Strange behavior discovered in LibreOffice and hopefully fixed

Hi, folks, one thing gave me lots of headaches last week.

It is about LibreOffice program, which is opening the spread sheet and draw files extremely slow. Task manager says that LO is not responding for a few seconds and then after 20 or even more seconds, the file is finally opened.
I have read a lot for this problem, which turned to be common. Somebody wrote on another forum, that that's connected to the printer. I decided to try to uninstall the HP Smart app /dedicated for HP printers/ and voila, now all files associated with LO are back to normal. Will stuck with the built-in Microsoft printer driver.

What is exactly the reason, with 20H2 and latest updates of OS and LO, not heavy LO files, will remain a mistery for me.

What do you think, any thoughts?

Hope that this info could help other folks in this forum.

I'm going to make a guess that this is LibreOffice first checking printer physical availability then checking device capability, e.g. media size (A4, etc), no. of trays, etc.

Try installing a virtual pseudo-printer like Foxit Reader and making it the default printer... and make sure that Windows is not set to manage printing (i.e. in Settings, deselect Let Windows manage my default printer).

(Note: You may be able to use the built-in Microsoft Print to PDF pseudo-printer as default. I wouldn't know... I always remove it as a feature 'cos its PDF output files are always so much larger in filesize than other pseudo-printers.)

Being software-based a virtual printer (set as default) is always available... so LibreOffice can check it quickly. When you come to print you can then always select your physical printer instead.

Hope this helps...

RickC said:

I'm going to make a guess that this is LibreOffice first checking printer physical availability then checking device capability, e.g. media size (A4, etc), no. of trays, etc.

Try installing a virtual pseudo-printer like Foxit Reader and making it the default printer... and make sure that Windows is not set to manage printing (i.e. in Settings, deselect Let Windows manage my default printer).

(Note: You may be able to use the built-in Microsoft Print to PDF pseudo-printer as default. I wouldn't know... I always remove it as a feature 'cos its PDF output files are always so much larger in filesize than other pseudo-printers.)

Being software-based a virtual printer (set as default) is always available... so LibreOffice can check it quickly. When you come to print you can then always select your physical printer instead.

Hope this helps...

Sorry folks, false alarm, it didn't work...

After a clean install, the same story... What I have noticed is, when I turn the printer on, the LO files open normally and quick.
Is there anything to do with WIFI connection? Seems like LO search for wifi connection first and then open the files, so when the printer is offline, takes longer. Does it make sense and where to search for solution?

Thanks @RickC for your answer and I'll keep in mind.