Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

For the life of me I can nit find a document on my computer that I started in OpenOffice. How can I extend the list of recent documents to show more documents? I am praying it shows up, possibly under a different name.(maybe I accidentally saved it under a different name without knowing)

Files are added to the recent documents list as they are used, so extending the list won't magically add more entries. Try using your file manager to search for the document, perhaps by extension, e.g. .odt, depending on the type of document. You may need to configure your file manager to display file extensions.

Extending the list say from 7 to 20 of the most recent documents I worked on will in fact show me more entries. I guess I am looking for a hail Mary; seeing if the product can show me documents i worked on. I tried file manager of course. cant find it. I tried my trash bin, cant find it. I am wondering if somehow the file name of extension got changed?

lbilello04165 wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 4:22 pm For the life of me I can nit find a document on my computer that I started in OpenOffice.

If you started a document, but never saved it, the information is gone. If you create a file and make changes to it but never save them, you lose your work. Saving a file isn't automatic. You must use File → Save to write the file to your computer. Otherwise there is no file to find or to open. However, OpenOffice will warn you if you try to close a file which contains unsaved changes. As long as you don't dismiss the warning, you shouldn't lose changes you've made.

lbilello04165 wrote: ↑Sat May 24, 2025 10:22 pm I tried file manager of course. cant find it.

Assuming that the file was saved, your problem is simply that you don't know how to find files on your computer. That is a Windows problem, not an OpenOffice problem. Every operating system, including Windows, provides tools to help you with finding files. The tools can help find files that:
• you created recently
• you modified recently
• contain certain words in the file's name
• contain certain words in the file's content
• etc.

You do not even tell us which Windows variety you use, so no one can help you. But you can consult the documentation for your Windows system to learn how its features work. Or you can do web searches to get information about how to find files on your specific version of Windows. I do not use Windows and cannot provide any more advice than that. If you don't know what variety of Windows you use, you can do a web search for assistance with that.

lbilello04165 wrote: ↑Sat May 24, 2025 10:22 pm Extending the list say from 7 to 20 of the most recent documents I worked on will in fact show me more entries.

Nope. That is not how the feature works. The Recent Documents list shows you everything it knows. It isn't hiding additional file names somewhere. By default, the list contains the ten most recently used files. If you used some file a few weeks ago and it fell off the Recent Documents list in OpenOffice or LibreOffice, that information is permanently gone and extending the list can't show you any new file names. The file is still where you saved it on your computer; its name just isn't in the Recent Documents list. But your operating system, Windows, does know what files you worked on a few weeks ago. That is why you need to use Windows tools to help locate the file.

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.

How can I extend the list of recent documents to show more documents?

Use the LibreOffice. The LO has an option in the Advanced settings, named "PickListSize". You can edit the max. number of the Recent Documents list.
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