[Solved] OpenOffice Disaster AGAIN

[benlev@aol.com]

Disaster strikes again with Open Office and figures. PLEASE help me fix this. Someone helped me last year when this happened.
This is a document with about figures in it. For some reason, Open Office pastes 100's of the same figure into a single space and the document takes hours to open. The only way to fix this on my end is to wait for the document to open and then manually delete the 260 extra figures that are piled one on top of each other.

Please help. I cannot attached the file because it is blown up to 300KB.
Here is a link to a dropbox with four revisions of the file. It stopped working after the 4th.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s4v7ibbh2r3m ... 9Z5Fa?dl=0

Thank you for any help. I'm ready AGAIN to give up on Open office. can some send me back the file! This report is due today!

[FJCC]

I downloaded the documents and fixed one by editing the content.xml file to remove a large number of references to one image. That version has been emailed to the OP.

[RoryOF]

My memory is that this problem was probably caused in the previous case by use of Track Changes. I honestly think the OP ought reconsider either his method of work or his choice of software.

[benlev@aol.com]

Caused by use of Track Changes? How is that? And can this be fixed?
Thank you for sending the fix! I will go look for it now.

[RoryOF]

Answer: it is your file - you should know what changes you have inserted, so best not to use Track Changes. Track Changes seems to break files when there are many recorded changes.

Edit: John_Ha may be able to confirm that it is Track Changes, when he comes on-line

[benlev@aol.com]

So simply turn off track changes? Yes. That's an easy fix. Thank you. I don't need the feature. It is on automatically but I will turn it off.

[RoryOF]

I'm reasonably sure it is the problem, but as I deal with many queries on Forum my memory may be incorrect.

[RusselB]

Track Changes can significantly increase the file size, as all of the recorded changes, whether accepted or not, become part of the document.

[benlev@aol.com]

Thank you for saving my day! There were only minor fixes to be made and I sent the report off to my client.
I learned:
1. Turn off Track Changes
2. Never paste figures directly into Open Office. Always save the figures and insert picture.
3. To repair a document, save it as .zip and open it as XML. In a text or XML editor search for the word FRAME and delete all the redundant Frames.

[John_Ha]

Thank you for saving my day! There were only minor fixes to be made and I sent the report off to my client.
I learned:
1. Turn off Track Changes
2. Never paste figures directly into Open Office. Always save the figures and insert picture.
3. To repair a document, save it as .zip and open it as XML. In a text or XML editor search for the word FRAME and delete all the redundant Frames.

Ben

I don't know why it is happening. As far as I can see the growth in the file is not due to track changes - it is caused by hundreds and hundreds of repeated <draw:frame ..., commands being inserted in the XML. The counting is incorrect - see below.

You should definitely not have Record changes set to ON all the time. The correct use is
1. You write something
2. You send it to me to proof read. I set Record changes ..., to ON and make my changes. I send it back to you.
3. You Accept or Reject each change I made as required.
4. You set Record changes to OFF and carry on editing the file.

To make any recommendations we need to know exactly how the file is being used.

1. Is it being edited only by AOO?
2. or by AOO and by MS Word?
3. Or by AOO and MS Word and Apple Mac Pages?
4. Or by AOO and something else?
5. Is anyone using Record changes?
6. Is anyone attaching comments to a range of text? We are pretty sure that attaching comments to a range of text causes problems.

I have no idea why these multiple frames keep appearing. One workaround you could try is deleting all the frames. They are inserted when you add the captions to the three images (and there is a fourth somewhere as well). Delete them. Add a border to the image itself if you like a border. Add the Figure 1: xxxxxx ..., text manually below the image or in a separate small frame just containing the caption text. That way you have no frames so they shouldn't be able to get replicated.

I see that the repeated frames have the typical mis-counting we see in problems of this sort. Note how the count goes 17 > 18 > 19 > 110 > 111 ... It is as though the first digit remains the same, and the second digit is counting. It is clearer if I write it as 1-7 > 1-8 > 1-9 > 1-10 > 1-11...

[benlev@aol.com]

Thanks for these recommendations. These are all bugs that really should be addressed. I prefer AOO over Microsoft etc, but it's becoming hard to support when these things happen. The document is original in AOO and then usually sent to an editor who edits on a Mac. They will be using a PC now to help with any problems. The figures are an integral part of the reports so possibly moving to a complex page layout program may be better. Something like Framemaker etc. All your support on this forum has been fantastic. Thank you, all.

[John_Ha]

These are all bugs that really should be addressed.

They will almost certainly never be fixed in AOO which is to all intents and purposes dead. You may find LibreOffice better.

The document is original in AOO and then usually sent to an editor who edits on a Mac.

The key question is what software do they use? is it AOO on the Mac? or is it Pages on the Mac? Or is it MS Word on the Mac?

The figures are an integral part of the reports so possibly moving to a complex page layout program may be better

No - what you are doing is absolutely trivial and should easily be handled by AOO or by LO. You have some text and four images - that is peanuts!

[benlev@aol.com]

Sorry to hear AOO is dead. Good work you guys did. I hate to use the software from the evil empire so I will look at Libra

Everybody in my organization is using AOO. I don't know why the problems.

[Zizi64]

I will look at Libra

The name of the forked office suite is LibreOffice.
https://www.libreoffice.org/
I suggest you to use the latest Still version.
The Fresh version is for "technology enthusiasts, early adopters or power users".

[John_Ha]

I have been communicating with Ben by email. This is the summary which strongly suggests that AOO is causing the problem.

Ben

Thanks - that helps me a lot. See my additions below coloured blue.

Let me try this. I reuse previous files for each report.

Not the best idea as it leads to heavily edited files which can get tangled. Far better is to create a template from one report and use it. Or use the template file I sent you. For each new report open the template and save it as the new report. That way each new report starts from a virtually unused file.

I produce a report and then when I have to make the next report I simply rename the old one and start. When I start, the first thing I do is that I change about 15 properties. I use properties a lot.

As above - much better to start each new report from the template.

One problem is that I have "track changes / Record / Do Not Show" set. I understand that this is a problem. As I work I "accept all changes" occasionally.

Do not have track changes on!! It is intended for proof readers to show the changes they make. It makes a file much more complex because it keeps every keystroke in the file and you can recreate the file back to any point in its history.

This specific report I have used dozens of times with no problem. I have attached the report that I made this report from. It is OK.

As I am working on the report and add more figure suddenly everything slows down. When I scroll back I notice that the figure is labeled "Figure 459". I know I have a problem. There are other signs that there is a problem.

So this proves it is AOO causing the problem and not another program.

I think the problem was caused because I got lazy at one point and I needed to put a clip of a screen shot into my document.

I very much doubt that.

Normally, I make the clip and save it as jpg. I name it "Figure_2" and then use Insert > Picture to place the figure. I got lazy and simply did the screen shot using Windows "Snipping Tool" and simply pasted the figure into the document.

Copy and pasting an image into a document is fine and it would not have caused the problem. The only effect pasting has is that the image is stored in the document as a PNG file to ensure that no information is lost. If it was a photo, the PNG file will be ~3x larger than the same JPG file because PNG does not compress photos well.

I believe this is when everything went bad.

So, my recommendations are:

1. Stop re-using the last report I typed for the next report.

2. Create a new report from the template I sent you. Or, if your report has changed a lot, create a new template, or master copy. The idea is to reduce the number of times a file is edited to prevent it getting tangled

3. Make sure Edit Changes is set to OFF.

See if that fixes it - I am almost certain it will.

At some time in the future you may want to consider migrating to LibreOffice.

I raised a bug report some time ago where AOO appears to corrupt a file with a strange counting error as a result of recording changes - see Issue 127745 - Read Error: Format error discovered ... at n,nnnn (row,col)