Bug 165860 - /home/<user>/Templates (XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR) must not be used in LibreOffice's Templates configuration to store its templates (like OTT)
Summary: /home/<user>/Templates (XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR) must not be used in LibreOffice's ...
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Installation (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/issue-w...
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Reported: 2025-03-22 11:26 UTC by Mike Kaganski
Modified: 2025-03-22 11:26 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description Mike Kaganski 2025-03-22 11:26:34 UTC
Ref: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/issue-when-creating-templates-on-linux-mint/119843/

In *some* distributions, the default LO user profile has "Templates" directories configuration like

  /home/<user>/.config/libreoffice/4/user/template;/home/<user>/Templates

The addition of the latter "/home/<user>/Templates (i.e., XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR) is wrong and breaks the intended Templates directory usage. XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR is *intended* for files that are *copied* verbatim, when user uses a file manager's New functionality. On the other hand, LibreOffice's own internal Templates directory is used for storage of true template files (like OTT), which differ from normal documents not only in the file extension, but also in the MIME and ODT type (stored inside the package). When configured like shown above, the user's templates created in LO and stored there using the normal 'File->Templates->Save as Template' would appear then in file manager's New menu, and copied to the chosen location as is (as e.g. OTT), breaking the workflow.

I don't know what's responsible for the configuration (my personal LO on Ubuntu-under-WSL has no such config - but on Ask, I see that a user with Mint has it); maybe it's a specific distro's problem (and so it would be NOTOURBUG), but let me file it here for now. :)