Currently the only way I know to open a template is via the Template Manager or via the Templates view of the LibreOffice start screen. In both cases, only templates that are “installed“ (i.e. located in the Templates directory or registered via an entry in registrymodifications.xcu) are available for selection. However, it is not too uncommon to receive a template from somewhere to be used in a specific project, which is then naturally stored in a directory for that project. The need to edit the template can still arise. I can’t find a way in the Open dialog or via any right-click actions to open the template itself, instead of opening a new document derived from the template. There might be more right-click actions available e.g. from Windows Explorer, I only tried Linux. But there should be some way of executing this action from the application itself, perhaps in the regular Open dialog or via a different Open command. If I haven’t overlooked some already existing way to open a template that is stored in a normal user folder for editing, then it should be added. Thanks.
Created attachment 160924 [details] solution Hi, there is a GUI for that. Please look at my video. In this video you can see 2 methods of using templates on linux: 1. See the path for templates in Tools - Options - Paths - > you can see the path or you can change the path if you don't like. And everything using GUI. 2. Gnome is offering you a folder named Templates where you can placed templates and you can create very easy a new documents from this one. (see the second part of the video) So, I condsider this as a resolved bug. Please came here again if something is not clear.
Hi, thanks for responding and for even providing a video – given that I talk about internals such as registrymodifications.xcu you could well have assumed that I know the settings well enough to understand a description in text form. :-) I do admit that you have found some way of having the GUI offer my template for editing even if it is not stored in the regular templates folder. But this is completely infeasible and I hope I can explain why. I discard the second part of your answer because that involves moving the file to the templates folder – I was specifically asking about a file in a folder related to what I called a project so this part of your answer circumvents the premise that the template is not the templates folder. I am talking about a template that is stored in a folder that is related to actual work that I am doing – which is why I used the word “project”. This is a folder containing files I work on in relation to a certain task, which I am only actively using for a few days perhaps and maybe again a few weeks later. You are suggesting that I make LibreOffice consider that folder more like a configuration folder. In a normal user situation, these quite distinct parts of the file system. I may only need to open this template from a project folder a few times. I may have to instruct someone else to do the opening. It is simply not appropriate to change my configuration each time I want to open a template for editing. It is not right to have to configure each such folder as a folder for LibreOffice to discover new templates. In the scenario where I pass the file on to others for editing it becomes a very difficult support situation. As an additional issue, you don’t seem to have gone the whole way and actually make a new template appear in templates, edit it, and then get back to the original state. I now have, several times – it was a terrible and unreliable user experience. The setting you mention is where LibreOffice discovers “new” templates to add to its collection. The template appears in that collection and there is no immediate way of making it disappear again. One such way, finding it in the template manager and choosing “Delete“, actually deletes the file. I’ve experienced that while working with my actual template collection (because I renamed some of them) and was lucky to have a backup. Imagine the support issues involving that. This bug report is about a template that I want to edit a few times. It simply is not feasible to change my configuration and then worry how to change it back each time. Also, strictly speaking what you are suggesting is an abuse of that function because you are supposed to add folders there which contain several templates for continued use, possibly divided into subfolders. A folder that contains day-to-day work is not that kind of folder. Also, at the time of writing I have added my example folder to the Paths setting a third or fourth time and cannot get LibreOffice to rediscover the template file in it, although it worked earlier and the file is still there (thank goodness). I have given up for the time being and hope that the template will magically appear again, at which time I will finally remove my example folder from the paths setting again. So while I have to congratulate you for finding *some* GUI process of offering that template to me via the GUI, I also have to say that your answer does not seem to have seen my issue from the user’s perspective at all, and neither has it thought the whole process through. I was trying to talk about a one-time kind of way of opening a template for editing. Please do not consider this issue as resolved – it is not resolved in any way.
Update: Turns out I had to rename that file while the folder was still present in the Paths setting to make my template reappear. Several iterations of restarting LibreOffice and clicking Refresh in the templates manager had not done the trick. A user experience that I am glad to leave behind, not in the least suited for making template available for editing for small number of times.
There is File > Templates > Open Template... menu command, which does what you want.
That’s it, thank you! To everyone involved, sorry for producing so much noise only for such a small but fundamental oversight. Feel free to set this issue to invalid or “not a bug” or whatever suits best.