[Solved] Did Ant-Man take it over?

[LaffyinVegas]

Let me start with I'm a computer moron....really bad.

I post a "song a day" on my Facebook page. To keep track so I don't post the same song twice, I use Calc......which I've used for other things for years. Always worked great.

Today, I opened it up to add the latest song and all the columns have been squeezed together so closely/tiny, only Ant-Man could read them.

Any idea what happened? Please tell me it's easy to fix.

There are about 250 songs on there.

Don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I had one of those "automatic updates" from Microsoft last night. I've had many of those before and nothing ever changed like this before.

HELP!!!

[FJCC]

Try going to the menu View -> Zoom and set it to 100%. There is a little slider at the lower right corner of the Calc window that also adjusts the zoom and you might have clicked that inadvertently.

[LaffyinVegas]

Ok....this is going to show you what a computer moron I am: Where is "menu View"? Is it on Calc or something else?

I did slide that thing over all the way to the right and it was still only about half the regular size..........and none of the info showed up. UGH!!!!

And the problem is worse than I thought. I have two other similar files and both are shrunk. Worse than that, I also have MANY letters saved using Writer and they are all blank when I open them.

On top of that, when I click on that folder that has all my pictures, the pics show up but the place to type is super duper tiny.....just like with Calc. Since that isn't part of OpenOffice, I'm guessing something else is going on....maybe more than one thing.

[RoryOF]

If you have a % sign in a little box in bottom right corner of the OO window, double click in that box and enter 400% in the "variable" window of the popup. This should give you a visible worksheet. If it is too big, you can repeat the process, changing the value entered downwards until you get a nice result.

[LaffyinVegas]

Don't see anything with that sign. Man, this totally sucks. I appreciate your help.

[FJCC]

Well, that is very confusing. First, what I mean by the View menu can be seen in this image:

That is the top left area of the Calc window and the View menu is the third from the left.

The fact that a non-OpenOffice application is also affected is very helpful. That suggests that the Windows update did something awful. To see if your OpenOffice files have been damaged, you could upload a small one here. To do that, click Post Reply and look for the Upload Attachment tab below the box where you type a response. Click on that and then on the Browse button. Select your file and then click Add The File.

I do not have an explanation for why your files look strange. I take it that the program and folder icons are the normal size. Is that true?

[RoryOF]

Try ALT V ALT B (same on a Mac?) that should give you the Status Bar at screen bottom. Then use the % box at right, as I have outlined above. Or ALT V should give you a dropdown menu allowing you to select the Status Bar and then the % box etc.

FJCC's remarks suggest that your screen resolution may have changed. Outside OO, right click (CMD click on a Mac?) on your desktop and see what resolution you are using - you may have been switched to a high resolution such as 1920 x 1080. In that case, try switching to a lower resolution (for a trial). I suggest 1280 x 1024.

I give probable Mac keys just in case a Mac user has a similar problem.

[LaffyinVegas]

The folder icons/pictures are regular size (maybe a tiny off) but the names under each of them are gone (probably there but so small I can't read them).


I attached a letter. When I click on it now, everything is blank.

[RoryOF]

All text showing up correctly on my computer, with no fiddling needed.

Have you restarted your computer recently? If not, please do so.

Warning: do not terminate your paragraphs with Shift Enter - use Enter on its own. This is a different mater.

[LaffyinVegas]

Try ALT V ALT B (same on a Mac?) that should give you the Status Bar at screen bottom. Then use the % box at right, as I have outlined above. Or ALT V should give you a dropdown menu allowing you to select the Status Bar and then the % box etc.

FJCC's remarks suggest that your screen resolution may have changed. Outside OO, right click (CMD click on a Mac?) on your desktop and see what resolution you are using - you may have been switched to a high resolution such as 1920 x 1080. In that case, try switching to a lower resolution (for a trial). I suggest 1280 x 1024.

I give probable Mac keys just in case a Mac user has a similar problem.

I did ALT V and a drop down menu showed up but nothing said "Status Bar".....I saw Tool and Side and some other things.

Did the right click thing and another menu popped up. The top 4 were blank and then the bottom 2 were pictures but it said nothing next to them.....I'm guessing it was there but, again, too small for me to see what was written. I clicked on the first one and it has the resolution at 1600 x 900 (and said that what's recommended). It had 1280 and three other options: 720, 768, 800.....not 1024.

[RoryOF]

Resolution of 1600 x 900 ought be OK. Have you restarted computer? You could try 1280 x 800 (or 768 or some similar value).

[LaffyinVegas]

Woo hoo!!! Just re-started my computer and everything is working correctly. Muchos gracias!!!

I turn my computer off every night so I wonder why re-starting it this morning didn't do the trick. Oh well. SUPER happy everything is back to normal.

One thing I noticed was at the end of the file names, it now says ods....when everything was messed up, it said odt. Does that give you a clue?

Thanks again!!

[RoryOF]

It is years since I have made any serious use of Windows (as a result, I live a very happy life!); I recollect that sometimes new system updates (which in those times were manually selected) sometimes needed two restarts to take proper effect.

.odt or .ods is only an indicator to the User what is the type of file. OpenOffice makes the decision internally which filters and modules to use.

[robleyd]

More specifically, .ods is used for spreadsheet (Calc) files and .odt is used for word processor (Writer) files