bill
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Bill »

Try resetting your user profile. If that doesn't solve the problem, please upload a sample file so others can check to see if the problem is reproducible is limited to your system. I can't reproduce the first problem and don't have any documents to test the second problem.

[Tutorial] The OpenOffice User Profile
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
Writa
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Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:59 pm

Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Writa »

Thankyou. I have reset my profile, following the instruction provided and restarted OO making sure not to allow it to use anything from my old 3.x profile. The results are... interesting.

The first problem has changed VERY slightly. Choosing a line colour, the colour now remains set in the menu. ie. If I choose pink, I can now draw many rectangles with pink borders. However, the other part of problem 1 remains unchanged. ie. When I choose a fill colour it does not remain set in the menu and I cannot draw any rectangles with, say, a green interior.

The second problem remains exactly the same. Borders on loading a file are changed to grey 6.

To reproduce the problem. All you have to do is open Writer and start to draw some rectangles. I'm not sure what benefit there would be in sending a file as when I save, the lines are whatever colour they were when the file was saved. Ie. If I make a file with pink bordered rectangle and save it, they turn grey when opened but if opened in LibreOffice on another computer they are still pink. If I resave the file after opening in OO and it has converted to grey borders, the borders are now grey in the file when opened in LibreOffice too.

So, the problem is occurring at file opening NOT file saving. I can't send a file I have opened, only one I have saved.
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
Bill
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Bill »

Writa wrote:To reproduce the problem. All you have to do is open Writer and start to draw some rectangles. I'm not sure what benefit there would be in sending a file as when I save, the lines are whatever colour they were when the file was saved.
No, that doesn't reproduce the problem for me. Colors of draw objects in documents are the same in both AOO 4.1.10 and LO. Colors don't revert to defaults or otherwise change spontaneously in AOO when documents are opened.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
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RoryOF
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by RoryOF »

In which format are you Saving? .odt is the advised format.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
John_Ha
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by John_Ha »

See [Tutorial] Differences between Microsoft and AOO/LO files for a description of differences and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp, etc.

Have you switched off the warning telling you this may happen?
Attachments
Save As doc file.png
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Writa
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Writa »

In which format are you Saving? .odt is the advised format.
I save in .odt. Always have unless sharing with others in which case I save off a seperate .doc version. :)
Have you switched off the warning telling you this may happen?
I haven't worked on and saved documents between office suites. Just checked out if the other one did or didn't auto change my boarder colours.

Ok. Because everyone is saying that it doesn't happen for them, I have done some further investigation and I have discovered something weird and crazy. Although the second problem I have described doesn't occur for me in LibreOffice, I have discovered that the first problem DOES! My OpenOffice is running on a Windows 10 machine and my LibreOffice is running on an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux machine... so not either the same office suite, the same computer OR the same operating system!!!

Since no one else can make this happen and due to the above test, I am starting to strongly suspect I have some kind of 'macro virus'!

Anyone know how I can check AOO & LO for this? I have anti-virus software, of course, but it hasn't picked anything up... but then I'm not sure if it specifically checks for AOO and LO macro viruses...
Last edited by Writa on Sat Sep 04, 2021 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
John_Ha
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by John_Ha »

Please upload a small file showing the problem so that it can be analysed.

Press POSTREPLY and click the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.

Try this file.
Attachments
test.odt
(8.66 KiB) Downloaded 165 times
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Bill
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Bill »

Make sure that no drawing object is selected when changing the line color or fill color. If an object is selected, that object will be changed but the settings for new objects will not be changed. If no object is selected when making the change, then the settings for new objects is changed.

There is a bug with the line color icon on the drawing objects toolbar in LO. It sometimes displays the LO default (Dark Blue 1) even though some other color is actually selected. You have to click the down arrow on the icon to see the selected color on the palette.

Bug 113433 - Color split buttons should display the recently used color
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
Writa
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Writa »

Please upload a small file showing the problem so that it can be analysed.
Ok. I'm happy to do that but as I say, I'm not sure how it will help as it happens on opening. The attached file is a tiny section taken from a document over 100 pages long. It had not been saved since 2020 when I was still using OO 3.x. However this segment has been saved today, obviously.

Note how the borders of all the squares are grey. They were actually black originally. There are literally thousands of such graphics throughout the full document. There is no way I selected them all and did this myself by accidentally hitting grey 6. Also, as the document had not been saved since 2020 and has been printed from 3.x just a few days ago in black and not been saved since but prints from 4.1.10 in grey 6 then it is my copy of 4.1.10 that has done this.

Does 4.1.10 just encode line colour differently in the .odt file and not understand 3.x documents??
Sample of Automatic Line Colour Change for Forum.odt
Sample of Automatic Line Colour Change...
(10.63 KiB) Downloaded 178 times
Last edited by Writa on Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
cwolan
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by cwolan »

Writa wrote:Does 4.1.10 just encode line colour differently in the .odt file and not understand 3.x documents??
Although I haven't done any tests, it seems so.

See please Bugzilla Issue 125203 - Showing wrong frame color since version 4.0.0
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=125203

A similar symptom: "black frame" (openoffice 3.4) ---> "gray frame" (in version 4.0 and later).

and if you look at the Comment 4 therein...
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=125203#c4
OpenOffice 1.1.5 – 4.1.15
LibreOffice 6.4.7 – 7.6.5
Windows 7,10,11 64-bit
Writa
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Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:59 pm

Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Writa »

Ok. Thankyou for your help. :-) It's good at least to have this confirmed to me and that I'm not going crazy. :-)

The problem is though that this renders all versions of OO after 3.3 USELESS to me and I will have to go back to my older version of 3.3 and try to repaire the damage this version has done to my files! The only reason I was unhappy with 3.3 in the first place was the fact that the registration process seems to have been broken by java (or something) and it asks you to register every time you log into Windows and/or open it. I'd rather put up with that, however, than have hours and hours of work ruined. :?
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
Writa
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by Writa »

Ok... maybe I will keep 4.1.10. I see reading further down there is a reason and a work around. It does mean you have to be VERY mindful when opening all documents though. I'm not sure if I have the ability to remain that diligent...
OpenOffice 4.1.10 on Windows 10
John_Ha
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Re: Writer makes automatic changes to drawing objects on ope

Post by John_Ha »

When I use AOO to set the borders to red, save and open the borders are still red.

An easy workaround is to create a PNG file of the squares and insert it as an image.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Bill
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Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:48 am

Re: [Issue] Automatic changes to drawing objects on opening

Post by Bill »

The bug seems to have been fixed in LibreOffice. If you want to continue using OpenOffice 4.1.10, try opening the files first in LibreOffice and re-saving them. The files saved by LibreOffice should then work in OpenOffice 4.1.10.

Edit:
Problem 2 only affects objects with the default line color. OpenOffice does not store the default line color in documents and does not set the default line color for individual objects. When a document is opened with OpenOffice the default line color of the current version is applied to any object which does not have a line color setting. The black default line color in OOo 3 was changed to Gray 6 in AOO 4 which is what is causing the problem. LibreOffice has fixed the problem by adding the default line color setting of the version that created the document.

For any document which has already been "broken" by opening and saving with AOO 4, use the selection tool on the Drawing Toolbar to select all objects then change the line color of the selected objects to black.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
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