using libre office with portable apps

users
#1

Hi all

1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

2) When copying text from a web page it puts the text in a space of its
own with a line above and below the text from margin to margin to remove
the lines I have to cut the text, I am then able to delete the lines and
replace the text without any lines, I am not able to delete the lines
without cutting the text first.

Any suggestions welcome

Colin

#2

Hello Colin,

Hi all

1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

Sorry, but I have no idea what might be wrong here. It should not take 2 minutes to start LibO, even if it comes from a USB key. Maybe you can investigate more at the portableApps website? I think I've heard, that they have a forum, where you can ask questions.

2) When copying text from a web page it puts the text in a space of its
own with a line above and below the text from margin to margin to remove
the lines I have to cut the text, I am then able to delete the lines and
replace the text without any lines, I am not able to delete the lines
without cutting the text first.

How do you copy the text? With CTRL+C and CTRL+V? Or Shift+Delete and Shift+Insert? Those commands insert the copied text with its original formatting. Try "paste special" instead. You can find this in the "insert" menu, where it is called "paste special". Or you can try the key combination CTRL+Shift+V. In the then appearing dialog box select "Text only".

Any suggestions welcome

I hope, this helps.

Sigrid

#3

wrote Re [libreoffice-users] using libre office with portable apps:

1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

USB sticks are much slower than hard disk drives, but 2 minutes seems
excessive. Did you actually time the load with a timer?

#4

Colin

1) Since you are using Win XP I assume that the machine is a little old.  That
means that the USB port is probably a USB 1 port.  That will run much slower
than a USB 2 port.  I have the same problem in the one lab I teach in.  This lab
is the last stop before the machines get recycled so the technology is old and
slow.  Or a second thought is that your flash drive may be getting old.  They
will slow down to a crawl as they wear out.  This is true especially when you
try to save something to it.

2) When I copy and paste from the web into a LO document I use the paste special
function.  Use the Edit menu Paste Special then paste as Unformatted Text.  A
faster way to do the same thing is to click on the drop down button next to the
Paste Button on the Standard (top) Tool Bar then click on Unformatted text. 
Pasting as unformatted text strips off all the web coding that you can't see.

Hope this is helpful.

John McAtee

#5

Other thing that could be making problem is:

  1) Xp

  2) If you have an Antivirus that check the USB before allow you to use
it

#6

jorge <jrodriguez17@cpcecr.com> writes:

wrote Re [libreoffice-users] using libre office with portable apps:

>1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
>"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
>or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
>and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

USB sticks are much slower than hard disk drives, but 2 minutes seems
excessive. Did you actually time the load with a timer?

Other thing that could be making problem is:

  1) Xp

  2) If you have an Antivirus that check the USB before allow you to use it

This would really slow it down. Unless Windows happens to cache data
from the USB drive (and if it does, you also need enough RAM for the
caching to be effective), an antivirus with one of these lovely
"background protections" will effectively force you to read LibreOffice
from the flash drive *twice*, one for the AV scan, other to run it.

And one minute would sound more or less like a delay to expect for a
somewhat big program.

As people already pointed out, the speed of the port you're connecting
the stick to can be another bottleneck. That and the speed of the stick
itself.

Check if the other portable apps (the ones which perform way faster) are
as big as LibO, to rule it out as the culprit (or not).

#7

Colin-2 wrote:

1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

Hi Colin-2,
I also use LO Portable, however I usually run it off my local hard drive
(long story, don't ask). I usually find that it takes a while to start up,
but not as long as 2 minutes. I think 20 to 30 seconds is more likely (from
cold start).

I just tested if from my flash disk (using the portableApps launcher), took
about 30 seconds, although I am using Windows 7. Do you have all the
Windows XP service packs installed (I believe the latest is SP3)? You can
check this by right-clicking on "My Computer" > Properties.

The link for the LibreOfficePortable forum is:
http://portableapps.com/forums/support/libreoffice_portable
I know there have been some discussions about start-up time of LO portable,
if not in the LO portable forum then elsewhere on the PortableApps site.
Unfortunately, I can't really remember the suggestions (except disabling
tooltips or something), so you'll probably have to check it out yourself.

Regards
Jack

#8

Hi All

Perhaps I was a little over estimative in my timing I have timed the process and it took 1.30sec to load the switchboard then a further 1 min to load Writer both the port and stick are usb2 the pc has 1.79GHz ram the processor Intel cel 1.80GHz

For comparison I timed the loading of Thunderbird it loaded in 50secs

Many thanks

Colin

#9

Probably the files in the pen are badly fragmented.

Since that is a pen (and not a hard disk) the easiest, fastest and most
efficient way to defrag is simply to MOVE all contents to a folder in
another disk (preferably a HDD) and then move them back.

Since files are moved sequentially they will be written in consecutive
clusters and therefore defragmented.

HTH :wink:

#10

The speed of individual USB devices can vary tremendously from painfully slow (5MB/sec) to pretty fast (25MB/sec). To get fast, you must pay a significant premium. For comparison, your internal SATA hard drive is cranking in the 50-100MB/sec range.

It is a common misunderstanding that flash drives are faster than hard drives. Even at their best, they are limited by the USB connection. USB2 is not a particularly fast connection compared to a decent internal hard drive on SATA and many implementations are weak. Older Macs, for instance, have a terrible USB implementation that maxes out at about 11MB/sec. It does not matter how fast your flash drive is.

Cheers,
                tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.
todhopkins@hillmanncarr.com

#11

Colin-2 wrote:

1) When using Writer or any other of the programms from LO through
"Portable Apps" off a USB stick, is it normal that it takes about 2 mins
or more to load I seem to wait forever. I have other applications I use
and they seem to load much quicker, I am using this mainly on XP pro.

Hi Colin-2,
I also use LO Portable, however I usually run it off my local hard drive
(long story, don't ask). I usually find that it takes a while to start up,
but not as long as 2 minutes. I think 20 to 30 seconds is more likely (from
cold start).

I have tried the Portable version on several USB "sticks" and I noticed that it took different amounts of time for each one. I know that each one have different "speed" rating for how long it takes to transfer files to-and-from them. So that could be a reason for your time delay. The more expensive your thumb drive, or flash drive, the faster it usually can transfer files - if you buy the same storage size. I have noticed that the 1 and 2 GB thumb drives are a little faster than the 4 GB version, even thought it was rated a little faster. So I might be wrong, or it could also depend on the storage space the drive has, or even the internal circuitry.

On my Vista laptop [Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T3200 @ 2.00GHz], it takes about 1.5 to 2.5 minutes to load up and run. So it also can be the computer you are using. The faster the USB port, the faster the computer, the faster the load time and such.

I just tested if from my flash disk (using the portableApps launcher), took
about 30 seconds, although I am using Windows 7. Do you have all the
Windows XP service packs installed (I believe the latest is SP3)? You can
check this by right-clicking on "My Computer"> Properties.

The link for the LibreOfficePortable forum is:
http://portableapps.com/forums/support/libreoffice_portable
I know there have been some discussions about start-up time of LO portable,
if not in the LO portable forum then elsewhere on the PortableApps site.
Unfortunately, I can't really remember the suggestions (except disabling
tooltips or something), so you'll probably have to check it out yourself.

Yes the less extensions and other add-ons, the faster LO-portable should load.