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LibreOffice Portable Support

Many of the most common issues that arise when using LibreOffice Portable are addressed here. Please read through the various topics to see if any of them address your question. You can also post a note to the LibreOffice Portable Support Forum.

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LibreOffice Portable-Specific Issues

General LibreOffice Issues

Installing LibreOffice Portable

To install LibreOffice Portable, just download the portable package at the top of the LibreOffice Portable page and then double-click it. Select the location you wish to install to and click OK. An LibreOfficePortable directory will be created there and all the necessary files installed. That's all there is to it..

Can You Pick Which Apps Are Installed?

You can not due to the way LibreOffice is structured. Unlike, say, Microsoft Office, which is actually multiple programs that are loosely interconnected, LibreOffice is actually one big application with multiple functions. So, even if you were to only install Writer and Calc, it would only save you a grand total of about 9MB from a (typically) 400MB+ install. You can hide any LibreOffice apps you don't wish to use in the PortableApps.com Platform by right-clicking and selecting hide.

Using LibreOffice Portable

To start up LibreOffice Portable, just double-click LibreOfficePortable.exe file where you installed LibreOffice Portable on your portable drive. Then, use it just like you would a local copy of LibreOffice. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Stay Safe - When using portable apps, it's always a good idea to practice Safe Portable App-ing.
  • Removing Your Drive - When you're done, exit LibreOffice and then wait for the activity light on your removable drive to stop flashing. Then select the 'Safely remove [device]' option from the icon in the system tray. If you remove the drive while it is writing, you may lose data.

Install extensions

If You want to use extensions with LibreOffice Portable You have to install them with the option 'only for me' and never with 'for all users'. This is the only way to take care that Your extension and the settings are stored in the Data/settings folder and will be still available after updating LibreOffice Portable. Keep in mind that every installed extension could leave stuff on the host machine!

Using Java With LibreOffice Portable

LibreOffice Portable up to the initial version 3.3.0 has built-in support for using Oracle Java from a portable device, allowing you to use some database functionality that require it. jPortable, the portable Java runtime, can be installed in one of two locations:

  • X:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\Java (Highly Recommended as other apps can use it)*
    * with LibreOffice Portable installed to X:\PortableApps\LibreOfficePortable
  • ...\LibreOfficePortable\App\Java

Upgrading LibreOffice Portable

General Upgrades: To upgrade to a newer version of LibreOffice Portable, just download a new copy and install it to your portable drive on the same place as the existing version.

Portable Apps Suite Upgrades: A new version of the suite that contains this new LibreOffice Portable version is coming soon.

Copying Your Local LibreOffice Settings to LibreOffice Portable

If you're using a local copy of LibreOffice, you may wish to just copy your local settings right into LibreOffice Portable. Your local LibreOffice settings are usually installed in C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\LibreOffice\ Just copy everything in that directory to the LibreOfficePortable\Data\settings\ directory and you're all set.

Additional Options

There are a few additional options that can make using LibreOffice Portable even easier:

  • Starting Writer, Calc, etc Directly - In addition to the included mini-launchers, you can also start the LibreOffice Portable applications directly by passing a commandline parameter. You can pass this directly to LibreOfficePortable.exe (which is useful when using PStart and other menus), or use a custom INI file (explained in the readme file in the Other\LibreOfficePortableSource directory). The options to start the apps are: -base -calc -draw -impress -math -writer. Just pass one of those and the app will start right up.

Running from CD (LibreOffice Portable Live)

LibreOffice Portable supports running from a CD. Start off by downloading and installing LibreOffice Portable to your hard drive... it doesn't matter where. Run it at least once to generate the default settings. Then, customize it as needed, being sure not to move LibreOfficePortable.exe or any of the other critical files. Then, burn the whole LibreOfficePortable directory to a CD and you're ready to go.

Known Issues

The following are known issues with this package:

  • Trojan/Virus detected - AntiVir and Avast, on more than one occasion, have claimed there is a trojan or virus in the launcher. This is due to poor trojan detection in both products that will occasionally mis-identify many NSIS-based applications as trojans. It will usually occur after a definitions update. You should contact your antivitus provider and let them know of their mistake.
  • Long Paths and Odd Characters - LibreOffice doesn't like running from overly long paths. So, while it will work directly from your desktop... if you have it within a subdirectoy on your desktop, it will probably fail claiming that some files are corrupted. LibreOffice also doesn't like certain characters like dollar signs in the path. This is why it's best to have the LibreOfficePortable directory in the root of your drive, or within a PortableApps directory in the root of your drive. The launcher attempts to check this for you and will let you know.
  • LibreOffice Portable don't start and insists another version is running - Work around (thx to DBB). Open the following file in a text editor (like notepad): LibreOfficePortable\App\AppInfo\Launcher\LibreOfficePortable.ini At the bottom of the first section "[Launch]" add the following line: SingleAppInstance=false save and close the file and the program will load.

Modifications

We made some modifications to the default version of LibreOffice to make it more USB key friendly (decreasing total install size and the number of writes to the drive, which will increase drive life). These changes are listed here so you'll know what they are, and so you can recreate the process, if so desired.

  • Friendly Launcher - LibreOffice Portable Launcher is included allowing you to launch LibreOffice Portable from anywhere you'd like. It automatically handles paths to Java, your documents directory and an included temp directory and set the language automaticly to the actual language of the PortableApps.com Suite. (Manual changes over Tools-Settings will have no effect! But if You will use LibreOffice Portable without the suite it will start with the language You have choosed in the installer and You will be able to change Your Language over Tools-Settings.)
  • Installed Options - The pieces of LibreOffice included are those that are of use when run portably. Thus, elements like the Explorer extension, ActiveX control etc are left out to save space
  • Mini Launchers - Launchers for each LibO app are also included.
  • EXEs and DLLs Compressed - All EXEs and DLLs were recompressed using UPX. This gets our installed size down to one that is a bit more manageable. Additionally, it will speed up use of LibreOffice when you're running over USB 1.1. The options used were: --best --compress-icons=0 --nrv2e --crp-ms=999999 -k
  • JARs re-compressed - The JAR files in (without the classes folder) have been recompressed at the maximum level using 7-zip, getting our package size down. (For the curious, JAR files are just ZIP files with a different extension)
  • Additional Icons: By default, LibreOffice Portable includes the Galaxy icon set. Add other icon sets by installing the LibreOffice Portable 3.x Image Pack.
  • The portable version comes with its own MSVCRT runtime in order to work on systems without local installed runtime too

Version History

  • 3.3.0 - January 27, 2011
    • First portable Version of LibreOffice
    • New PortableApps.com Installer/ LibreOffice Portable Launcher