Xfce Forum

Manticore

Member

Registered: 2016-06-11

Posts: 4

Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

First off, this problem only happens (as far as I know) with XFCE on SUSE Tumbleweed. Enlightenment - no problem. Mint with XFCE - no problem.

Here we go: If I enter any formula in LibreOffice Calc using '+', '-', '*' or '/' I just get the message 'No pivot table found at this position.' followed by '508' or '509' (depending whether the formula is bracketted).

I suspect it's something stupid I've done in the XFCE settings somewhere (nobody else on Internet ever seems to have had this problem) - any ideas?

Jerry3904

Member

Registered: 2013-11-09

Posts: 863

Re: Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

That is bizarre. FWIW, here are those error codes:

508     Error: Pair missing     Missing bracket, for example, closing brackets, but no opening brackets
509     Missing operator             Operator is missing, for example, "=2(3+4) * ", where the operator between "2" and "(" is missing.

Can you run a formula using the toolbar Insert > Function? I always use an equals sign myself.

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MX-23 (based on Debian Stable) with our flagship Xfce 4.18.

Manticore

Member

Registered: 2016-06-11

Posts: 4

Re: Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

Can you run a formula using the toolbar Insert > Function? I always use an equals sign myself.

Inserting a function seems to work fine - as far as I can tell, but none of the ones I looked at contain arithmetic symbols which seem to be the cause. For example; I can do =SUM(A1,D1) but not =(A1+B1+C1+D1). The problem then is that there seems to be no floating point division in the functions - unless it has a really strange name that I haven't found yet. ;^}
The only thing I can think of is that somehow LibreOffice is seeing a control code instead of the appropriare symbol even though it shows correctly on the screen.
(just tried typing a formula in a terminal then pasting it into a cell in calc - error message appears instead.)

Jerry3904

Member

Registered: 2013-11-09

Posts: 863

Re: Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

I am using LO 5.1.0.3 on this laptop, and both these work:

=a1+a2+a3
=(a1+a2+a3)

What version of LO are you using?

The only thing I can think of is that somehow LibreOffice is seeing a control code instead of the appropriare symbol even though it shows correctly on the screen.

I agree that the error is likely inside LO, not in Xfce or SUSE. If that is correct, then you could try exiting from LO, deleting the contents of the config folder

~/.config/libreoffice/

and logging out and back in and relaunching LO. If that doesn't work then do that again followed by an upgraded installation.

Or post on the LO forum for better results...

Last edited by Jerry3904 (2016-06-12 10:37:24)

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MX-23 (based on Debian Stable) with our flagship Xfce 4.18.

Manticore

Member

Registered: 2016-06-11

Posts: 4

Re: Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

I am using LO 5.1.0.3 on this laptop, and both these work:

=a1+a2+a3
=(a1+a2+a3)

What version of LO are you using?

The only thing I can think of is that somehow LibreOffice is seeing a control code instead of the appropriare symbol even though it shows correctly on the screen.

I agree that the error is likely inside LO, not in Xfce or SUSE. If that is correct, then you could try exiting from LO, deleting the contents of the config folder

~/.config/libreoffice/

and logging out and back in and relaunching LO. If that doesn't work then do that again followed by an upgraded installation.

Or post on the LO forum for better results...

As I said before, the problem only occurs in XFCE & only on SUSE, use a different Window Manager (I tried Enlightenment 'cause I like weird) & no problem. Same version of LibreOffice in XFCE on Mint - no problem.

It gets stranger if I import a  *xls file:
Mint, XFCE - OK 
SUSE, Enlightenment - OK
SUSE, XFCE '*' changes to 'AND', '/' changes to 'OR' (possibly other changes - not enough free time to check)

Manticore

Member

Registered: 2016-06-11

Posts: 4

Re: Totally weird problem with XFCE & LibreOffice

After trying a couple of other Window Managers + running LibreOffice straight in X with no WM - all of which gave me the same problem.
:
*** I Solved It! ***

Not XFCE
Not LibreOffice
Not X

I normally set the system RC-LANG to en_GB.UTF-8 and RC-LC-TYPE to en_GB.ISO-8859-1. Some recent update has removed the RC-LC-TYPE setting. For some reason Enlightenment overrides this while other WMs including XFCE do not.

Excuse me while I go out and kick myself for not seeing it sooner.

Back to XFCE (Sigh of relief).

Last edited by Manticore (2016-06-13 11:04:55)