Anoop Verma
LibreOffice has now become one of the most popular Office software for people who are looking for an alternative to Microsoft office. Here are few handy tips and tricks that you can use with LibreOffice. While these tips will not make you a better writer, they will surely make the process of writing in one form or another a lot easier.
WHEN it comes to Office Software, Microsoft Office is the software of choice. But the reign of Microsoft may not last forever, as many new power-packed Office Programmes have now become available. The best thing about these Office Programmes is that they are free. In fact, if users realises how good these free Office Software are, they would be amazed at what all they are missing.
LibreOffice has now become one of the most popular office software for people who are looking for an alternative to Microsoft office. Here are few handy tips and tricks that you can use with LibreOffice. While these tips will not make you a better writer, they will surely make the process of writing in one form or another a lot easier.
Improve the speed of LibreOffice
For improving the speed you can use the option of disabling Java. Go to Tools, Options and select the Java entry on the left. Here you can uncheck the option to ‘Use a Java runtime environment’ and restart the software. But you have to keep in mind that change can affect databases and some of the wizards, but is easily re-enabled if you run into problems.
Easy way to create hyperlinks
At times we need to incorporate hyperlinks in the articles that we are writing. This can prove to be quite cumbersome, as you may have to type the text, click on the Hyperlink button, enter the URL, click Apply, and click Close. This task can become much easier if you use the Hyperlink Bar. To enable this, click View and then go to Toolbars. Here you can select Hyperlink Bar. This will open a new toolbar that has two simple text areas. The first (to the far left) is where you enter the text for the hyperlink. The second area is where you enter the URL. Once you’ve entered the URL, press Enter and the link will appear to the right of the current cursor position.
Make use of the thesaurus
The LibreOffice software comes with a handy Thesaurus. In order to open this tool, you need to highlight the word and then hit Ctrl + F7. The LibreOffice Thesaurus will open with suggestions for the word. If you are using a window manager or have created a custom shortcut that uses Ctrl + F7, you can just go to Tools and then to Language and then Thesaurus.
Learn about the keyboard shortcuts
LibreOffice comes with a whole range of shortcuts. All of us know about the Ctrl+A, Ctrl+V and Ctrl+P shortcuts. Other than this there is a huge list. In order to learn about this list, you have to click Tools go to Customise and then click on the Keyboard Tab. Here you will have the opportunity to scroll through the entire list of pre-configured keyboard shortcuts.
Protect your templates
There exists a great system of using templates in LibreOffice. You can create a collection of them and house them in a shared repository. But when you create them, it’s a good idea to make them read-only and to password protect them. The last thing you want to do is work hard on a template only to have someone overwrite it, causing you to go back to the drawing board.
Perform quick calculations
Normally we do our calculations on spreadsheets. But LibreOffice writer too has a resource for calculations. The formula toolbar does not reside permanently in the toolbar section of LibreOffice. All you need to do is view the toolbar, run your calculation, hit Enter and the calculation will appear at your cursor.
