Editing Bad Equations Corrupts Equation Catalog

[Aj3w]

Is there some way to prevent the Equation Catalog from getting changed if I edit an equation in a random pre-existing document that is based on a customized Equation Catalog? If I open a pre-existing Writer document & edit an equation that is based on a customized Catalog, it appears my installed Catalog is overwritten with that pre-existing document's custom Catalog. Subsequently, if I open a blank document & try to edit an equation, I find my Catalog has been permanently changed. Simply put, my old OpenOffice documents seem to infect my current OpenOffice Equation editor, just by opening & editing an old equation once.

Years ago, in OpenOffice 2, I ruined my Equation Catalog, accidentally deleting some Greek letters (& creating some new characters I don't want). Now, no matter how many times I reinstall or update OpenOffice, whenever I open one of those old documents & edit an Equation even once, my Equation catalog reverts to its old ruined state, where I am missing certain Greek letters. It would be nice if I could edit an equation in an old document without automatically making any permanent changes to my Equation Catalog.

[acknak]

What happens if you start with a fresh OOo settings profile? [Tutorial] The OOo user profile

[Aj3w]

The problem persisted even after I reformatted my hard drive and installed a new version of Open Office. Perhaps all i need to do to restore my Equation Catalog after editing a bad equation is reset my OOo profile, like you suggest. That is still a lot of work to do every time I use an old document and things start going wrong with my equations afterward. Isn't there instead some way to turn off automatic updates to one's Equation Catalog?

This problem seems similar to the one Microsoft had when a hapless user would open a bad Word document and then a macro would automatically go to work on his hard drive. As you know, MS corrected their problem by making Word ask users for permission before a new document starts changing their system.

Thanks for your help!

[acknak]

I don't think it's a macro. My guess is that OOo stores a copy of your customized catalog entries in the saved document, and automatically restores them when you open the document--after all, if the document depends on the custom catalog entries, they have to be stored somewhere and made available when the document is open.

If you can attach a sample document that has the problem, we can take a look and maybe see what's happening. You can use the "Upload Attachment" link (below the message entry area after you click "POST REPLY"). [Forum] How to attach a document here

[Aj3w]

I agree, the OOo must be storing a copy of customized catalog entries in the saved document. Where else can it be getting them after I've reformatted & reinstalled? I also agree it is unlikely my problem is due to a macro, but it is similar to the problem some have had opening documents with macros. Anyway, I'm uploading a sample document. Thank you!

[acknak]

Ok, here's what I see with your document:

First, the modified catalog is loaded when I open your document and edit any of the formulas. The modified catalog remains in effect after the document is closed, but quitting and restarting OOo reverts back to the default catalog.

If your system starts OOo with the "quickstarter", you'll have to make sure to exit from that as well; otherwise, OOo is still running.

Second, I don't see any problem with the standard character sets, "Greek," "Greek," and "Special," after loading your sample document; I see only a new character set: "Ellis_1". The Ellis_1 set seems to be missing two characters: "ifandonlyif" and "circleproduct".

The catalog changes can be removed by editing the document xml with a text editor, it's not hard at all but it may be somewhat tedious because the catalog entries are included in every formula in the document, so there are multiple copies to be removed.

Here's your sample with the catalogs removed:

[Aj3w]

What you are saying makes perfect sense. I will try it when I get home from work tonight. Do you know how to disable the Quickstarter in Windows XP?
Thanks for all your help!

[acknak]

I'm not sure how to disable it; you can tell it to quit though its icon in the system tray.

After you quit the quickstarter, you can restart OOo and you should have a fresh formula catalog.

[RoryOF]

For Windows there is a way in / Tools / Options / OpenOffice.org / Memory, something about load Quickstarter at startup.

[Aj3w]

As a practical matter, my equation editor has been permanently degraded for years now by the feature that my equation catalog in memory is automatically changed when an equation in an old document is edited. Years ago I accidentally corrupted my equation catalog. Now, most of my extensive library of old documents with equations contains corrupted equations. Because I constantly open those old corrupted equations (because I teach and often cut-and-paste from, or update documents), corruption in those old documents' equation catalogs is automatically transferred to my new documents.

While I appreciate the helpful workarounds, they aren't practical. Those workarounds still require walking away from my old documents.

The problem I describe could easily be fixed if a user opening a document were prompted, "Opening this document may change your equation catalog. Do you want to update your equation catalog in memory with the catalog in this document?" Microsoft was forced to adopt similar solutions for problems where users opening MS Office documents were unwittingly and automatically unleashing macros on their systems.

Thanks.