[Solved] Low contrast tabs

[Baasha]

Libreoffice Vs,5.1.4.2

I am having a problem reading tabs in various areas of LO. They appear with white print on a very pale grey background making them virtually unreadable. I have included a screenshot to illustrate what I mean. At first I thought it was a theme issue, but I have tried many different themes and the tabs don't seem to be affected. Ideally, black print on the grey background would solve this problem. How do I go about changing this?

[Bill]

What is your operating system and theme? I have LO 5.1.4.2 on Linux Mint 18 (using Mint-Y controls and window borders) and the layout and controls on the same dialog are different.

Linux Mint 18

[Bill]

If you're using Ubuntu, you may need to upgrade LO. See this bug report:

Tab names unreadable in GTK3 in Ubuntu

[Baasha]

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 and the Ubuntu theme is Radiance. The bug report you found is exactly my problem. I am subscribed to the LO ppa so I assume I already have the latest version. I am a little confused by the bug report. If I read it correctly it says the problem has already been corrected for the Radiance and Ambiance themes. Something else that is a little confusing is the theme listing inside LO. The themes listed there are: Breeze, Elementary, Tango, Galaxy, Human, Sifr, and Oxygen. The Ubuntu themes don't show up, but I thought LO adopted the OS theme.

So now my question is: Is there a fix for this or do we just have to wait for another LO update?

[RoryOF]

There may be minor Ubuntu 16.04 fixes, which do not affect the version number. Try /Settings /Software update, or in a console type sudo apt update and then sudo apt upgrade.

[Baasha]

I did the software update and got a few new packages, but unfortunately a fix for this problem wasn't included. So does that mean I just have to wait for an upstream solution?

[RoryOF]

I can't say. It may be that you will have to install another theme, reboot, then reinstall Radiance to get any update to take.

[Bill]

I don't know about Ubuntu 16.04, but I've just installed Ubuntu 16.10 which installed LO 5.2.2.2 which did have the problem. The Synaptic package manager showed an update available for LO 5.2.2.2. Installing the update solved the problem in LO when using the Ambiance or Radiance themes in Ubuntu.

Are you subscribed to the LibreOffice 5.1.x ppa? It shows version 1:5.1.6~rc2-0ubuntu1~xenial1 available for Ubuntu 16.04. Clicking the Status button in Synaptic and selecting "Installed (upgradable)" should show that version as the latest version which you can install.

[Bill]

I've now tried a new installation of Ubuntu 16.04.1 which includes LO 5.1.4.2. There was no problem with the text on the tabs on the dialogs. Synaptic showed that the libreoffice-gtk package was installed, but the libreoffice-gtk3 package was not installed. I installed the libreoffice-gtk3 package and the problem with the text on the tabs of the dialogs appeared. After removing the libreoffice-gtk3 package, the text on the dialogs returned to normal.

If you're going to use LO 5.1.4.2 and not the later versions that are installed by the LO ppa and require the libreoffice-gtk3 package, then you should remove the libreoffice-gtk3 package and probably should remove the ppa.

[Baasha]

Thanks Bill. Removing the libreoffice-gtk3 package solved the problem. Now I can see what I'm doing again.