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I was excited to discover OpenOffice and have several documents completed. The only way I can find them is via OpenOffice - they don't show up in Mac Finder. What am I not doing, or doing wrong?

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

JerryCPP wrote:I was excited to discover OpenOffice and have several documents completed. The only way I can find them is via OpenOffice - they don't show up in Mac Finder.

I have never experienced that problem, nor can I recall seeing it reported on the forum during the past ten years. Saved files display for me in Finder. OpenOffice typically puts them in your Documents folder, unless you specify another one when saving.
Q1: When you open the document with OpenOffice and use File → Properties → General, what does the Location field say?
Q2: Does Finder show the document in that folder?
Q3: What name have you given to your document, for example, Greetings.odt?

Anticipating future discussion, I will note that if you move a document with Finder, this does not update the File → Recent Documents list in OpenOffice. The list will point to the previous location of the document. If you attempt to open a Finder-moved document with File → Recent Documents you will receive some variation of a "File Not Found" error. You cannot remove individual items in that list, but you can remove all of them with File → Recent Documents → Clear.

On many releases of MacOS there is a separate list of recent documents which is revealed by making a long-click on the OpenOffice icon in the Dock. This list is maintained by MacOS and may differ from the File → Recent Documents in OpenOffice. I believe the MacOS list is updated if you move the document with Finder. Direct any questions about the Dock's list to Apple.

[Tutorial] Mac FAQ

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

Thank you for the quick reply. 1) Location shows: /Users/jerryloeffelbein/Documents. (There is no drop down allowing me to change the location.) 2) When I copy and paste that to the Finder search box, the only thing it shows is Scanlsit.txt, Opening that shows several /users/my name/pictures, or documents or Desktop and a few others, none of which will open. I can't copy that list to paste it here either. I tried what I would consider a "long click" of about 30 seconds with zero results. 3) Amber Start 10-19-20.odt
File - Recent Documents does show what it should. It just seems strange not to be able to find something in "Finder" where I have found everything else.

I don't have a Mac at hand so I don't know how to disable any filters that may hide files in Finder nor do I know if the Mac hides certain files by default. On a Linux system all files whose names start with a dot are hidden until you explicitly want to see them. Due to common heritage, I would expect that a Mac also hides dot files. Naming documents like .Letter.odt would be a bad idea.
The save-as dialog of your office suite has an option labeled "Automatic file name extension" which should always be checked unless you are sure that want to save some file with a special file name extension. This way you specify "Letter" as file name for an Open Document Text and the file will be saved as "Letter.odt". If you specify "Letter.doc", the application will append the correct extension for the chosen file type and save as "Letter.doc.odt".
When that option is turned off, the file will be saved as explicitly named by the user. "Letter" will be saved with no extension and "Letter.doc" will be an Open Document Text with a misleading .doc extension.
May be your files are displayed with wrong icons because "Automatic file name extension" was turned off? It is a permanent option. When you turn it off it remains off.
May be Finder hides files with no extension? I don't know. The files are there, otherwise they could not be opened.

Villeroy wrote:I don't have a Mac at hand so I don't know how to disable any filters that may hide files in Finder …

I can only think of the Finder → File → Find dialog. This provides filters to narrow the scope of the search. To exit this Finder dialog, File → Close Window, then File → New Finder Window.

Villeroy wrote:May be Finder hides files with no extension? I don't know.

No, Finder displays a file without an extension, example below. As a default, MacOS hides the extension in Finder. I think this is a poor choice, so I provide instructions in Mac FAQ to change that. But this only hides the extension, not the file itself.
Q52: How do I display file extensions so I see MyDoc.odt instead of MyDoc?

JerryCPP wrote:Location shows: /Users/jerryloeffelbein/Documents.

That is a location I'd expect. I wanted to ensure the file wasn't in some unusual location, like the Trash. To view files in your Documents folder, you should be able to use Finder → Go → Documents. If that doesn't show them I'm not sure what is wrong. For problems with Finder, you should ask in an Apple forum, where you are more likely to find people familiar with this sort of difficulty. This forum is for OpenOffice. You don't seem to have an OpenOffice problem.

JerryCPP wrote:There is no drop down allowing me to change the location.

If you are referring to the File → Properties → General dialog, no, this is just a display. One changes the location of a document using OpenOffice (File → Save As makes a copy) or using Finder (moves or copies depending on your operations there). If you move it, the link in OpenOffice → File → Recent Documents will break, but you can access the document in the new folder using OpenOffice → File → Open. There are two Open dialogs, as described in Mac FAQ Q37.

JerryCPP wrote:When I copy and paste that to the Finder search box …

To navigate to a specific folder in Finder use Go → Go To Folder. You can paste a folder name there.

JerryCPP wrote:Amber Start 10-19-20.odt

That file should display in Finder unless you have done something unusual, perhaps unintentionally. I wanted to ensure the name of the file didn't begin with a period. Finder would hide that, but your file name begins with "A".

JerryCPP wrote:shows several /users/my name/pictures, or documents or Desktop and a few others, none of which will open.

If you mean that Finder is unable to show you files in your Pictures, Documents, or Desktop folders, you may have a Finder problem. Begin by restarting your Mac. This sometimes cures strange problems. If the problem continues you could have a damaged account on your Mac. You could try to reproduce the problem on the Guest User account (Mac FAQ Q28). This is not the right forum to diagnose/correct a Finder problem or damaged Mac account. If you are relatively new to MacOS, this could just be a usage/training difficulty. Any library will have Introduction/Switching to Mac books. Almost any of these books (titles vary), even one several years old, will be fine, since the basics haven't changed for many years. If you know little about Macs, spending a few hours reading the initial chapters will save you dozens of hours of time and frustration. A bit of basic knowledge may prevent you from losing data.

If you solve the problem it would be helpful to others if you share the solution here.

Edit: In hindsight, after seeing other posts in the last few months, I will guess that this problem may be related to Q63: Can I use OpenOffice with iCloud? -- MrProgrammer, 2021-02-11.

Just a thought...

The Unix way to hide a file is to "make a dotfile". MacOS is built on top of BSD-Unix, so I suspect that this goes for Mac as well. Did you, by any chance, start your filenames with a period when you saved?

In Finder, press Cmd+Shift+period to toggle the display of hidden files.

I had the same problem, and I've been an OO user for almost 20 years, so don't feel bad.

The solution for me: Restart my computer.

Magically, all the ODT files that had been hidden in Finder suddenly reappeared. Why? WTFK