Search function not working in Libre (1 Viewer)

[Andy Adcock]

I've been using this equivalent of Office for quite a while now but recently, the search function is returning the message 'search key not found'.

This is now the constant result despite my knowing that there definitely are, results to be found for most of my searches within my documents. I haven't changed any of the search parameters that I'm aware of and I've tried, randomly ticking all the boxes, nothing works.

Here's a screen shot which shows a search I carried out and you can see from the searched document that 'Hook-tip', should get a result, row 259

 

[Mono]

The screen shot shows "Formulae" selected for the "Search in" option. Is that important the text you are looking for is not a formula.

 

[delia todd]

I've only been using LibreOffice for a few weeks and still trying to get to grips with it LOL It's very similar to OpenOffice which I used to use but for some reason wouldn't download onto my laptop after a collapse.

I didn't get that search box up with I tried to search, so did a bit of research and now see how to get it. The default is set to "formulae", with only two others - values and comments.

I've searched one of my own spreadsheets with formulae selected and it finds things for me.

Have you tried using the basic little search bar from CTRL+f. Then clicking the up or down arrows?

Can you get that search box menu up by default, instead of the little search bar at the bottom?

 

[Andy Adcock]

The screen shot shows "Formulae" selected for the "Search in" option. Is that important the text you are looking for is not a formula.

I've just tested that against the two options which are 'comments' and 'values' but no success.

 

[Andy Adcock]

This does work Delia, thanks but it doesn't solve the conundrum as to why this function has stopped working in Libre. I downloaded an update this morning in the hope that this would cure it, it didn't.

 

[delia todd]

This does work Delia, thanks but it doesn't solve the conundrum as to why this function has stopped working in Libre. I downloaded an update this morning in the hope that this would cure it, it didn't.

No, it sure doesn't Andy. But it does prove there's nothing wrong with the contents in the cell, such as a full stop which you can't see for instance.

The only other things I can suggest to try, is to click into a cell above it, then try the search again. Then a cell below it, if the first doesn't work.

Did you try searching for "Beautiful" and "Beautiful Hook-tip? Try copy/pasting from the cell to the search box.

If that doesn't work, add some gobbledygook into any empty cell then try searching for it.

After that I'm stuck LOL

It's just trying to work out if there's

 

[Andy Adcock]

No, it sure doesn't Andy. But it does prove there's nothing wrong with the contents in the cell, such as a full stop which you can't see for instance.

The only other things I can suggest to try, is to click into a cell above it, then try the search again. Then a cell below it, if the first doesn't work.

Did you try searching for "Beautiful" and "Beautiful Hook-tip? Try copy/pasting from the cell to the search box.

If that doesn't work, add some gobbledygook into any empty cell then try searching for it.

After that I'm stuck LOL

It's just trying to work out if there's

Thanks Delia,
this isn't a new issue, about three weeks now and believe me, I've ticked and unticked and searched for everything possible since it occurred.

 

[Mono]

Just had a quick look at the solutions other folk had found to similar problems and many revolve around unchecking the "Entire Cells" option.

 

[THE_FERN]

Just had a quick look at the solutions other folk had found to similar problems and many revolve around unchecking the "Entire Cells" option.

That was going to be my comment. Your search would only find cells where the entire cell contents was "Hook-tip" from the screenshot.

Also to say there is/was a turbo charged search and replace plugin for libre/open office which was aiming at more complex regular expression queries. Suspect that's further than you want to go, but it would be an alternative to built-in search if that's really not working

 

[Andy Adcock]

Thanks all for comments and suggestions,
still not fixed, I've been using it for years now with no issues and suddenly..........

 

[John Nihon]

With 'Entire cells' selected I can reproduce the 'Search key not found.' message in Open Office.




With 'Entire cells' deselected I don't get a problem.



With 'Entire cells' selected I need to entire the entire text to avoid the 'Search key not found.' message.



This is in Open Office (similar) though and I did notice that others have mentioned the 'Entire cells' option.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Thanks John,

I'll check this.

Edit: Success!

Checked it multiple times and that's fixed it, thanks again for your time John.

 

[THE_FERN]

[Actually, ability to do regular expressions searches is one of the super-wonderful things here. XL should have adopted this years ago (still hasn't!)]

 

[Andy Adcock]

[Actually, ability to do regular expressions searches is one of the super-wonderful things here. XL should have adopted this years ago (still hasn't!)]

What does the 'entire cells' function actually do, apart from frustrate, simple searches!

 

[delia todd]

You simply have to put the complete text into the search if you select entire cells; i.e. "beautiful hook-tip", instead of just "hook-tip".

Sometimes it can be useful to have the descriptor in a separate column, with the species in another to avoid this issue.

I see you don't have column header names (or you've not frozen the panes)? If you do that the Autofilter function can be very useful (Data>Autofilter).

Here's a screen grab for it. A very useful way of looking for stuff.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Thanks D,

 

[John Nihon]

Thanks John,

I'll check this.

Edit: Success!

Checked it multiple times and that's fixed it, thanks again for your time John.

Happy to hear that you're all sorted.

 

[THE_FERN]

What does the 'entire cells' function actually do, apart from frustrate, simple searches!

Well maybe you want to discriminate between cells which contain the thing your looking for and those which only contain the thing you're looking for.

This is perhaps more often the case when you are searching for numbers (which you probably don't do much, but most spreadsheet users do). For example, I might want to find cells which have "1" and exclude those which have "1.1". That's where "entire cells" comes in

(You can search equivalently using regular expressions. The search string would be ^1$ in this case)

 

[njlarsen]

What does the 'entire cells' function actually do, apart from frustrate, simple searches!

To do a word example: assume you have a cell with the content of "John and Mary" and another one with "John". If you enter John into the search with "entire cell" unchecked you get both. If you check the option of entire cell, then you only get the second location.
Niels

 

[Andy Adcock]

To do a word example: assume you have a cell with the content of "John and Mary" and another one with "John". If you enter John into the search with "entire cell" unchecked you get both. If you check the option of entire cell, then you only get the second location.
Niels

Thanks Niels but with that checked, I wasn't getting any results at all, unless the hyphen is important?