[libreoffice-users] Big Problem with LibreOffice for Mac

Greetings
 
I am writing you about a big problem I’ve been having with Libre Office Writer, specifically on a 
Mac. I was very happy to find this app for the specific reason that I have hundreds of those little 
black file icons displaying “EXEC” on them, these are files created with past versions of MSWord 
dating back to the 80s. I need to be able to access those files and LibreOffice is the only app I 
could find capable of doing it. Years ago I had Open Office and tried to reinstall it but it didn’t 
work. So I discovered LibreOffice on your website and eagerly downloaded it. Then I had a problem 
with that. Finally I saw it on the Apple App Store and thought, surely this will work, because 
Apple would have vetted it for use with Macs. It still didn’t work properly. So I used the most 
stable version I could find, Version: 24.8.4002.
 
The problem is that I could open the documents by opening the Libre Office app and dragging and 
dropping the file to a page where previous files are shown as thumbnails and dropping the file. It 
would immediately open, so far so good, but then I was not able to save the file. It would work 
sometimes but not every time. I found at that point I could print the file but not save it. I 
thought maybe I could copy and paste the text into a new MS Word file. In the odd case where I 
could paste it successfully, I then couldn’t save the Word file! Then I had other random memory 
issues such as dragging and dropping a single file like a jpg or small document into a folder on 
the desktop. I was able to save some files to Libre but not all. I would choose Save As… And 
sometimes I would get the window to name and save a file and where to save it. Other times, (in the 
majority) I would get the spinning beach ball, in both Word and Libre and I would have to force 
quit the app or even restart the app or restart or shut down the Mac before I could continue 
working. Very time consuming and frustrating. It also seemed to cause MS Word to do the same thing. 
 
I am using the latest OS of the Mac, macOS Sequoia 15.3.1. on a 2019 iMac. I also have 32 GBs of 
RAM on this Mac and 2 TBs of disk space on the internal HD.
 
I spent many hours on the phone with Mac Tech Support and they finally referred me to contact you. 
I tried to reach you already, at various email addresses, but heard nothing back. I have a genius 
bar appointment tomorrow at my local Mac Store. But I thought I should alert you to the problem of 
Libre causing chaos with Macs, including your version available in the Apple Mac App Store. 
 
I am rooting for you and for Libre to continue to open these old documents in a smooth and stable 
way. I am no fan of Microsoft but is the word processor I know best. Shame on them for not 
producing a version of Word that could open documents saved in all its previous versions, and good 
for you for what Libre can do in this regard.
 
I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Sincerely 
 
John Mallon
+1-405-819-7521
johnmallon@mac.com <mailto:johnmallon@mac.com>



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