autotext in 4.xx

Thomas_Blasejewicz · February 23, 2014, 2:06pm

Good evening
I am using LO 3.6 on two desktop machines (Win XP) and recently upgrade
a note PC (Win 7) to 4.1 something.
Tonight I tried to create an "autotext entry".
While I can do that in 3.6, I found that most of the buttons in the
autotxt dialog box in the newer version are greyed out.
Meaning, I can neither record a new text entry nor create a new category.

I do suppose, there is a trick to it somewhere.
If so, I would really like to know it, BEFORE I upgrade my two work
machines in order to prevent all the
trouble that come with "going back to the good old times" ...

(why does everything that was working just fine always has to change -
in often incomprehensible ways?)

Thank you in advance.
Thomas

Toppa-2 · February 25, 2014, 3:23pm

Good morning (past midnight again) from Japan
Am I the only one having trouble here?
Today I installed "4.2.1.1" (still not available through the official LO
website!) on the note PC running Win7.
Nothing changes.
Although In spend hours trying to figure this out, creating new autotext
entries or categories remains impossible (buttons grayed out)
Yet, this works in LO3.6 as well as in OO 4.1

Am I missing something important?
Since I am writing books, having certain phrases or text blocks
available through autotext would be a GREAT help.

Thank you in advance.
Thomas

(2014/02/23 22:56), Thomas Blasejewicz wrote:

Dries_Feys1 · February 25, 2014, 4:01pm

Hi Thomas,

I just tried this on my computer by following the instructions in the manual.

To Create an AutoText Entry
1. Select the text, text with graphics, table, or field that you want
to save as an AutoText entry. A graphic can only be stored if it is
anchored as a character and is preceded and followed by at least one
text character.
2. Choose Edit - AutoText.
3. Select the category where you want to store the AutoText.
4. Type a name that is longer than four characters. This allows you to
use the Display remainder of name as suggestion while typing AutoText
option. If you want, you can modify the proposed shortcut.
5. Click the AutoText button, and then choose New.
6. Click the Close button.

I also downloaded the 4.2.1.1 from the official website about a week
ago, so I don't know where you were looking.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

Met vriendelijke groeten, Salutations distinguées, Kind Regards,

DRIES FEYS
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Toppa-2 · February 26, 2014, 1:34am

(2014/02/26 1:01), Dries Feys wrote:

Hi Thomas,

I just tried this on my computer by following the instructions in the manual.

5. Click the AutoText button, and then choose New.
6. Click the Close button.

Thank you!
That is what I did with older versions and would like to see happening, but the "AutoText" button is and remains greyed out = cannot be clicked.
Similar thing with new categories. There the "New" button remains greyed out.

I also downloaded the 4.2.1.1 from the official website about a week
ago, so I don't know where you were looking.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

Yesterday I went to the official site and tried download LO several times, but always got an 404 error.
Today it seems to be working.

nikjoh · February 26, 2014, 11:33am

Hi Thomas

Just to recap:
You've upgraded Windows from XP to Windows 7 and then upgraded LibreOffice 3.6 to 4.1.

The path to the user folder is moved by Windows in the upgrade of Windows. My guess is that the path to the AutoText-files, that is stored under that folder, did not get converted properly.
- Open the dialog AutoText (Ctrl + F3) and click on Paths...
- Do you see a path that looks something like this:
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice 4\user\autotext

If you do not see such a path then you can add it and try again. You might also want to check the paths for other program functions.
Go to Tools -> Options... and in the dialog that pops up look under the section LibreOffice -> Paths (the list to the left). If you see an entry that starts with C:\Documents and Settings... it is likely wrong so select it in the list and click on the button Default. If everything goes well you should now see a path that starts with C:\Users\...

After Windows XP Microsoft moved a lot of folders around among others the %AppData% folder where the user profile of LibreOffice is stored. Now the problem is that these files contains some settings that links to the paths that no longer exist.

Sorry for the late answer, I hope this solves your problems.
If it does not, please let us know what paths are listed in your AutoText dialog so we can figure out what else might have gone wrong.

Anyway let us know how it turns out.

Regards,
Niklas Johansson

Toppa-2 · February 27, 2014, 2:28am

(2014/02/26 20:33), Niklas Johansson wrote:

Hi Thomas

Just to recap:
You've upgraded Windows from XP to Windows 7 and then upgraded LibreOffice 3.6 to 4.1.

The path to the user folder is moved by Windows in the upgrade of Windows. My guess is that the path to the AutoText-files, that is stored under that folder, did not get converted properly.
- Open the dialog AutoText (Ctrl + F3) and click on Paths...
- Do you see a path that looks something like this:
C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice 4\user\autotext

If you do not see such a path then you can add it and try again. You might also want to check the paths for other program functions.
Go to Tools -> Options... and in the dialog that pops up look under the section LibreOffice -> Paths (the list to the left). If you see an entry that starts with C:\Documents and Settings... it is likely wrong so select it in the list and click on the button Default. If everything goes well you should now see a path that starts with C:\Users\...

After Windows XP Microsoft moved a lot of folders around among others the %AppData% folder where the user profile of LibreOffice is stored. Now the problem is that these files contains some settings that links to the paths that no longer exist.

Sorry for the late answer, I hope this solves your problems.
If it does not, please let us know what paths are listed in your AutoText dialog so we can figure out what else might have gone wrong.

Anyway let us know how it turns out.

Regards,
Niklas Johansson

Thank you!
One misunderstanding: the note PC on which I installed LO4.2 has been running Win7 from the start.
I followed your advice and checked the paths and noticed that the PATH to the autotext includes at the end the folder "autotext",
BUT, in fact, there was no such folder under that directory! (is this not supposed to be created automatically during installation?)
So, I manually created that folder and now things seem to working as they are supposed to be.

This is the kind of "twist in events" that ordinary mortal people do not think of so often ...
Thanks again.
Thomas

Tom_Davies1 · February 27, 2014, 8:10pm

Hi
It doesn't happen that way very often! First i've seen of this
particular case in 3 years! Going in to look at the paths for some
other reason happened maybe 1 or 2 years ago. It's a neat trick to
know :))

Congrats and regards from
Tom