9 tips for mastering LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer is one of the best-known online word processors. It is an excellent alternative to Word (tips for mastering Word). What’s more, LibreOffice Writer offers several premium features at virtually no cost. Its greatest advantages lie in the fact that it’s free and open source, and offers a navigation and interface familiar to Word. But to make the most of these advantages, check out our 9 tips for mastering LibreOffice Writer. In fact, we explore that in the rest of this article. Zoom in!

What is LibreOffice Writer?

LibreOffice Writer is word processing software from the LibreOffice suite. The software is entirely free and open source, so updates are generally based on modifications made by users.

Using similar actions to Microsoft Word, with LibreOffice Writer you can easily create or edit documents via its interactive text editor. It’s very complete and perfect for anyone looking for a free, feature-rich word processor

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This makes it an ideal alternative to paid software.

Why use LibreOffice Writer?

LibreOffice Writer has many advantages :

• Open source solution
• Easy text creation and editing
• Microsoft Word-like interface
• Free office-editing software
• Full-featured software
• Various functionalities
• Customizable documents from the software
• Possibility of saving documents in different formats

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How to use LibreOffice Writer properly

To become familiar with LibreOffice Writer and to be efficient in processing your documents on the software, it is important to know how to use the LibreOffice Writer tool properly. Discover the essential steps to follow for this.

Speed up performance for easier access

Many people testify dissatisfied with the loading time when using LibreOffice Writer, which is quite long. But don’t panic, it offers a simple solution if you need a helping hand. To do so, click on “Options”, then “Memory”. Once in, change “Use for LibreOffice” to 128 MB and “Memory per object” to 10 MB. This way, you can be sure of speeding up its performance.

Familiarize yourself with the various keyboard shortcuts

If you want to master LibreOffice Writer, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the important keyboard shortcuts. These include F5, Ctrl+F7, F7, F11, Ctrl+F12… In fact, these keyboard shortcuts are more convenient than using a mouse. By using them, you increase your productivity and speed up your workflow.   

Change the default file format

Changing the default file format is beneficial if you’re working solo. This allows LibreOffice Writer to save new documents. To do this, use Microsoft Word’s most popular format, i.e. 2007/2013 XML. But you need to replace “Document type” with Text document before clicking “OK”.

Change the icon set

Of course, the default icon set in LibreOffice Writer is quite distracting when you’re working. But it’s possible to change it if you want to make it more subtle and pleasing. To do so, select “Options” from the Tools menu and LibreOffice from the sidebar. Once displayed, all you have to do is change “Icon style” to Breeze.

Employ browser

If you’re dealing with files longer than a page or two, use the browser. This is the best option for working with complex documents such as research papers, annual reports, etc. To open the Browser, go to the “Sidebar”, then the Browser tab. This gives you the ability to move quickly from one section to another, namely bookmarks, images, headers, hyperlinks…

Customize your styles

LibreOffice Writer offers five main types of styles that you can use to customize your styles, namely styles from:  

• paragraphs,
• list,
• frames,
• character, and
• pages.

But if you want to create your own styles, enter the Styles menu and select Style and formatting.

Create templates

Templates are used to define a common layout and appearance between documents. In fact, the style function only allows you to define a common appearance for paragraphs and other elements in the same document. What’s more, it’s easy enough to create your own. Just follow these simple steps:

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• Create an empty document,
• Define content and desired formatting style,
• Save this as a template,
• Click twice on the “My templates” folder and press save,
• Enter the menu File, New, then Templates to set it as default by clicking on the button intended for this purpose,
• Press OK to finish.

Anchor and detach toolbars

This is one way to personalize your workspace. In fact, LibreOffice Writer, unlike Microsoft Office, lets you dock all the windows you need in toolbars. At the same time, you can detach toolbars from floating windows. In this way, you can familiarize yourself with the program quite easily.

Install extensions

Once again, this option lets you customize your workspace. Indeed, if you’re not satisfied with the features available in LibreOffice, you can add more via extensions. What’s more, this software comes with a handful of extensions included with the basic installation. But you can download and install them later using the add button in the extensions manager.