[Solved] Text blur in Writer

[elkalamar]

hi, I'm experiencing an issue in Writer where the text I type becomes blurred. The text (which might be all text in a document, or may only be a few lines or a paragraph - this appears quite random) becomes blurred and it may be when I type return for a new line, when I type, or (almost aways in this case) when I scroll the document. The blurriness is solved be changing the zoom value for the open document. The issue is making it very difficult to work in Writer because I have to constantly keep changing the zoom values as I type in order to restore the text to clarity.

Text saves / opens okay. The issue is merely appearance. I've searched the forums and seen other mentions of "blurry text" but not seen any solved - at least which solved my issue.

[RoryOF]

If you are using a high resolution display, you may cure the problem, at least as a temporary expedient, by reducing the monitor's resolution - such as by moving from 1920x1080 to 1600x900 (or some other selection).

Note that I am not a Mac user and have no access to a Mac to test.

[RoryOF]

If reducing the resolution, as I suggest above works, and as some previous posts also suggest is successful, you might call OO Writer from a batch file that reduces resolution, calls OO, then restores resolution.

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

I'm experiencing an issue in Writer where the text I type becomes blurred.

[Tutorial] Mac FAQ Q39/A39

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[elkalamar]

If you are using a high resolution display, you may cure the problem, at least as a temporary expedient, by reducing the monitor's resolution - such as by moving from 1920x1080 to 1600x900 (or some other selection).

Note that I am not a Mac user and have no access to a Mac to test.

Changing the resolution to some (but not all) lower resolutions seems to help a bit, but does not completely eradicate the problem. It's a temporary "solution" but I'm reluctant to mark the thread as solved because a) changing the resolution effects but does not completely resolve the issue, and b) it's a poor solution if I'm working with e.g. two documents open side by side on the screen where I need a higher resolution to have the screen space for this (on a laptop it's not like you have a great deal of screen space to work with!)

thanks!

[RoryOF]

Use Forum search (op right of forum window) to search for "blur" (no quotes); there have been some reports of this on high resolution Macs, but not being a Mac user I don't recollect if there was any more satisfactory solution than I have offered.

[elkalamar]

No satisfactory solutions that I've been able to find...

[John_Ha]

See [Solved] Blurry Text Documents

[elkalamar]

See [Solved] Blurry Text Documents

this essentially also suggest setting Mac retina displays to a lower resolution (though if I understand correctly, it is suggesting to do this through some method in Open Office which forces the resolution when opening Open Office - note it doesn't explain how to actually do this) - which doesn't actually fully resolve the issue

[John_Ha]

From [Solved] Blurry Text Documents:

I was able to have my soninlaw show me last night how to use the OpenOfficeApp info to select "Open in Low Resolution." I used OO to edit a document this evening and that seems to have fixed the blurriness problem for me.

It's a Mac feature so check the Mac manual, the Mac documentation, the Mac Help or a Mac forum.

[elkalamar]

From [Solved] Blurry Text Documents:

I was able to have my soninlaw show me last night how to use the OpenOfficeApp info to select "Open in Low Resolution." I used OO to edit a document this evening and that seems to have fixed the blurriness problem for me.

It's a Mac feature so check the Mac manual, the Mac documentation, the Mac Help or a Mac forum.

Yes, but as I say I think this is just a way of automating a change in screen resolution which in itself does not 100% resolve the problem. It ameliorates the blurring issue, without solving it, but even there working in Open Office in a lower resolution really shouldn't be any more than a temporary solution IMO

[elkalamar]

Having spent several hours working in Writer, in varying lower screen resolutions, I can confirm that this definitely does not actually solve the issue.

[John_Ha]

Googling with mac text blurred gets over 5 million hits suggesting it is a Mac problem.

[elkalamar]

Googling with mac text blurred gets over 5 million hits suggesting it is a Mac problem.

Whilst it may not be occurring for PC users, since it occurs in no other software other than Open Office Writer, I don't really see the logic in that.

[RoryOF]

Because OpenOffice is a volunteer supported project, developers have access only to their own hardware for development and testing, not "state of the art" hardware as developers for a commercial organisation might have. So there can be problems which manifest on more modern hardware, problems of which they are unaware.

Report it as a bug
[Tutorial] Reporting bugs or suggestions

or download the source code and investigate a fix.

[elkalamar]

will report it as a bug, thanks for the link!

[John_Ha]

Googling with mac text blurred gets over 5 million hits suggesting it is a Mac problem.

Whilst it may not be occurring for PC users, since it occurs in no other software other than Open Office Writer, I don't really see the logic in that.

Have you looked at the Google search results? It could be a 32-bit issue with Mac or it could be that AOO uses some faulty part of MacOS which your other programs don't use, but which over 5,000,000 other Mac users' programs do use.

There are over 5,000,000 hits suggesting something in Mac is causing the problem.. 5,000,000 is a lot of posts and I doubt many are about AOO.

I don't see any logic in your ignoring over 5,000,000 posts where Mac users have a problem similar to your problem.

[elkalamar]

Googling with mac text blurred gets over 5 million hits suggesting it is a Mac problem.

Whilst it may not be occurring for PC users, since it occurs in no other software other than Open Office Writer, I don't really see the logic in that.

Have you looked at the Google search results? It could be a 32-bit issue with Mac or it could be that AOO uses some faulty part of MacOS which your other programs don't use, but which over 5,000,000 other Mac users' programs do use.

There are over 5,000,000 hits suggesting something in Mac is causing the problem.. 5,000,000 is a lot of posts and I doubt many are about AOO.

I don't see any logic in your ignoring over 5,000,000 posts where Mac users have a problem similar to your problem.

I have looked at the Google search results yes. They detail all sorts of problems on different OS, different technologies e.g. pre 2015 non-retina displays, post 2015 retina displays, extrernal displays, as well as all sorts of issues e.g. text appearing blurred when exported... that in no way resemble the problems I'm having. Obviously if you Google mac + text + blurred you will get mac-specific results, likewise if you Google blurry + text + Windows you get over 6,000,000 results but how does that help?

All I can say is to detail the machine and operating system I'm using + the specific symptoms, which manifest exclusively in Open Office Writer - not in any other text editor, graphic design programme, internet browser, PDF viewer etc in fact not even in Open Office Calc - all regardless zoom level or screen resolution and so forth.

I'm just trying to find a solution to the problem, and my experience is that the suggested solution of changing the screen resolution doesn't resolve the issue.

[elkalamar]

Attaching this image to better illustrate the behaviour, in case this is something others are experiencing... thanks

[RoryOF]

This may be to do with the library used at compile time for OO Mac version, the library that handles the display; it is possible that it will show up in other applications now that high resolution displays are in regular use on Macs. An upgrade of the library might fix it, but that is outside OO developer control.

[elkalamar]

This may be to do with the library used at compile time for OO Mac version, the library that handles the display; it is possible that it will show up in other applications now that high resolution displays are in regular use on Macs. An upgrade of the library might fix it, but that is outside OO developer control.

do you think - if your hypothesis is correct (you'll have to excuse that I don't understand 100% on a technical level if I'm honest) - that future versions of OO for Max are likely to address the issue?

[RoryOF]

If you have reported the problem and a Mac using developer takes it up - developers often fix only problems that impinge on their usage of OO. Their contribution to OO development is done in their spare time.

The problem might not occur on LibreOffice, which will handle existing OO files.

[elkalamar]

Thanks. Good to know more or less how developers work! I have reported the issue (thanks for the link on how to do this also)
I will look at LibreOffice in the short term to see if this is a temporary solution

[John_Ha]

Note that it is probably not a font problem as the " d " is only partially blurred. Note also that the page margin line is blurred.

It looks to me like a display driver problem. It is almost identical to the image in the post to which I referred you.

What happens when you scroll a page with blurred text? Does the scrolled text remain blurred? Or does the blurred region stay in the same location on the display?

What happens when you magnify the Writer page - use the + and/or - sign at lower right.

How many pixels of blur are there - is it 2^n (like 32 or 64)?

Reboot the PC - does it still do it?

[elkalamar]

Note that it is probably not a font problem as the " d " is only partially blurred. Note also that the page margin line is blurred.

It looks to me like a display driver problem. It is almost identical to the image in the post to which I referred you.

What happens when you scroll a page with blurred text? Does the scrolled text remain blurred? Or does the blurred region stay in the same location on the display?

What happens when you magnify the Writer page - use the + and/or - sign at lower right.

How many pixels of blur are there - is it 2^n (like 32 or 64)?

It is a problem with display and not fonts, yet doesn't replicate in any other software other than OO Writer (I can confirm that the issue doesn't replicate in LibreOffice which I've just installed and tested). Scrolling will restore the blurred text to normal provided you scroll the offending text completely off the screen. However scrolling can also cause parts of the tex to appear blurred (it also seems to be a trigger). As I've already described, changing the zoom factor of the document restores blurred text to normal. I have no idea how many pixels of blur - the behaviour occurs at all zoom levels and at all screen resolutions.

[John_Ha]

Do a definitive test where you set the screen to a low resolution like 1280 x 1024. Is it still blurry even after a power OFF reboot?

If you want development to look at it you need to do more diagnosis to allow them to focus in on where the problem is always remembering it could be a hardware fault.

1 Start the PC in Safe Mode. Does it still do it?

2 While still in Safe Mode, stop AOO. Rename your user profile (on W7 it is C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user) to ...\user_old. Start AOO. You should be asked for your name etc when the new profile is created. Does it still do it?

3 Borrow another screen - preferably with a lower resolution - and try it. Does it still do it?

4 When did you first notice it?

a) Was it just a random time? It could be a hardware fault.
b) Was it after a MacOS update? If so, back out the update.
c) Was it after installing a new version of AOO? If so, revert to the previous version of AOO.

5 Check to ensure the display driver is correct and fully up to date.

[elkalamar]

Do a definitive test where you set the screen to a low resolution like 1280 x 1024. Is it still blurry even after a power OFF reboot?

If you want development to look at it you need to do more diagnosis to allow them to focus in on where the problem is always remembering it could be a hardware fault.

1 Start the PC in Safe Mode. Does it still do it?

2 While still in Safe Mode, stop AOO. Rename your user profile (on W7 it is C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user) to ...\user_old. Start AOO. You should be asked for your name etc when the new profile is created. Does it still do it?

3 Borrow another screen - preferably with a lower resolution - and try it. Does it still do it?

4 When did you first notice it?

a) Was it just a random time? It could be a hardware fault.
b) Was it after a MacOS update? If so, back out the update.
c) Was it after installing a new version of AOO? If so, revert to the previous version of AOO.

5 Check to ensure the display driver is correct and fully up to date.

Thanks for the advice. Step 1 (testing in safe mode) I have done, and it makes no difference. I think this problem for me began when I first installed OO on this particular machine from new - so as far as I recall it's not connected to OS or OO updates. I'm relying on my memory there though and good be wrong, but its certainly an issue I've had for at least a year now. In honesty I'm going to start working in Libre Office because I'm not experiencing the same issues there, and its a very similar software.

[MrProgrammer]

No satisfactory solutions that I've been able to find

Please confirm that after applying the suggestion in Q39/A39 (✓ Open in Low Resolution), the problem still occurs in OpenOffice. I cannot test myself because I don't have your hardware and software. Note that this suggestion is different than using  → System Prefereces → Displays → Display → Resolution.

[elkalamar]

No satisfactory solutions that I've been able to find

Please confirm that after applying the suggestion in Q39/A39 (✓ Open in Low Resolution), the problem still occurs in OpenOffice. I cannot test myself because I don't have your hardware and software. Note that this suggestion is different than using  → System Prefereces → Displays → Display → Resolution.

sorry I'm not sure what Q39/A39 refers to. You'll have to explain. The only way I know to change display settings is using System Preferences.

[RoryOF]

The reference is to an essential tutorial for Mac users, which I link below
Tutorial: Mac FAQ