Thursday, March 27, 2008

OpenOffice.Org - Can't See Graphics or Pictures

Symptom:

When you open an OpenOffice.org Writer document, the graphics are disabled, all graphics are showing the [X] mark and you cannot find where to turn this back on. This is likely to have happened accidentally (Can't blame you, that's how that happened to me, and don't know how this has happened either.... Makes my mother-in-law feel better for even a seasoned software engineer can be flabbergasted with things like this at times!)

Solution:
  1. Go to Tools menu. Select "Options..."
  2. In the left panel of the Options dialog box, you should find a + sign on the left of OpenOffice.org Write/Web item. Click the + (if may already been open)
  3. Select View
  4. Find the Display section.
  5. Chcek the item Graphics and objects
Note that there is likely a bug in OO 2.3.1, since once you turn the graphics mode on, you cannot turn it off even if you un-check the box.

Time Wasted To Find This Solution

I was looking for this option all over the menus and other places and Googling "Graphics mode on OpenOffice" would not find any article. It took approximately 30-40 minutes to finally found where this check box was hidden.