System hangs when opening a large OpenOffice file

Question

The file size is of 50 MB (OpenOffice file). While opening the file the system hangs completely.

Processor : Core 2 Duo

RAM : 1 GB

HDD : 250 GB

OS : Ubuntu 10.10

Note: I have tried LibreOffice too. I experience the same problem both in OpenOffice and in LibreOffice. Any other alternative way to open the file?

can you open the file via a terminal? so if there is a error you can see it? To me it sounds like you are running out of RAM. do you have htop installed? if so you can monitor your RAM when you open the file. — Alvar, Sep 06 '11 at 18:20
How much RAM is the system using? You don't have 1 GB RAM to open a 80 MB file. My Ubuntu system takes about 700 MB of my 1.7 GB RAM. Is the file damaged in any way? Are you able to opne it on another system/computer? :) — Alvar, Sep 10 '11 at 05:06
If you don't want to use htop, you could use this systemindicator instead. It uses some RAM, but it's easy to see how much RAM the system is using.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/30334/list-of-application-indicators/40019#40019 — Alvar, Sep 10 '11 at 05:59
It is opening fine in Microsoft Office but not in open office.. — karthick87, Sep 10 '11 at 09:53
This question should instead be filed as a bug report, thanks! Instructions here. — Jorge Castro, Feb 06 '12 at 15:42

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

2

There are a couple of programs that can open odf files, at least Koffice and Abiword should be able to open it.

You can also try to open it with Google Docs and save it again.

Anyway, you should open a bug in OpenOffice and attach the file there if it's possible (i.e. it's not confidential or personal).

edited Mar 11 '17 at 19:00

Community

1

answered Sep 06 '11 at 15:20

Javier Rivera

35,153

It should be better to file the bug in LibreOffice’s bug tracker. Seems that OOo’s development is almost dead. – fitojb Sep 07 '11 at 01:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '11 at 20:14

wow! how did you get a libreoffice file so massive?! a 100,000 word book is only about 200kb. try alternate text editors such as gedit, koffice, abiword etc. if none of them open it then there's a problem with the file, not the office suite. also try opening it with libreoffice again. the afforementioned book crashed it twice, then it worked the third time.

by the way, Libreoffice and Openoffice are pretty much identical at this point of Libre's development. it has only just split from Openoffice and Oracle.

System hangs when opening a large OpenOffice file

2 Answers2