Getting Started Guide

Chapter 4

Getting Started with Writer

Word Processing with LibreOffice

Copyright

This document is Copyright © 2010–2016 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors

are listed below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General

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Acknowledgments

This chapter is adapted and updated from Chapter 4 of Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3.x.

The contributors to that chapter were:

Jean Hollis Weber Michele Zarri Agnes Belzunce

Daniel Carrera Spencer E. Harpe Peter Hillier-Brook

The table below gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this chapter. For a more

detailed list, see the application Help.

Contents

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................ 2

Publication date and software version......................................................................................... 2

Note for Mac users...................................................................................................................... 2

Status Bar.................................................................................................................................... 6

Sidebar........................................................................................................................................ 8

Using the Find toolbar........................................................................................................... 14

Using the Find & Replace dialog........................................................................................... 15

Inserting special characters....................................................................................................... 16

Inserting dashes and non-breaking spaces and hyphens.......................................................... 17

Setting tab stops and indents..................................................................................................... 17

Changing the default tab stop interval........................................................................................ 18

Checking spelling and grammar................................................................................................. 18

Using built-in language tools...................................................................................................... 19

Using AutoCorrect...................................................................................................................... 20

Using word completion............................................................................................................... 20

Formatting characters................................................................................................................ 22

Autoformatting........................................................................................................................... 22

Creating numbered or bulleted lists........................................................................................... 23

Using the Bullets and Numbering toolbar.............................................................................. 23

Using the Sidebar for Bullets and Numbering........................................................................23

Hyphenating words.................................................................................................................... 24

Automatic hyphenation.......................................................................................................... 24

Manual hyphenation.............................................................................................................. 25

Including the total number of pages...................................................................................... 28

Restarting page numbering................................................................................................... 28

Changing page margins............................................................................................................. 29

What is Writer?

Writer is the word processor component of LibreOffice. In addition to the usual features of a word

processor (spelling check, thesaurus, hyphenation, autocorrect, find and replace, automatic

generation of tables of contents and indexes, mail merge and others), Writer provides these

important features:

The main Writer workspace is shown in Figure 1. The menus and toolbars are described in

Chapter 1, Introducing LibreOffice.

Some other features of the Writer interface are covered in this chapter.

Status Bar

The Writer Status Bar provides information about the document and convenient ways to change

some document features quickly.

Click in the Page Number field and type the sequence number of the required page and

press Enter.

Word and character count

The word and character count of the document is shown in the Status Bar, and is kept up to

date as you edit. Any text selected in the document will be counted and this count will replace

the displayed count.

To display extended statistics such as character counts excluding spaces, double-click the

word count in the Status Bar, or choose Tools > Word Count.

Page style

Shows the style of the current page. To change the page style, right-click on this field. A list of

to exclude the text from a spelling check or choose More to open the Character dialog. Any

If a frame is selected, then the wrap panel opens but may be grayed-out if frame wrap is

Inserting special characters

A special character is one not found on a standard English keyboard. For example, © ¾ æ ç ñ ö ø

¢ are all special characters. To insert a special character:

1) Place the cursor where you want the character to appear.

2) Choose Insert > Special Character to open the Special Characters dialog.

3) Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish to insert, in order, then

click OK. The characters selected for insertion are shown in the lower left of the dialog. As

you select a character, it is shown on the right, along with its numerical code.

space between the two words.

In cases where you do not want the hyphen to appear at the end of a line, for example in a number

To enter en and em dashes, you can use the Replace dashes option on the Options tab under

Tools > AutoCorrect Options. This option replaces two hyphens, under certain conditions, with

the corresponding dash.

– is an en-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “n” in the font you are using. Type at least

— is an em-dash; that is, a dash the width of the letter “m” in the font you are using. Type at least

Setting tab stops and indents

(by pressing the Tab key on the keyboard).

Using the default tab spacing can cause formatting problems if you share documents with other

people. If you use the default tab spacing and then send the document to someone else who has

chosen a different default tab spacing, tabbed material will change to use the other person’s

A better strategy is to define tabs for the paragraph style. See Chapters 6 and 7 in the Writer

Guide for more information.

Using tabs to space out material on a page is not recommended. Depending on what

you are trying to accomplish, a table is usually a better choice.

Changing the default tab stop interval

To perform a combined spelling and grammar check on the document (or a text selection)

Automatic word completion only occurs after you type a word for the second time in a

document.

AutoText.

6) Click the AutoText button on the right and select New (text only) from the menu.

7) Click Close to return to your document.

If the only option under the AutoText button is Import, either you have not entered a

name for your AutoText or there is no text selected in the document.

To insert AutoText, type the shortcut and press F3.

Formatting text

Using styles is recommended

Styles are central to using Writer. Styles enable you to easily format your document consistently,

rid of the manual formatting by applying a style to it.

To remove manual formatting, select the text and choose Format > Clear Direct

Formatting from the Menu bar, or right-click and choose Clear Direct Formatting

Writer defines several types of styles, for different types of elements: characters, paragraphs,

pages, frames, and lists. See Chapter 3, Using Styles and Templates, in this book and Chapters 6

and 7 in the Writer Guide.

Formatting paragraphs

using the Paragraph panel of the Sidebar’s Properties deck. Not all buttons are visible in a

standard installation, but you can customize the toolbar to include those you use regularly. These

buttons and formats include:

Formatting characters

You can apply many formats to characters using the buttons on the Formatting toolbar and by

using the Character panel of the Sidebar’s Properties deck. Not all buttons are visible in a standard

installation, but you can customize the toolbar to include those you use regularly. These buttons

If you notice unexpected formatting changes occurring in your document, this is the first

place to look for the cause.

(===) on a line and then press Enter, the paragraph is replaced by a horizontal line as wide

as the page. The line is actually the lower border of the preceding paragraph.

or plus sign (+), followed by a space or tab at the beginning of a paragraph. A numbered list

is created when you type a number followed by a period (.), followed by a space or tab at

the beginning of a paragraph. Automatic numbering is only applied to paragraphs formatted

with the Default, Text body or Text body indent paragraph styles.

To turn autoformatting on or off, choose Format > AutoCorrect and select or deselect the items on

the list.

Creating numbered or bulleted lists

appropriate button on the toolbar or in the Sidebar.

It is a matter of personal preference whether you type your information first, then apply

numbering/bullets, or apply them as you type.

You can create nested lists (where one or more list items has a sub-list under it, as in an outline)

by using the buttons on the Bullets and Numbering toolbar (Figure 18). You can move items up or

down the list, create sub-points, change the style of bullets, and access the Bullets and Numbering

dialog, which contains more detailed controls. Use View > Toolbars > Bullets and Numbering to

see the toolbar.

Properties deck of the Sidebar can also be used to create nested lists and access the Bullets and

Numbering dialog. However, the Sidebar does not include tools for promoting and demoting items

Hyphenating words

Turning on hyphenation for paragraph Default Style affects all other paragraph styles

that are based on Default Style. You can individually change other styles so that

hyphenation is not active; for example, you might not want headings to be hyphenated.

Any styles that are not based on Default Style are not affected. See Chapter 3, Using

Styles and Templates, for more about styles based on other styles.

Hyphenation options set on the Writing Aids dialog are effective only if hyphenation is turned on

To manually hyphenate words, do not use a normal hyphen, which will remain visible even if the

word is no longer at the end of a line when you add or delete text or change margins or font size.

Instead, use a conditional hyphen, which is visible only when required.

To insert a conditional hyphen inside a word, click where you want the hyphen to appear and press

Ctrl+hyphen. The word will be hyphenated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if

automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.

Formatting pages

Writer provides several ways for you to control page layouts: page styles, columns, frames, tables,

and sections. For more information, see Chapter 4, Formatting Pages, in the Writer Guide.

Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance, and paragraph end, tabs, breaks, and

To do this:

1) Place the cursor within the table of contents.

2) Right-click and choose Update Index/Table from the context menu.

If you cannot place the cursor in the table of contents, choose Tools > Options >

LibreOffice Writer > Formatting Aids, and then select Enable in the Cursor in

protected areas section.

You can customize an existing table of contents at any time. Right-click anywhere in it and choose

Edit Index/Table from the context menu. Chapter 12, Creating Tables of Contents, Indexes and

Bibliographies, of the Writer Guide describes in detail all the customizations you can choose.

indexes, you first need to create index entries embedded in your Writer document.

Working with graphics

Graphics in Writer are of three basic types:

See Chapter 11, Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork, in this book and Chapter 8, Working with

Graphics, in the Writer Guide.

Printing

See Chapter 10, Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing, in this book and Chapter 5, Printing, Exporting,

All these facilities use a registered data source (a spreadsheet or database containing the name

Tracking changes to a document

You can use several methods to keep track of changes made to a document.

1) Make your changes to a copy of the document (stored in a different folder, or under a

different name, or both), then use Writer to combine the two files and show the differences.

Choose Edit > Compare Document. This technique is particularly useful if you are the only

caused by the other methods.

2) Save versions that are stored as part of the original file. However, this method can cause

problems with documents of non-trivial size or complexity, especially if you save a lot of

have added or deleted material, or changed formatting. Choose Edit > Changes > Record

(such as the current date or the total number of pages) and for inserting document properties such

as name, author, and date of last update. Fields are the basis of cross-referencing (see below);

automatic numbering of figures, tables, headings, and other elements; and a wide range of other

functions—far too many to describe here. See Chapter 14, Working with Fields, in the Writer Guide

Linking to another part of a document

If you type in cross-references to other parts of a document, those references can easily get out of

date if you reorganize the order of topics, add or remove material, or reword a heading. Writer

provides two ways to ensure that your references are up to date, by inserting links to other parts of

the same document or to a different document: hyperlinks and cross-references.

The two methods have the same result if you Ctrl+click the link when the document is open in

text or page number), but when using a cross-reference, you have several choices,

including bookmarks.

Graphics6), or use the Hyperlink dialog to modify the visible text. In contrast, cross-

several variations of the name.

not. (Both remain active when the document is exported to PDF.)

Using hyperlinks

The easiest way to insert a hyperlink to another part of the same document is by using the

Navigator:

6) Drag the item to where you want to insert the hyperlink in the document. The name of the

item is inserted in the document as an active hyperlink.

You can also use the Hyperlink dialog to insert and modify hyperlinks within and between

documents. See Chapter 12, Creating Web Pages.

Using cross-references

Replace any typed cross-references with automatic ones and, when you update fields, all the

references tab of the Fields dialog lists some items, such as headings, bookmarks, figures, tables,

and numbered items such as steps in a procedure. You can also create your own reference items;

see “Setting References” in Chapter 14, Working with Fields, in the Writer Guide for instructions.

To insert a cross-reference to a heading, figure, bookmark, or other item:

1) In your document, place the cursor where you want the cross-reference to appear.

2) If the Fields dialog is not open, click Insert > Cross-reference. On the Cross-references

type. In the Insert reference to list, choose the format required. The list varies according to

heading or caption), Category and Number (to insert a figure number preceded by the

page the referenced text is on). Click Insert.

Using bookmarks

Bookmarks are listed in the Navigator and can be accessed directly from there with a single mouse

click. You can cross-reference to bookmarks and create hyperlinks to bookmarks, as described

above.

1) Select the text you want to bookmark. Click Insert > Bookmark.

2) On the Insert Bookmark dialog, the larger box lists any previously defined bookmarks. Type

a name for this bookmark in the top box, and then click OK.

other tables or lists.

and creating a new document based on a Master Document Template creates a Master Document

with the same initial content as the template it is based upon. See Chapter 3, Styles and

Templates, for more about creating and using templates.

Yes, master documents do work in Writer. However, until you become familiar with them, you may

think that master documents are unreliable or difficult to use. See Chapter 13, Working with Master

Documents, in the Writer Guide.

Creating fill-in forms

A standard text document displays information: a letter, report, or brochure, for example. Typically

the reader may either edit everything or nothing in any way. A form has sections that are not to be

edited, and other sections that are designed for the reader to make changes. For example, a

taking orders might enter the information for each order into a database using a form.

about books.

Writer offers several ways to fill information into a form, including check boxes, option buttons, text

boxes, pull-down lists, and spinners. See Chapter 15, Using Forms in Writer, in the Writer Guide.