[Solved] OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

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tcoll101
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[Solved] OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

I'm not sure if anyone else has this issue, and I haven't seen anything else on the forums, but 9 times out of 10, whenever I write something that's bold and italicised (or italicized, depending on where you're from), it either completely deletes it (or makes it invisible, as it still recognises there are characters there), or it replaces them with different characters completely.
stIfJR7.png
I have noticed that it doesn't happen when using Times New Roman, but it happens in Verdana, and as someone who uses Verdana a lot and uses bold and italicised, so it's definitely bothering me.

So if anyone knows how to fix it and what's possibly causing it, that would be a great help.
Last edited by tcoll101 on Thu Aug 07, 2014 2:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
OpenOffice 4.1.0 on Windows 7
John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

Welcome to the forum.

That is very strange. It is almost as though AutoCorrect is replacing what you type with what you finally get, or changing the text colour to white so it's still there, but you can't see it. Does Tools > AutoCorrect options offer any clues? Try unticking all the boxes under Options, and disable Word completion.

I have no idea why it is font dependant unless the font file is corrupted. Go to C:\Windows\fonts and find Verdana and click on it - you should get four font files as below. If you have access to another PC, then delete these fonts (using the highlighted delete link), and re-install them with font files from another PC. Just drag the files out of the other PC folder to the desktop, transfer the files to your desktop and double click them > choose Install. If you don't have access to another PC, I have W7 so could send you mine.
 Edit: A thought. The font name in the font box - Verdana in your screenshot - is the font which the document is calling for and it might not be the font being used to display on the screen. If you don't have Verdana installed, then Windows will substitute what it considers is the best font it has available. AOO has the font the author asked for coded into the ODT file and the ODT file asks Windows to use that font. 
Can you upload an example file so someone can have a look at it.
Attachments
font.png
Last edited by John_Ha on Wed Aug 06, 2014 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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.
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RoryOF
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by RoryOF »

Verdana in all its combinations was OK for me using OO 4.1.1 RC1
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
tcoll101
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

I've attached a document that has both the odd formatting the way it shows up when I try and type, and then down below is the same text without being bold and italicised, and for some reason, that works perfectly normal.

I haven't changed anything, this is just simply what happened when I tried to type.

I also noticed something else odd. It seemed to be fine as soon as I opened a new document, but this particular file is another file I wrote that has the problem occurring. I hadn't changed anything, I just opened it one day and it was all of a sudden like this. The file was probably created and/or modified 4 months ago. And it seemed to be the case with other previously saved files, but new ones seem to be fine now.

So I don't know if it just has something to do with the older files, or what. If that file doesn't say enough, I can upload another few examples.

And thanks for the welcome :)
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Example Document.odt
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RoryOF
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by RoryOF »

Your file displayed correctly for me, but I'm not using Windows. I suspect something strange on your Windows. Perhaps try a new User Profile, details in
[Tutorial] The OpenOffice User Profile
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

Switch on View > Hidden characters (or click the backwards P icon) as it might help to show what is happening.

I cannot see any problem - see attached file and image below where I added The cat sat on the mat in several places. I then added a few more paragraph returns, and set the fourth to bold - note how it is bolded and hence slightly larger. If I place the cursor at the bolded paragraph return, and type, I type in bold. If I place the cursor at a different paragraph return, I type in regular.

Can you please do the following precisely as instructed (so the only difference is the font chosen - everything else is identical):

1 Create a new empty document. Set font to Times Now Roman. Type a few words. Save it
2 Create a new empty document. Set font to Verdana. Type the same few words. Save it

Upload both files explaining where the difference is.
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Example Document_jh.odt
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font2.png
font2.png (8.61 KiB) Viewed 3441 times
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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.
John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

RoryOF wrote:Your file displayed correctly for me, but I'm not using Windows. I suspect something strange on your Windows. Perhaps try a new User Profile, details in [Tutorial] The OpenOffice User Profile
Rather than creating a new profile, which will lose lots of settings etc, can you try navigating to C:\Users\user_name\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user and renaming registrymodifications.xcu to registrymodifications.xcuOLD or similar. Now restart AOO which will create a new registrymodifications.xcu file. If that fixes it, you won't have to replace any of the other files in the profile.
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.
tcoll101
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

It seems that John_Ha's idea of creating a new registrymodifications.xcu file has corrected the problem for now.

But as a reference, I've put another reference photo just to show what kind of problem I was having and what it looked like in the example file with more sentences added down the bottom just to give more of an idea.
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This 3.png
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John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

Good.

If you still have the old registrymodifications.xcu file could you upload it here so I could have a look to see what the problem was. If it is too big, either zip it, or load it up to a filesharing site like Mediafire.

If this solves the problem, please edit your original post title to [Solved].

Thanks.
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.
tcoll101
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

I'll admit that the problem is solved for newer documents, but it doesn't change the old documents. The only way I fixed the older documents was to copy the entire thing, paste it in a new document, change the formatting to just plain bold, remove the registrymodifications.xcu file, go back into it, copy and paste it into ANOTHER new file, and change the formatting to bold and italics again, and it was then fine.

I've added the very first registrymodifications.xcu file to see if anything can be discovered about it.
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registrymodifications.zip
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John_Ha
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

Thank you for posting the old file.

I opened it (in Notepad++ with the XML Plug in to pretty-print the XML) and I could not see anything wrong in the file. However, I don't understand it in detail so that doesn't mean much.

The file is used to store all the information which allows AOO to "open the same way as it shut down". So, if you had Calibri 22 point text, with bold and italic chosen when you shut down AOO, and were displaying hidden characters and field shadings, Writer opens with the font boxes at Calibri 22 point, and with hidden characters and field shadings shown. I searched the file for Verdana and couldn't find the word.

I used it in place of my file on my AOO and everything was OK.

So I don't have anything to add :-(
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.
tcoll101
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Re: OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

I really don't know where to go from here. I mean, the problem doesn't seem to be affecting any newer files and it only seems to be the old files, so I guess it's been solved? So I suppose the case is closed, it just takes me a long time to get every file back to it's previous state.

I should also note that (something I probably should've added previously but completely forgot about) these old files originated on my old Laptop with Windows 7 and most likely an older version of AOO. I don't really know whether or not that may have something to do with the problems that occurred, but unless it happens again on my new files, I would definitely conclude that this problem has been solved.

Thanks for the help :)
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John_Ha
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Re: [Solved] OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by John_Ha »

John_Ha wrote:So I don't have anything to add :-(
I had another thought. I opened your Example document.odt while I had my AOO using your uploaded registrymodifications.xcu file ... and everything was OK.

So, if it happens again, could you possibly post both the odt with the problem, and your entire profile (zip C:\Users\user_nameAppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user and all its subfolders) and I will try to reproduce it on my system. Please be very careful not to save the opened file with the problem - just go File > Close - as I want the file unchanged.

Why not save it? What is intriguing me is that the problem looks like it is to do with the old odt file itself, but resetting the profile fixes it. I therefore wondered if it is actually saving the file which fixes the problem and it has nothing to do with the profile. The file could be slightly "damaged" or inconsistent, where a save corrects the damage.

After you have posted the file, try saving it. You will have to make a trivial change like adding a space to get Writer to save a new file. Does that fix it?
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.
tcoll101
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Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2014 5:25 am

Re: [Solved] OpenOffice deleting text Bold and Italicised

Post by tcoll101 »

Well, I managed to go through a large majority of my older files last night and they all seemed fine, it only seemed to be a certain number of files that were more regularly used, so it doesn't seem to have occurred anywhere else.

But I'll make a note that if I do happen to see it again, I will make sure to update this post, because so far, things seem to be fine and it may have just been a problem with the previous computer I wrote the original files on, seeing as there was a lot of hard drive damage that in the end caused it to become un-usable, so I suppose it's more of a waiting game now to see if anything else happens.

For now, though, it seems quite fine.
OpenOffice 4.1.0 on Windows 7
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