Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Win XP, OO 4.1.1, FF 35.0.1

Writer hangs up (freezes) when I try to paste an image from Firefox (via clipboard).
OO & FF updated today to their current versions.

I've found out that copy & paste images from web browser has been a problem in OO for a very long time. It seems nobody can remove the bug from OO.

Please, help...
Thank you very much in advance.

As a workaround, paste into an image viewer/editor, save from that and then paste the saved file into OpenOffice.

RoryOF wrote:As a workaround, paste into an image viewer/editor, save from that and then paste the saved file into OpenOffice.

This is not a solution: the PC's are in an IT classroom (basic school) and teachers teach the children how to easily copy and paste images from the web.

If you copy an image from the web like the AOO banner above (right click > Copy image > left click in document > Paste) , it gets pasted as a linked image, not as an embedded image. The image takes a few seconds to appear and you need Internet access to be able to see it.

If you paste it into an image editor like IrfanView (or even MS Paint) and then paste it into Writer it pastes as an embedded PNG image. Note that a photo pasted into Writer will be pasted as a PNG, not as a JPG, and will be significantly larger.

See example of both.

Another method is Save Image As and save it as a file. Insert > Picture > From file ... this prerserrves it as a JPG if it is a photo.

vladino wrote:This is not a solution: the PC's are in an IT classroom (basic school) and teachers teach pupils how to easily copy and paste images from the web.

I trust the teachers teach the children all about copyright violations too!

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

John_Ha wrote:If you copy an image from the web like the AOO banner above (right click > Copy image > left click in document > Paste) , it gets pasted as a linked image, not as an embedded image. The image takes a few seconds to appear and you need Internet access to be able to see it.

If you paste it into an image editor like IrfanView (or even MS Paint) and then paste it into Writer it pastes as an embedded PNG image. Note that a photo pasted into Writer will be pasted as a PNG, not as a JPG, and will be significantly larger.

See example of both.

It's different scenario: Writer hangs up (stops responding) when pasting an image from web. There's no problem on other PCs with OO 3.1 & FF (not sure about the version).

John_Ha wrote:AOO 3.1 is obsolete - have you tried AOO 4.1.1?

Yes, I''ve installed AOO 4.1.1 today. Other PCs with older OO & FF perform fine.
The reason to update to 4.1.1 was a JRE problem when trying to work with an imported image in OO.

vladino wrote:

RoryOF wrote:As a workaround, paste into an image viewer/editor, save from that and then paste the saved file into OpenOffice.

This is not a solution: the PC's are in an IT classroom (basic school) and teachers teach the children how to easily copy and paste images from the web.

I didn't offer it as a solution - I clearly indicated it was a workaround. If, as you say in your later post, the function is working on some other computers available to you, then the diagnostic information is in your hands. Find how the machines and software installations differ.

RoryOF wrote:

vladino wrote:

RoryOF wrote:As a workaround, paste into an image viewer/editor, save from that and then paste the saved file into OpenOffice.

This is not a solution: the PC's are in an IT classroom (basic school) and teachers teach the children how to easily copy and paste images from the web.

I didn't offer it as a solution - I clearly indicated it was a workaround. If, as you say in your later post, the function is working on some other computers available to you, then the diagnostic information is in your hands. Find how the machines and software installations differ.

AOO 4.1.1 & FF 35.0.1 versus OO 3.1 & FF older. I couldn't make OO work with imported images in OO 3.1 (due to a JRE problem) that's why I decided to upgrade to 4.1.1.

John_Ha wrote:

Edit: Have you tried the AOO banner above? I use Firefox and AOO 4.1.1 and it works fine. It may be a problem with your PCs or add-ons. Start the PC in Safe Mode - does it now work? If so it is a startup program causing the problem. Disable all AOO Add-ons - does it now work. Clipboard monitors and histories are notorious. Please upload an example odt with the problem and the location of the image which fails.

I'm not able to restart to Safe Mode now since I'm not there. It's a remote PC and I use TeamViewer to get connected. There are no AOO add-ons on that PC.

RoryOF wrote:I didn't offer it as a solution - I clearly indicated it was a workaround..

Sorry for misinterpretation. It's not meant as it sounds...

Your JRE problem may be due to using 32 bit OpenOffice on 64 bit operating systems. As OpenOffice fore Windows is at present a 32 bit application, it requires a 32 bit Java installed and selected in /Tools /options/ OpenOffice(.org) /Java for full Java functionality. Such Java can be downloaded from www,java.com; it will have 586 in its name and can be installed alongside a 64 bit Java. Your are best to stick with 32 bit Java 1.6 for OO 3 versions and Java 1.7 for OO 4 versions although OO4 can use Java 1.8 with some tweaking (which I know not).

RoryOF wrote:Your JRE problem may be due to using 32 bit OpenOffice on 64 bit operating systems. As OpenOffice fore Windows is at present a 32 bit application, it requires a 32 bit Java installed and selected in /Tools /options/ OpenOffice(.org) /Java for full Java functionality. Such Java can be downloaded from www,java.com; it will have 586 in its name and can be installed alongside a 64 bit Java. Your are best to stick with 32 bit Java 1.6 for OO 3 versions and Java 1.7 for OO 4 versions although OO4 can use Java 1.8 with some tweaking (which I know not).

I've reinstalled JRE on that machine today with no luck (as to OO JRE problem). I think the installer would not let me install 64bit JRE on 32bit system. I've downloaded JRE 7.76 (jre-7u76-windows-i586.exe) to reinstall current JRE, which was the same version, ie. 7.76 re-installed by 7.76. There was no problem with the re-installation.

I've just realized that OO doesn't hang up after Paste. It just takes a very long time until Paste operation is finished. Plus all other actions take ages when I'm working with a document with imported "image(s)". In fact, the image doesn't show up, there's just a link in the box instead of graphics... no matter what the setting is, see Options, View, View - Images and objects.

BTW, I use Czech version of Win XP & AOO 4.1.1 & FF.

It may be that the Internet connection is slow, or appearing slow to OpenOffice. In the few instances I can recollect of this happening (not with OpenOffice), back in early Internet days, this was due to improper settings on a firewall or anti virus for the program involved. From memory, the program was not accorded access rights to the Internet, and kept trying to access it repeatedly, each time getting a small number of bytes.

RoryOF wrote:It may be that the Internet connection is slow, or appearing slow to OpenOffice. In the few instances I can recollect of this happening (not with OpenOffice), back in early Internet days, this was due to improper settings on a firewall or anti virus for the program involved. From memory, the program was not accorded access rights to the Internet, and kept trying to access it repeatedly, each time getting a small number of bytes.

Current speed:
PING = 14 ms
DL = 12.1 Mb/s
UL = 2.7 Mb/s

There's no problem with Internet speed on OO 3.1 machines. On the 4.1.1 one it takes approx. 30 seconds to switch to AOO window (document with 3 imported "images").

P.S. This is how the document looks like:

vladino wrote:I've just realized that OO doesn't hang up after Paste. It just takes a very long time until Paste operation is finished ... In fact, the image doesn't show up, there's just a link in the box instead of graphics... no matter what the setting is, see Options, View, View - Images and objects.

Can I suggest that you read post 4 ... I note the odt has not been downloaded yet.

John_Ha wrote:Can I suggest that you read post 4 ... I note the odt has not been downloaded yet.

Oops, I'm very sorry I've forgotten to upload the file.

Meanwhile I've made some exploration and I've ended up with the following:
1. I'll get the link after I paste it into AOO document when I copy any image from https://www.google.cz/search?q=pes&lr=l ... 4#imgdii=_. Image source looks like data:image/jpeg... etc., etc.
2. I'll get graphics (that's what I want!) when I click on any image (so that it zooms in) and then copy & paste into AOO.

Seems that OO 3.1 uses different kind of graphic processing... and maybe I'm missing something.

I'm going to mark the thread as [SOLVED]. Thank you all for your help and for being patient.

P.S. AOO 4.1.1 is slow with links data:image/jpeg... etc., but if performs just fine with pure graphics.

Right click the image > View image information.

The small image (the first dog) is not a "proper? simple?" JPG file - it seems to be a very long binary string which is probably the contents of the JPG file. It hangs AOO when I try to paste it as an image. I expect this is done by the web page designer to prevent casual copying of an image but I don't know - it may just be a consequence of using Java to size the image or something else.
You should always go to the "native" image, in this case by clicking it to get to the 'single image page'. In this case it is a "native" JPG, but sometimes this is a similar type, and needs to be clicked yet again until you get to the "native" image.
Pasting first into a simple image editor is by far and away the best solution as it always works. Similarly, Save As an image file and Insert > Picture always works. Writer is a word processor - it is best to do image processing in an image editor.

Edit: Looking at the Google page source there seems to be a lot of Java. This is to be expected because the images in the Google page are all the same size - they have been scaled from the web pages containing the actual images. Also, I don't think you want the images linked - I think you will probably want them embedded

Here's what I do:

in the browser: right-click on the image and choose Copy Image

In OO: Edit > Paste Special and choose Bitmap.

This works on the Google image search page linked above.

The default paste mode (HTML) pastes some kind of link to Google-only-knows what.

acknak wrote:In OO: Edit > Paste Special and choose Bitmap.

I didn't know that

acknak wrote:In OO: Edit > Paste Special and choose Bitmap.

Can't find Edit in OO 4.1.1 Czech.

Edit is second menu item from left on main menu bar. I can't tell you what it is called in Czech.

RoryOF wrote:Edit is second menu item from left on main menu bar. I can't tell you what it is called in Czech.

Edit (EN) = Upravit (CZ)
Thx very much for your help.