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robertspierre
Asked: 2020-12-31 04:29:44 +0800 CST

Official .deb WPS Office very slow in opening file - snap version fixes the problem - Why?

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I have installed WPS Office ver. 11.1.0.9719 from official website and official .deb x86_64 package.

This version of WPS Office is very slow in opening some files.

For example, I have this .docx file that WPS Office takes 15 seconds to open, while LibreOffice Writer opens it in 1/2 seconds.

The solution here, which implies changing the theme on which WPS Office runs, unfortunately does not work for me.

I don't even think that the command is correct: if I run WPS Office with et -style=XXX, I can put whatever I want in XXX and it never throws any error, and I notice no difference whatsoever, nor in terms of UI nor in terms of file opening times (not even with the proposed -style=motif).

This does not answer my question as it redirects in installing WPS from snap.

Installing 10.1.0.6757 using snap fixes the problem. Why is that?

My system is:

Operating System: Kubuntu 20.10
KDE Plasma Version: 5.19.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.74.0
Qt Version: 5.14.2
Kernel Version: 5.8.0-33-generic
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 12 × Intel® Core™ i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz
Memory: 15,5 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: GeForce GTX 1060/PCIe/SSE2
kubuntu

3 Answers

  1. NEW ANSWER: It may be due to accessing the internet. Forbidding WPS from accessing the internet makes opening a document significantly faster. The snap version blocks internet access by default, the .deb version does not. See answer below.

    OLD ANSWER

    This was due to missing fonts. If the document is written with fonts that are missing on the system, WPS Office engage in lengthy process of font substitution, and apparently that process is much more lengthy in ver. 11 than in ver. 10.

    To fix the problem:

    1. Wait patiently until your document is loaded. This make take up to a minute or more
    2. Once the document is loaded, go to Menu -> Options

    WPS Menu -> Options

    1. Click on "Font Substitution"

    enter image description here

    Wait until the new window is loaded. This may take a while (30 sec / 1 min)

    1. The "Font Substitution" window should appear. On the left you find the missing fonts, on the right the fonts that have been used as a substitute. Take notice on what fonts you miss. In the following example, we miss only one font, "Tahoma"

    enter image description here

    1. Close WPS. Go on the web and download the fonts that you miss. Copy the missing fonts in a directory in fontconfig search path (for instance, /usr/share/fonts/)

    2. Run fc-cache -f

    3. Re-open the file. This time WPS Office should open it very rapidly.

      You can check that you miss no other fonts. Repeating 2 and 3 should return you the following window:

    enter image description here

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  2. Yes, installing wps from snap will achieve a better speed of startup, but it is still slow (2-3 seconds, right?).

    The reason why wps is slow in startup is due to conflict between wps and ibus. I know this is hard to believe, but if you install fcitx and set it to the default input method and restart your computer, you will find wps (installed from .deb, not from snap) starts in 1 second. This is tested on my machine.

    If you do not want to install fcitx immediately but wonder whether it is the fault of ibus, you can run ibus exit and see whether the startup of wps speed up, but I did not do this ever and cannot guarantee the effect.

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  3. Actually it may be due to internet access.

    The snap version of WPS Office blocks it from accessing the internet, and opening a file is very fast.

    The flatpak version doesn't default to block internet connection (see here), and opening a file is very slow (it takes up to 5/6 minutes to open a presentation).

    If I revoke internet access permissions:

    sudo flatpak override com.wps.Office --unshare=network

    the opening of a file is significantly greater sped up (from 6 minutes to 1/2 seconds).

    Just to double check, if I concede internet access again:

    sudo flatpak override com.wps.Office --share=network

    Opening of a file is slow again.

    Again, this didn't happen with snap because it blocks internet access by default.

    This looks really strange and suspicious ....

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