LibreOffice clipboard issue

[jneug]

macOS Sierra 10.12.5

Alfred v3.4 [850]

LibreOffice 5.2.7.2

 

Alfreds clipboard history seems to interfere with LibreOffice. When clipboard history is enabled pasted text to LibreOffice will always be the last thing copied in LibreOffice. When Alfred is not running everything works fine. Disabling Clipboard history also seems to solve this.

 

I can't reliably reproduce this. It always happens when I work with LibreOffice, but I can't pinpoint the exact event, that triggers this bug.

 

One interesting observation: This also affects TextExpander snippets. Inserting any snippet will paste the same text that was copied from inside LibreOffice before.

[Vero]

@jneug Alfred's clipboard history has a passive read-only view of the macOS clipboard; It doesn't modify, manipulate or use Accessibility to fettle with the macOS clipboard.

 

I've moved this out of the Bugs forum and into Discussion and Help, in case any other LibreOffice users have anything to suggest. If you're seeing this issue with TextExpander as well, it sounds like it's an issue you may want to raise with LibreOffice.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[deanishe]

This is an issue with LibreOffice, not Alfred (as you can tell from the fact that TextExpander is also affected).

 

FWIW, I have LibreOffice 4.3.1.2 and it works perfectly with Alfred, Copied and Typinator.

 

[Goldberry]

Hi -- three years later and I am having this issue as well.  I had it on my old MacBook Pro and hoped it would disappear on my new one, but it's still there.  I've set up all kinds of handy snippets for my editing work and instead of appearing on cue, if I've copied something in Writer, that gets pasted in instead.  The only way to fix it is to switch to another app and back to Writer (which clearly defeats the intention behind snippets!).  Vero from Alfred customer service suggested that I reply to this thread.  

 

I also tried disabling Alfred snippets and setting up "Text" snippets directly on the Mac, but those don't work at all.  It appears they need individual permissions for each app, and LibreOffice doesn't offer the option.

 

Any thoughts on adjustments I could make so that LibreOffice and Alfred can have decorous afternoon teas together?

[Vero]

@Goldberry Welcome to the forum  More specifically, I suggested that if you let us know your exact version and settings for LibreOffice and macOS, @deanishe may have some thoughts on what preferences you may need to change in LibreOffice for to allow clipboard history to work smoothly with Alfred and the clipboard in general.

 

Any thoughts, deanishe?

[deanishe]

It's still working perfectly for me.

 

The only thing I can think of is increasing the "Restore after" delay under Alfred Preferences > Features > Snippets > Auto Expansion Options > Tweaking.

 

I believe the fundamental problem is that LibreOffice has its own clipboard implementation, and it doesn't do a great job of keeping it in sync with the macOS system clipboard.

[Vero]

33 minutes ago, deanishe said:

The only thing I can think of is increasing the "Restore after" delay under Alfred Preferences > Features > Snippets > Auto Expansion Options > Tweaking.

 

That's the first recommendation I made to @Goldberry, which according to their response, did not solve their issue.

 

34 minutes ago, deanishe said:

I believe the fundamental problem is that LibreOffice has its own clipboard implementation, and it doesn't do a great job of keeping it in sync with the macOS system clipboard.

 

Indeed. Context-changing (switching to and from another app) causes LibreOffice's own clipboard to sync with the macOS one, but otherwise, it behaves pretty poorly on that level.

 

@Goldberry There clearly is a way to make this work, as @deanishe is using these together perfectly, so do take a look at LibreOffice's own preferences to see whether there's a better compatibility mode.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[deanishe]

I've no idea if I've changed some of LibreOffice's settings. I can't find any that appear relevant.

[Goldberry]

Hmm.  I have Alfred 4.2.1 and LibreOffice 6.2.1.2.  As the amazing Vero said, I tried changing the speed settings for Alfred snippets and they don't make a difference.  There's a newer version of LibreOffice which I haven't installed yet, but I doubt that will resolve the issue.  Most likely it's because you're using an older version that this isn't a problem for you.  Looks like I'll have to get Word after all!

 

Thanks!

[deanishe]

5 hours ago, Goldberry said:

Most likely it's because you're using an older version that this isn't a problem for you.

 

That post is three years old. I'm running the latest version (7.0), and I've run basically every version ever. I haven't had issues with snippets in LibreOffice in years.

 

Do you have a second screen attached to your MacBook? Or any window-management software running? Anything that might confuse LibreOffice as to which app/window is focussed.

[Goldberry]

Well, I really appreciate the help, but I've tried everything I can think of now.  There's nothing unusual going on with my screen or computer except that I'm using Spaces -- but I had this problem before I started using those, too.  I downloaded the latest version of LibreOffice; I changed every setting I could find (but couldn't really find anything relevant); I tried creating a new file instead of working on one that was converted from Word... all for nothing.  So I have tried Google Docs and decided to use Docs for these files that need heavy editing and conversion to and from Word.  

 

I'll lose a couple of helpful features from LibreOffice like the Find bar, but the Find bar wouldn't tell me how many instances were found or replaced in any case.  The Alfred shortcuts will save me a ton of time and typing when working properly.  Docs doesn't require me to save in a special format while working and export when done, and I had trouble recently with a particular file that showed overlapping letters in LibreOffice until the sender removed the tables.  Docs opened it without a problem.  I can still use LibreOffice for spreadsheets that I'd rather keep on my computer than in the cloud...

 

Thanks again!

[MikeNYC]

I know I'm late to the conversation, but I'm experiencing this problem as well.  I am running Libreoffice 7.1.5.2.

 

Based on a comment by Vero, I discovered that switching to another application and then back to Libreoffice solves the problem temporarily.

 

Undoubtedly, the problem arises via Libreoffices clipboard implementation.