LibreOffice – Why Did Ctrl-F Stop Working in LibreOffice?

11.10libreofficeshortcut-keys

I've basically settled into Unity, but one constant that is kind of giving me agita is that in LibreOffice Calc (and Writer) ctrl-f does nothing. I can go to edit > find ... and the edit menu even suggests ctrl-f as a keyboard shortcut, but actually typing it doesn't do anything. ctrl-alt-f works fine. The only thing that doesn't work is ctrl-f. I had a really hard time getting settled with Unity (mostly trying to get my old Gnome-do and Compiz settings back) so I spent a lot of time monkeying with the Compiz Settings Manager. But I can't figure out where I would have unset/ overrode this. Plus, it isn't like ctrl-f does something unexpected. It just does nothing.

Best Answer

You need to re-map the Ctrl-F keyboard action to 'Find & Replace'.

NOTE: The dialog box (Tools >> Customize >> Keyboard) is hard to use, and I was unable to find the existing 'quick find' that is currently mapped to Ctrl-F.

After several attempts, I was able to map:

  • Shortcut keys: Ctrl-F - to - Category: 'Edit', Function: 'Find & Replace'
  • Shortcut keys: F3 - to - Category: 'Edit', Function: 'Repeat Search'
  • Shortcut keys: Ctrl-Shift-F - to - ( left blank )

( This clearly needs work, by the LibreOffice maintainers. )

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