Copyright

This document is Copyright © 2010 by its contributors as listed below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version 3.0 or later.

All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors

Ron Faile Jr.
Hal Parker

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to: documentation@libreoffice.org

Acknowledgments

This chapter is based on Chapter 2 of Getting Started with OpenOffice.org. The contributors to that chapter are:

Agnes Belzunce
Daniel Carrera
Peter Hillier-Brook
Stefan A. Keel
Jean Hollis Weber
Michele Zarri

Publication date and software version

Published 30 December 2010. Based on LibreOffice 3.3.

Note for Mac users

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on a Mac from those used in Windows and Linux. The table below gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this chapter. For a more detailed list, see the application Help.

Windows/Linux	Mac equivalent	Effect
Tools → Options menu selection	LibreOffice → Preferences	Access setup options
Right-click	Control+click	Opens a context menu
Ctrl (Control)	z (Command)	Used with other keys
F5	Shift+z+F5	Opens the Navigator
F11	z+T	Opens the Styles & Formatting window

Contents

Note for Mac users 2

Choosing options for all of LibreOffice 4

Security options and warnings 15

Appearance options 16

Accessibility options 17

Java options 17

Choosing options for loading and saving documents 18

General Load/Save options 18

VBA Properties Load/Save options 20

Microsoft Office Load/Save options 21

HTML compatibility Load/Save options 21

Choosing language settings 23

Install the required dictionaries 23

Change locale and language settings 23

Choose spelling options 24

Choosing Internet options 25

Controlling LibreOffice’s AutoCorrect functions 26

This section covers some of the settings that apply to all the components of LibreOffice. For information on settings not discussed here, see the online help.

Click Tools → Options. The list in the left-hand box of the Options – LibreOffice dialog varies depending on which component of LibreOffice is open. The illustrations in this chapter show the list as it appears when a Writer document is open.

Click the marker (+ or triangle) by LibreOffice on the left-hand side. A list of pages drops down. Selecting an item in the list causes the right-hand side of the dialog to display the relevant page.

Because LibreOffice uses the name or initials stored in the LibreOffice – User Data page for several things, including document properties (created by and last edited by information) and the name of the author of notes and changes, you will want to ensure that the correct information appears here.

Fill in the form (shown in Figure 2), or amend or delete any existing incorrect information.

When Tips is active, one or two words will appear when you hold the mouse pointer over an icon or field, without clicking.

When Extended tips is active, a brief description of the function of a particular icon or menu command or a field on a dialog appears when you hold the mouse pointer over that item.

To turn off the Help Agent (similar to Microsoft’s Office Assistant), deselect this option. To restore the default behavior, click Reset Help Agent.

High contrast is an operating system setting that changes the system color scheme to improve readability. To display Help in high contrast (if your computer’s operating system supports this), choose one of the high-contrast style sheets from the pull-down list.

High-contrast style	Visual effect
Default	Black text on white background
High Contrast #1	Yellow text on black background
High Contrast #2	Green text on black background
High Contrast Black	White text on black background
High Contrast White	Black text on white background

To use the standard Open and Save dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use LibreOffice dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Open and Save dialogs supplied with LibreOffice will be used. See Chapter 1, Introducing LibreOffice, for more about the LibreOffice Open and Save dialogs. This book uses the LibreOffice Open and Save dialogs in illustrations.

(Windows only) If you have the GroupWise client installed on the computer, you can select this option to have LibreOffice.org offer to open documents from GroupWise, or save documents in GroupWise. If the GroupWise client is not installed, this option has no effect.

(Mac only) To use the standard Print dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use LibreOffice dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Print dialogs supplied with LibreOffice will be used. This book uses the LibreOffice Print dialogs in illustrations.

If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties as a change and you will be prompted to save the document again, even if you did not make any other changes.

Document status – Allow to save document even when the document is not modified

Normally when a document has not been modified, the File > Save menu option and the Save icon on the Standard toolbar are disabled and the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S has no effect. Select this option to allow documents to be saved even when they have not been modified.

Specifies how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An “earlier” date is interpreted as being in the following century; that is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.

To try out two experimental features in LibreOffice, in-line formula editing and macro recording, select this option.

In the Options dialog, click LibreOffice → Memory. These options control how LibreOffice uses your computer’s memory and how much memory it requires. Before changing them, you may wish to consider the following points:

The options on the LibreOffice – View page affect the way the document window looks and behaves. Some of these options are described below. Set them to suit your personal preferences.

If the text in the help files or on the menus of the LibreOffice user interface is too small or too large, you can change it by specifying a scaling factor. Sometimes a change here can have unexpected results, depending on the screen fonts available on your system. However, it does not affect the actual font size of the text in your documents.

The first box specifies the display size of toolbar icons (Automatic, Small, or Large). The Automatic icon size option uses the setting for your operating system. The second box specifies the icon style (theme); here the Automatic option uses an icon set compatible with your operating system and choice of desktop: for example, KDE or Gnome on Linux.

If you prefer to use the system font (the default font for your computer and operating system) instead of the font provided by LibreOffice for the user interface, select this option.

(Not available in Windows; not shown in Figure 5.) Select this option to smooth the screen appearance of text. Enter the smallest font size to apply anti-aliasing.

Causes the font list to look like Figure 6, Left, with the font names shown as an example of the font; with the option deselected, the font list shows only the font names, not their formatting (Figure 6, Right). The fonts you will see listed are those that are installed on your system.

Causes the last five fonts you have assigned to the current document to be displayed at the top of the font list. Otherwise fonts are shown in alphabetical order.

Directly accesses hardware features of the graphical display adapter to improve the screen display. Not supported on all operating systems and LibreOffice distributions.

Enables and disables anti-aliasing, which makes the display of most graphical objects look smoother and with fewer artifacts. Not supported on all operating systems and LibreOffice distributions.

Specifies if and how the mouse pointer will be positioned in newly opened dialogs.

The “Selection clipboard” is independent of the normal clipboard that you use by Edit → Copy/Cut/Paste or their respective keyboard shortcuts. Clipboard and “Selection clipboard” can contain different contents at the same time.

Function	Clipboard	Selection clipboard
Copy content	Edit → Copy Control+C	Select text, table, or object.
Paste content	Edit → Paste Control+V pastes at the cursor position.	Clicking the middle mouse button pastes at the mouse pointer position.
Pasting into another document	No effect on the clipboard contents.	The last marked selection is the content of the selection clipboard.

Determines the appearance of selected text or graphics, which appear on a shaded background. To make the shaded background more or less dark, increase or decrease the Transparency setting.

If you prefer selected material to appear in reversed color (typically white text on a black background), deselect this option.

On the LibreOffice – Print page, set the print options to suit your default printer and your most common printing method.

In the Printer warnings section near the bottom of the page, you can choose whether to be warned if the paper size or orientation specified in your document does not match the paper size or orientation available for your printer. Having these warnings turned on can be quite helpful, particularly if you work with documents produced by people in other countries where the standard paper size is different from yours.

On the LibreOffice – Paths page, you can change the location of files associated with, or used by, LibreOffice to suit your working situation. In a Windows system, for example, you might want to store documents by default somewhere other than My Documents.

To make changes, select an item in the list shown in Figure 8 and click Edit. On the Select Path dialog (not shown; may also be titled Edit Paths), add or delete folders as required, and then click OK to return to the Options dialog. Note that some items can have at least two paths listed: one to a shared folder (which might be on a network) and one to a user-specific folder (normally on the user’s personal computer).

On the LibreOffice – Colors page, you can specify colors to use in LibreOffice documents. You can select a color from a color table, edit an existing color, and define new colors. These colors are stored in your color palette and are then available in all components of LibreOffice.

Alternatively, click the Edit button to open the Color dialog, shown in Figure 10. Here you can select a color from one of the color windows in the upper area, or you can enter values in the lower area using your choice of RGB, CMYK, or HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness) values.

The upper right color window is linked directly with the color input fields in the lower area; as you choose a color in the upper window, the numbers change accordingly. The two color fields at the lower right show the value of the selected color on the left and the currently set value from the color value fields on the right.

Modify the color components as required and click OK to exit the dialog. The newly defined color now appears in the lower of the color preview boxes shown in Figure 9. Type a name for this color in the Name box, then click the Add button. A small box showing the new color is added to the Color table.

Another way to define or alter colors is through the Colors page of the Area dialog, where you can also save and load palettes, a feature that is not possible here. In Calc, draw a temporary draw object and use the context menu of this object to open the Area dialog. If you load a palette in one component of LibreOffice, it is only active in that component; the other components keep their own palettes.

You can define replacements for any fonts that might appear in your documents. If you receive from someone else a document containing fonts that you do not have on your system, LibreOffice will substitute fonts for those it does not find. You might prefer to specify a different font from the one the program chooses.

Use the LibreOffice – Security page to choose security options for saving documents and for opening documents that contain macros.

If you record changes, save multiple versions, or include hidden information or notes in your documents, and you do not want some of the recipients to see that information, you can set warnings to remind you to remove it, or you can have LibreOffice remove some of it automatically. Note that (unless removed) much of this information is retained in a file whether the file is in LibreOffice’s default OpenDocument format, or has been saved to other formats, including PDF.

Click the Options button to open a separate dialog with specific choices (Figure 13).

Click the Macro Security button to open the Macro Security dialog (not shown here), where you can adjust the security level for executing macros and specify trusted sources.

The following options are on the Security options and warnings dialog (Figure 13).

Select this option to always remove user data from the file properties when saving the file. To manually remove personal information from specific documents, deselect this option and then use the Delete button under File → Properties → General.

In older versions of LibreOffice, clicking on a hyperlink in a document opened the linked document. Now you can choose whether to keep this behavior (by unchecking this box). Many people find creation and editing of documents easier when accidental clicks on links do not activate the links.

Writing, editing, and (especially) page layout are often easier when you can see the page margins (text boundaries), the boundaries of tables and sections (in Writer documents), page breaks in Calc, grid lines in Draw or Writer, and other features. In addition, you might prefer to use colors that are different from LibreOffice’s defaults for such items as note indicators or field shadings.

On the LibreOffice – Appearance page, you can specify which items are visible and the colors used to display various items.

Accessibility options include whether to allow animated graphics or text, how long help tips remain showing, some options for high contrast display, and a way to change the font for the user interface of the LibreOffice program.

Accessibility support relies on Sun Microsystems Java technology for communications with assistive technology tools. See “Java options“ below. The Support assistive technology tools option is not shown on all LibreOffice installations. See Assistive Tools in LibreOffice in the Help for other requirements and information.

If you install or update a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) after you install LibreOffice, or if you have more than one JRE installed on your computer, you can use the LibreOffice – Java options page to choose the JRE for LibreOffice to use.

If you are a system administrator, programmer, or other person who customizes JRE installations, you can use the Parameters and Class Path pages (reached from the Java page) to specify this information.

If you do not see anything listed in the middle of the page, wait a few minutes while LibreOffice searches for JREs on the hard disk.

If LibreOffice finds one or more JREs, it will display them there. You can then select the Use a Java runtime environment option and (if necessary) choose one of the JREs listed.

If the Options dialog is not already open, click Tools → Options. Click the expansion symbol (+ or triangle) to the left of Load/Save.

Most of the choices on the Load/Save – General page are familiar to users of other office suites. Some items of interest are described below.

When you save a document, certain settings are saved with it. Some settings (printer name, data source linked to the document) are always loaded with a document, whether or not this option is selected. If you select this option, these document settings are overruled by the user-specific settings of the person who opens it. If you deselect this option, the user’s personal settings do not overrule the settings in the document. For example, your choice (in the options for LibreOffice Writer) of how to update links is affected by the Load user-specific settings option.

If this option is not selected, the printer settings that are stored with the document are ignored when you print it using the Print File Directly icon. The default printer in your system will be used instead.

If you select this option, the Document Properties dialog pops up to prompt you to enter relevant information the first time you save a new document (or whenever you use Save As).

Choose whether to enable AutoRecovery and how often to save the information used by the AutoRecovery process.

AutoRecovery in LibreOffice overwrites the original file. If you also choose Always create backup copy, the original file then overwrites the backup copy. If you have this set, recovering your document after a system crash will be easier; but recovering an earlier version of the document may be harder.

Relative addressing to a file system is only possible if the source document and the referenced document are both on the same drive. A relative address always starts from the directory in which the current document is located. It is recommended to save relatively if you want to create a directory structure on an Internet server.

ODF format version. LibreOffice by default saves documents in OpenDocument Format (ODF) version 1.2 Extended. While this allows for improved functionality, there may be backwards compatibility issues. When a file saved in ODF 1.2 Extended is opened in an editor that uses earlier versions of ODF, 1.0/1.1, some of the advanced features may be lost. Two notable examples are cross-references to headings and the formatting of numbered lists. If you plan to share documents with people who use editors which use older versions of ODF, save the document using ODF version 1.0/1.1.

Size optimization for ODF format. LibreOffice documents are XML files. When you select this option, LibreOffice writes the XML data without indents and line breaks. If you want to be able to read the XML files in a text editor in a structured form, deselect this option.

Document type. If you routinely share documents with users of Microsoft Office, you might want to change the Always save as attribute for documents to one of the Microsoft Office formats.

On the Load/Save – VBA Properties page, you can choose whether to keep any macros in Microsoft Office documents that are opened in LibreOffice.

On the Load/Save – Microsoft Office page, you can choose what to do when importing and exporting Microsoft Office OLE objects (linked or embedded objects or documents such as spreadsheets or equations).

Select the [L] options to convert Microsoft OLE objects into the corresponding LibreOffice OLE objects when a Microsoft document is loaded into LibreOffice (mnemonic: “L” for “load”).

Select the [S] options to convert LibreOffice OLE objects into the corresponding Microsoft OLE objects when a document is saved in a Microsoft format (mnemonic: “S” for “save”).

Choices made on the Load/Save – HTML Compatibility page affect HTML pages imported into LibreOffice and those exported from LibreOffice. See HTML documents; importing/exporting in the Help for more information.

Use these fields to define the respective font sizes for the HTML <font size=1> to <font size=7> tags, if they are used in the HTML pages. (Many pages no longer use these tags.)

When importing numbers from an HTML page, the decimal and thousands separator characters differ according to the locale of the HTML page. The clipboard, however, contains no information about the locale. If this option is not selected, numbers will be interpreted according to the Language - Locale setting in Tools → Options → Language Settings → Languages (see page 23). If this option is selected, numbers will be interpreted as for the English (USA) locale.

Select this option if you want tags that are not recognized by LibreOffice to be imported as fields. For an opening tag, an HTML_ON field will be created with the value of the tag name. For a closing tag, an HTML_OFF will be created. These fields will be converted to tags in the HTML export.

Select this option to have LibreOffice ignore all font settings when importing. The fonts that were defined in the HTML Page Style will be used.

To optimize the HTML export, select a browser or HTML standard from the Export box. If LibreOffice Writer is selected, specific LibreOffice Writer instructions are exported.

Select this option to include LibreOffice Basic macros (scripts) when exporting to HTML format. You must activate this option before you create the LibreOffice Basic macro; otherwise the script will not be inserted. LibreOffice Basic macros must be located in the header of the HTML document. Once you have created the macro in the LibreOffice Basic IDE, it appears in the source text of the HTML document in the header.

If you want the macro to run automatically when the HTML document is opened, choose Tools → Customize → Events. See Chapter 13, Getting Started with Macros, for more information.

When the LibreOffice Basic option (see above) is not selected, the Display warning option becomes available. If the Display warning option is selected, then when exporting to HTML a warning is shown that LibreOffice Basic macros will be lost.

Select this option to export the print layout of the current document as well. The HTML filter supports CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets Level 2) for printing documents. These capabilities are only effective if print layout export is activated.

Select this option to automatically upload the embedded pictures to the Internet server when uploading using FTP.

LibreOffice automatically installs several dictionaries with the program. To add other dictionaries, be sure you are connected to the Internet, and then use Tools → Language → More Dictionaries Online. LibreOffice will open your default web browser to a page containing links to additional dictionaries that you can install. Follow the prompts to select and install the ones you want.

You can change some details of the locale and language settings that LibreOffice uses for all documents, or for specific documents.

On the right-hand side of the Language Settings – Languages page, change the User interface, Locale setting, Default currency, and Default languages for documents as required. In the example, English (USA) has been chosen for all the appropriate settings.

If you want the language (dictionary) setting to apply to the current document only, instead of being the default for all new documents, select the option labelled For the current document only.

If necessary, select the options to enable support for Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and support for CTL (complex text layout) languages such as Urdu, Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic. If you choose either of these options, the next time you open this dialog, you will see some extra choices under Language Settings, as shown below. These choices (Searching in Japanese, Asian Layout, and Complex Text Layout) are not discussed here.

To choose the options for checking spelling, click Language Settings → Writing Aids. In the Options section of the page (Figure 25), choose the settings that are useful for you. Some considerations:

Here you can also check which user-defined (custom) dictionaries are active by default, and add or remove dictionaries, by clicking the New or Delete buttons.

Use the Internet Options pages to define search engines and save proxy settings for use with LibreOffice.

If you are using a Mozilla browser (such as Firefox) on Windows or Linux, you can enable the Browser Plug-in so you can open LibreOffice files in your browser, print them, save them, and work with them in other ways.

If you are using a Unix- or Linux-based operating system (including Mac OS X), an additional page of E-mail options is available, where you can specify the e-mail program to use when you send the current document as e-mail. See Figure 26. Under Windows the operating system’s default e-mail program is always used.

Windows and Linux installations also have a Wiki Publisher extension included by default. Select MediaWiki in the Internet options, then click the Add button to open the dialog shown in Figure 27. Here you can specify the address (URL) and login information for a wiki. You can add several wikis to the list.

Some people find some or all of the items in LibreOffice’s AutoCorrect function annoying because they change what you type when you do not want it changed. Many people find some of the AutoCorrect functions quite helpful; if you do, then select the relevant options. But if you find unexplained changes appearing in your document, this is a good place to look to find the cause.

To open the AutoCorrect dialog, click Tools → AutoCorrect Options. (You need to have a document open for this menu item to appear.)

In Writer, this dialog has five tabs, as shown in Figure 28. In other components of LibreOffice, the dialog has only four tabs.


Figure 6. Font list (Left) With preview; (Right) Without preview