MEPIS Community Forum

This is a new one to me on an operation I do regularly. I save a simple 6-sheet spreadsheet with no problem, then 'Export to PDF' for emailing to others. This gives me an LO Write error 'The file could not be written' - see screenshot.

This only affects this file as far as I can tell - I have a dozen others from the same template and all export fine. This file has 2 sheets protected, but I've tried removing the protection and the error persists.

I've checked permissions - I'm the owner on file and folder. I've tried changing the filename and exporting to a different folder, but no luck.

Any ideas?

Phil

What version of LO? I seem to remember running into PDF export errors with 3.5 beta, and was one of many reasons I went back to 3.4.4 where there are no problems with that function.

Version 3.4.3, so should be OK, and I've had no problems on many other files. What could it be about this file?

A known LibreOffice bug
https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/sh ... i?id=42614

Check and reset your Print Ranges.
If that doesn't work you may have to Save As a .xls file, exit, then open the .xls file.

Brilliant, Tim. Simply setting the print range on one of the sheets to 'Entire sheet' solved the problem. Bit of a mystery why I've not encountered the problem before.

Phil

If you notice, the bug is still open. No proposed patches.

I believe it's related to the way LibreOffice does worksheet tabs. I've noticed that setting a print range on one tab will often mess up the print range on another.
Also, unlike Excel, you can't have different page orientations for different tabs. That is, If you set tab2 to landscape mode, tab1 will change to landscape as well. I've pretty much given up trying to use multiple tabs in LibreOffice for anything that needs print ranges set.

I suspect that fixing the apparently small bug that got you will end up requiring a ton of rewriting to fix properly.

Maybe the reason I haven't had problems previously is that I rarely set print ranges - I usually just print 'All sheets' or 'Selected sheet'. I've no experience of Excel - I came direct from Lotus 1-2-3 to OpenOffice in Windows.

If I have any complicated printing needs, I pass the files through my VBox WinXP. Two reasons - one, I've failed to get my Konica-Minolta printer fully set up in linux - monochrome printing is perfect, but colour is a no-no, with lousy blurred outlines. Two, I've got used to an excellent print utility in Windows - FinePrint - which lets me easily assemble multi-page documents for printing. So I can print individual pages from a spreadsheet in different orientations, add a scanned map, add a plot from my GPS program, change the page order and print the whole thing double-sided. I can also create the combined pdf using the companion pdfFactory. Sounds a kludge, but it's quicker than typing this!

Some of my (Excel) spreadsheets at work have a number of tabs, some of which need to be printed & some not. In general there's one or more tabs for raw data, other tabs with formulas that massage it and calculate it into the correct formats and several tabs that display it in the way the manager wants it displayed at different times.
I'd like to convert it all into LibreOffice but aside from the time it would take to convert the formulas & VB code there are still things involving indirect links that I can't get LibreOffice to do properly. And then there's this bug. So I still use Excel at work. And that's a shame because in other ways such as formatting that works consistently and actually displays on screen what you're going to get on the printer, LibreOffice is far better.Boy, I could have used something like that when I was doing Lotus 123 spreadsheets in the late 80's. 123 was a fine program but it's printing options were, well, basic (to be kind). It was Excel's print formatting that really killed 123. Pretty printing sold Excel, Powerpoint, and Windows to be able to run them.

Those were the days! I wrote my first major 123 app in April 1985 - a spreadsheet to record times, calculate overtime hours at various multipliers and print timesheets for signature for 75 staff. Printing to an early HP Laserjet, the weekly run took over 3 hours!

Phil

One can have different page orientation for different tabs. What confuses Excel users is that the Format / Page dialog changes the current page style for all shares that share the same style, that is by default all of them, using the "default" style.
In order to proceed, one has to create a new page style and apply it to the tabs.

assuming your workbook is currently set to all-portrait.
press F11 for "styles and formatting" dialog.
press "page styles" button
right-click on "Default", take "New".
Set landscape page; name the style for example "landscape".
For each tab you want in landscape, select that tab and double-click on newly created "landscape" style

Now only those tabs are in landscape mode, the others stay in portrait.

This applies to all other settings in the Page Style dialog.