Bug 166845 - Edit > Find does not work (Cmd+F does not work either)
Summary: Edit > Find does not work (Cmd+F does not work either)
Status: NEEDINFO
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.2.3.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) macOS (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-06-03 15:32 UTC by Gareth Randall
Modified: 2026-01-27 12:59 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
How the toolbar appears after pressing Cmd+F (25.83 KB, image/png)
2025-06-03 18:39 UTC, Gareth Randall
Details
How the toolbar appears after clicking on it (32.61 KB, image/png)
2025-06-03 18:39 UTC, Gareth Randall
Details

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Description Gareth Randall 2025-06-03 15:32:40 UTC
In Writer:

1. Pressing Cmd+F should open the Find dialog but instead does nothing. 

2. Choosing Edit > Find from the menu should also open the dialog but instead does nothing.

This bug has existed for many releases (feels like several years now).

(If this bug is not already being dealt with then let me know as I may be able to contribute a patch.)

Thanks!
Comment 1 Gareth Randall 2025-06-03 18:39:07 UTC
Created attachment 201085 [details]
How the toolbar appears after pressing Cmd+F
Comment 2 Gareth Randall 2025-06-03 18:39:39 UTC
Created attachment 201086 [details]
How the toolbar appears after clicking on it
Comment 3 Gareth Randall 2025-06-03 18:49:04 UTC
Please can you make the default be to create a floating Find toolbar, unless the user has specifically asked to add the Find toolbar to their UI using View > Toolbars > Find ?

I have found that Cmd+F is supposed to activate the Find toolbar rather than bring up a dialog. However, on my 1440x900 display the toolbar is displayed in such a way that nothing visible happens and the text box to type into does not appear at all. See attached images.

Thanks!
Comment 4 Gareth Randall 2025-06-03 18:50:13 UTC
Comment on attachment 201085 [details]
How the toolbar appears after pressing Cmd+F

Note that there is no text box visible to type in to.
Comment 5 Robert Großkopf 2025-06-04 13:12:22 UTC
No Mac here, Linux instead. Toolbar appears on the bottom of the page, above status bar.
Comment 6 Andrew Kopf 2025-06-05 17:48:29 UTC
Good Morning Gareth,
I was unable to reproduce the error in Windows 11.

Version: 25.2.3.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: bbb074479178df812d175f709636b368952c2ce3
CPU threads: 22; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (10.0 build 26100); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 7 Jeremy Norvell 2025-06-06 23:17:13 UTC
Hello, testing on MacOS the Find toolbar appears as normal for me. However, I am able to reproduce your pictured settings and I think the Find toolbar may be appearing in a non-standard position which is cropping it. Furthermore, you may be able to adjust the toolbar position so it's not cropped.

Please try these steps:
1. Go to "View" -> "Toolbars" -> "Lock Toolbars" : I believe this will have a check mark next to it based on your screenshot. Select this to uncheck it. LibreOffice will prompt for a restart.
2. Once the restart cycle is complete, the find toolbar should now have a handle to the left of it (next to the red "X" to clear a search). 
3. Mousing over this handle will change your cursor to a hand, and you should be able to move the toolbar.
4. I moved it back to the default location (lower-left corner) and it allowed the toolbar to change from being cropped to fully displaying the default items.
5. You can re-lock the toolbars (if desired) once complete.

Can you see if that restores the expected behavior?

Tested on the following versions of LibreOffice:

Version: 25.8.0.0.alpha1+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 84da1f50ca8261129909901c2ff72adb9c67510a
CPU threads: 8; OS: macOS 15.2; UI render: Skia/Metal; VCL: osx
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Version: 25.2.3.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: bbb074479178df812d175f709636b368952c2ce3
CPU threads: 8; OS: macOS 15.2; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: osx
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 8 Gareth Randall 2025-06-07 10:05:47 UTC
Thanks Jeremy for this. Yes, your procedure works correctly for me, although I wouldn't say it restores the expected behaviour since I would expect that at least something visual should change on the screen if the "Find" text input box is not visible at the time Cmd+F is pressed.

Is it possible that the code could highlight the text box specifically and force it to be shown?

Also, the following appear (to me) to be bugs:
1. In the screenshots the text "Find Values" appears instead of the box to enter text in to.
2. Even when clicking on the "Find Values" text, it does not become a text box or do anything to allow the search text to be entered.

If the "Find Values" could be made in to real a text entry field that becomes highlighted by Cmd+F, or is made to turn in to a text entry field on Cmd+F, then this would be sufficient (to me) to meet expected behaviour. I.e. something so that it doesn't just look like nothing happened.

Thanks for your help.
Comment 9 QA Administrators 2025-11-25 15:39:10 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 10 Buovjaga 2026-01-27 12:59:50 UTC
(In reply to Gareth Randall from comment #8)
> Also, the following appear (to me) to be bugs:
> 1. In the screenshots the text "Find Values" appears instead of the box to
> enter text in to.
> 2. Even when clicking on the "Find Values" text, it does not become a text
> box or do anything to allow the search text to be entered.

You could try resetting your entire user profile to return everything to factory settings: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile#Resolving_corruption