Welcome to the spoken tutorial on Introduction to LibreOffice Writer.
In this tutorial, we will learn:
About LibreOffice Writer
Various toolbars in Writer
How to open a new and existing document
To save and close a document in Writer
To save as MS Word document
To export as a PDF document
LibreOffice Writer is the word processor component of the LibreOffice Suite.
It is the equivalent of Microsoft Word in Microsoft Office Suite.
It's free and open source software.
It can be shared, modified and distributed without any restrictions.
LibreOffice Writer can run on any of the following operating systems:
Microsoft Windows 8 or higher versions
GNU/Linux OS and
Mac OSX
This tutorial is recorded using Ubuntu Linux OS version 18.04 and LibreOffice Suite version 6.3.5
By default, the latest Ubuntu Linux OS has LibreOffice Suite pre-installed in it
To install a specific version, refer to the LibreOffice Installation series on this website.
Let us learn how to open LibreOffice Writer.
In Ubuntu Linux OS, click on the Show applications icon located at the bottom left corner.
In the search bar type Writer.
From the displayed list, click on the Libreoffice Writer icon.
In Windows OS, click on the Start Menu icon located at the bottom left corner.
In the search bar, type Writer.
From the displayed list, click on the Libreoffice Writer icon.
This will open an empty document in the main Writer window.
Now let us learn about the main components of the Writer window.
The Writer window has various toolbars at the top.
These are Title bar, Menu bar, Standard toolbar and Formatting bar.
At the bottom, we see the Search bar, Drawing toolbar and Status bar.
We can enable or disable these toolbars from the interface.
To do so, go to the View menu and select Toolbars.
From the sub menu, check or uncheck the toolbars based on your preference.
At the right side, we see the vertical scroll bar and sidebar.
All of these have the most commonly used options.
We will learn about these as the series progresses.
Now let us learn how to open a new document in Writer.
We can open a new document by clicking on the New icon in the Standard toolbar.
Alternatively go to the File menu in the menu bar.
Then click on the sub menu New and select the option Text Document.
A new Writer document named Untitled 2 opens up.
Close the newly opened document named Untitled 2 by clicking on the X icon at the top right.
Now, we’ll type some text in the Untitled 1 document.
Type the word “RESUME”.
Once done typing our document, we should save it for future use.
To save the file, click on the Save icon in the Standard toolbar.
A dialog box appears on the screen.
It prompts us to enter the name of our file in the Name field.
I will type the name of the file as “Resume”.
On the left side, I’ll select Desktop as the location to save my file.
Notice, we have a File type drop-down at the bottom right corner. Click on this drop-down.
It shows a list of file types or file extensions in which we can save our file.
The default file type in LibreOffice Writer is ODF Text Document (.odt).
ODF stands for Open Document Format which is an open standard.
It is also accepted by the Government of India policy on open standards in e-Governance.
I will click on the ODF Text Document option to save my file.
Do likewise on your machine.
Click on the Save button at the top right corner of the dialog box.
We will be redirected back to the Writer window.
Observe the change in the title bar now. It has changed to Resume.odt
Besides saving in dot odt format, we can also save our file in dot doc and in dot docx formats.
Files with these formats can be opened later in MS Word application.
Now, we will save the same file as a docx file.
Go to File menu in the menu bar and then click on the Save As option.
In the Save As dialog box, click on the File type drop-down at the bottom right corner.
Scroll down and select Word 2007 - 365 (.docx)
Again choose the same file location to save.
Then click on the Save button at the top right corner of the dialog box.
If we save the file in any other file format, Confirm File Format dialog box opens up.
Put a check on “Ask when not saving in ODF or default format” option.
Then click on the Use Word 2007 - 365 Format button.
We will be redirected back to the Writer window.
Observe the change in the title bar now. It has changed to Resume.docx
The file can also be exported to PDF format.
Click on the Export Directly as PDF icon in the Standard toolbar.
Type a filename, choose a location and click on the Save button at the top right.
I will click on Cancel and show another way of saving the document in PDF format.
Click on the File menu in the menu bar and select Export As sub-menu option. Then click on the Export as PDF option.
PDF options dialog box opens up.
In this dialog box, we will see various settings to customize the PDF option.
Keep the default settings as it is and click on the Export button at the bottom.
Type a filename, choose a location and click on the Save button at the top right.
A pdf file will be created in the selected location.
Another popular extension which opens in most applications, is dot rtf, the Rich Text Format.
We can save the file in dot html format also, which is a web page format.
This is done in the same way as explained above.
In the File type drop-down, scroll down and select HTML Document (Writer)(.html).
This option gives the dot html extension to the document.
Again choose the same file location to save. Now click on the Save button at the top right corner of the dialog box.
The Confirm File Format dialog box opens.
Put a check on “Ask when not saving in ODF or default format” option.
Then click on the Use HTML Document (Writer) Format button.
We see that the file gets saved with dot html extension.
This format is used when we want to show our document as a web page.
It can be opened in any web browser.
Let's close this document by clicking on the File menu and then Close.
Next, we will learn how to open an existing document in LibreOffice Writer. Let's open the document Resume.odt
Click on the Open File menu on the left of the LibreOffice interface.
The file browser dialog box opens up. Go to the location where our file is saved.
Now in the list of filenames that appears, choose Resume.odt
Then click on the Open button at the top right corner.
The file Resume.odt opens in the Writer window.
Likewise, we can also open files with dot doc and dot docx extensions in Writer.
Next we will see how to modify a file and save it under the same filename.
So, first let us select the word RESUME.
To do so click the left mouse button and then drag it along the text. This will select the text and highlight it.
Now release the left mouse button. The text should still be highlighted.
Now, click on the Bold icon in the Formatting bar. The text thus becomes bold.
Next, let us align the word RESUME to the centre of the page.
If you have resized your LibreOffice window, some of the icons may not be visible.
In that case, click on the double arrow icon at the end of the toolbars .
Click on the Align Center icon in the Formatting bar.
We see that the text gets aligned to the center of the page.
Now, let us increase the font size of the text.
So, click on the down-arrow in the Font Size field in the Formatting bar.
In the drop-down, let us select 14. The font size of the text increases to 14.
Next, let us change the Font we are using.
Click on the down-arrow in the Font Name field in the Formatting bar.
In the drop-down, let us select Undotum. The font name of the text has changed to Undotum.
Let us now save the changes that we have made. To do so, press Ctrl + S keys together.
The file gets saved with the same filename even after the modification is done.
Let's close the document now.
Click on the File menu in the menu bar and then click on the Close option.
This brings us to the end of this spoken tutorial. Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we learnt:
About LibreOffice Writer
Various toolbars
How to open a new and an existing document
To save and close a document in Writer
To save as MS Word document
To export as a PDF document
As an assignment Open a new document in Writer
Save it under the name practice.odt
Type the text “This is my first assignment”
Underline the text.
Increase the Font size to 16. Save and close the file.
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