I am hard pressed to get some documents/spreadsheets finished by Monday so decided cut my losses and purge all of [LibreOffice] from my system and install [OpenOffice].

Installation was a breeze, seems to work properly out of the box, did not bitch about anything and opened my spreadsheets without failing in any, both [*.xls] and [*.ods]. I expect that it will be the same with [*.doc] and [*.odt], have not tried yet.

And most gratifying: the problem with [LibreOffice] is not present in [OpenOffice]. 8^D
So, unless something tragic happens, it will be [OpenOffice] from now on.

I really do not need the grief and waste of time this last issue brought me.
Much less if the cause was [LibreOffice] favouring "nice-looking graphics" over a properly working UI.

So I will mark this one as solved.

Thanks to all those who pitched in.

Best,

A.

Much to my chagrin, the problem I reported in the OP remains.
And my search for a solution only found that it comes from as far back five/six years back.

I managed to use [synaptic] to remove the installation without much problem.
Settings are still there as I did not purge.

Now, while I was looking into the different uncompressed directories still present in [/tmp], inside the main one I came across a file labelled [README_en-US] which (rather unsurprisingly) had this neat little tidbit:

So, now we know what the priorities are for the [LibreOffice] development team. 8^°

TL;DR: slow and quirqy but nice-looking.

No, switching off 'Tools - Options - LibreOffice - View - Use Anti-Aliasing' did not help.

Q: how can I tell [apt] to install one of the previous versions?
ie: one or two versions before the current one in the Daedalus repository.

Best,

A.

Indeed ...
The 'latest' advancements.

The scourge of IT by another name.
Unjustified "advancements", things no one asked for or needed.

Soon they will add video editing capabilities to it and it will be even more "advanced".
Enshitiffication and bloat just for the sake of it.

Or maybe for the sake of being as much as [MS-Office] as possible?

If I had to choose, the Linux equivalent of the stand alone [MS-Word 6.0] (over 26 years after it was EOL'd.) would still be more than enough for me. I should have a copy somewhere.

Best,

A.

Thanks so much for the prompt reply.

Good.
That is how I work with unregistered [Master PDF Editor 5].
Have not had to resort to my XPSP3 VM / Adobe Pro 7.0 for the longest while.

Good to know.

Same here.
When I need to send someone a document it is in in [*.pdf], [*.doc] or [*.txt].
If a spreadsheet (not often) it is in [*.xls] usually because of whoever receives it does not use [OpenOffice]. 
When [*.xls] and [*.doc] it is in [MS-Office 97] format.

It would be great if Open Office could be purged of unused stuff.
ie: only install what is needed.

Seems easy enough.
Q: is language pack needed if I have my box running in english? ie: en_GB

Right.
Will try that and see how it goes.
Hopefully the problem I am having now (and did not have before) will not be present.

Will report back once the deed is done.

Thank you very much for your help.

Best,

A.

You download three packages from their website (main, help and language pack) and extract the contents to /tmp.
When you do an update of the main version, like in this case from 7.4 to 7.6, you need to remove the old stuff first of all. Settings remain in place.

# apt remove libreoffice*

Installation:

# cd /tmp/Libreoffice_xyz_Linux_x86-64_deb/DEBS
# dpkg -i *.deb
# cd /tmp/Libreoffice_xyz_Linux_x86-64_deb_languagepack_nn/DEBS
# dpkg -i *.deb
# cd /tmp/Libreoffice_xyz_Linux_x86-64_deb_helppack_nn/DEBS
# dpkg -i *.deb

I cannot remember what the previous version was.
ie: 7.4.7.1?

I have not been happy with OpenOffice for a good while now.
I managed because I could, but this problem is really very annoying.
Have lost a lot of time (in shrt supply at the moment) trying to find a fix.   

I could try but I could also roll back to the known.
Even the inteface has changed.
eg:
In the previous version I could see a progress bar when it autosaved or I saved a file I was working on.
For whatever reason, that is now gone.
Seems that visual indication of a file being saved is no longer important.

> ... not using the LO version from the repo.
I see.

I'd say my options would be:
1. find a way to safely roll back to the previous repository version (or the one before it) and pin it.
2. install a newer version from the LO repository and pin it, say 7.6.7.2?

Opinion?

Seems that enshittifacion is in full force all over the IT world, if it continues at this pace, we are doomed.

Thanks for your input.

Best,

A.

my office capabilities stalled long time ago; will see if can catch up to latest advancements. maybe not even needed, after all.

I have never liked the idea of an 'office suite'.
Would have preferred Linux have stand alone applications like eons ago when you could install MS Word and Excel separately and not have to deal with a behemoth.

That said, I have used LibreOffice since I moved to Linux and it has worked well most of the time, having OpenOffice and LibreOffice side by side seems a complication.

The main problem I see (in all) these 'suite' things is bloat, bloat and more bloat.
The issue I have probably has roots there.

Best,

A.

there are guides no how to install them completely in parallel, that should still function , too, via the .debs (complete, with menu-integration).

https://askubuntu.com/questions/360224/ … n-parallel

Hmm ....
OK.

For the very first time in over nine years:

- bump>
I have not been able to find anything but complaints about this on the web.
Any ideas?
<bump -

If not, how to properly roll back to the previous version of LibreOffice.

Best,

A.

Since the last LO upgrade (to 7.4.7.2?) I find that my scrolling (via the up/down/left/right keys) has become a nuisance.
If I press the [up] or [down] key to move to another cell it does so but slow so that when I let off the key, the scrolling continues and ends up further than I needed, like if it filled a buffer.

Quite annoying, to put it mildly.
Does not seem to happen in LibreOffice Writer.

I have not been able to find anything but complaints about this on the web.

Any ideas?

Best,

A.