LibreOffice Won't Open

Shax · December 30, 2020, 12:38:22 AM

Good morning, ladies and gents! Hope all are well and keeping safe...

I've been happily using LibreOffice for several years now, on both my home desktop and this laptop. Suddenly, starting a couple of months ago, I have been unable to get the program to open on the laptop. Won't start from the shortcut, won't start from Start Menu and neither from Program Files. Won't start in LibreOffice Safe Mode. I finally uninstalled then reinstalled. Twice. Same problem. Today I re-installed over the top of the existing program, but still not working. (But LibreCAD on the laptop is still fine.) But there are no problems with LibreOffice on my home PC. Both computers are running W10, both get all offered updates...

Would appreciate some advice!

Thanks from Shax.

plodr · December 30, 2020, 01:30:11 PM

I found this from early 2020 where a corrupt user profile can cause this.

Try these steps
https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/229903/libre-office-6403-does-not-run-solved/

Shax · December 30, 2020, 10:18:09 PM

Thanks, plodr. I went to your link, but the instructions kept sending me around in circles! :o
I finally uninstalled the program and installed PlanMaker FreeOffice. So far it seems very good, is quite intuitive and should be enough for my meagre needs. I just hope it plays nicely with the LibreOffice on my other computer...

plodr · December 31, 2020, 03:05:37 PM

I don't use either so I can't tell. Let us know how they get on with each other.
I did have Libreoffice portable on my desktop computer then decided it was overkill for me so I removed it. I also looked and saw I could use extra space on my C drive so that nudged me to remove it. I tired Jarte, which is just for document-type files and didn't care for it. Now I use either Edit pad Lite v 7 or WordPad. If I need something to look at a database, I "borrow" my husband's desktop. He has MS Office and Corel Suite.

Pete! · December 31, 2020, 07:34:11 PM

Quote from: Shax on December 30, 2020, 10:18:09 PM
...... I just hope it plays nicely with the LibreOffice on my other computer...

Do they use the same file format?

For a while I had MS Office on my machine, and Libre Office on my wife's machine.
Although Libre could read MS files, it took a little extra effort to save them in MS format.
It was much more convenient to use Libre on both.

Going WAY back in time... When I switched from Multimate to MS Word. the Multimate files became almost useless....About that same time, I switched from Supercalc to MS Excel. Every time I wanted to use a Supercalc file, I had to first convert it to 123 format, so I could in turn convert it into Excel format.

IMHO: use the same file format(s) on all your machines.

Shax · December 31, 2020, 08:15:06 PM

Back to report that FreeOffice appears to work seamlessly with both Microsoft Office and LibreOffice. In fact, I find it a lot easier to use than LO, and it's noticeably quicker. Apart from the TextMaker (Word alternative) which is really all I need, there is an Excel type replacement which I tested and also does the job without a whimper. Also a Presentation style program which I'll probably never need. Might have a play with that.

I'm going to replace LO on my home PC now...

ETA...a very Happy New Year to all, Let's hope it's an improvement on the last one!

plodr · January 01, 2021, 02:43:26 PM

I might have to try it out. Thanks for reporting back.

Here's the link for anyone who is curious https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice

Boz · January 12, 2021, 07:00:43 PM

Thanks for the input on FreeOffice. I think I'll give it a try on my laptop, which seems to have lost the student registration for MS Office my son put on it when he was a student.

Boz · January 13, 2021, 07:39:31 PM

I installed FreeOffice and did some preliminary testing. I think it's going to do everything I'll need it to do. Thanks, again!