Welcome to the spoken tutorial on Viewing and Printing text documents.
In this tutorial we will learn how to View documents and Print documents in LibreOffice Writer.
This tutorial is recorded using Ubuntu Linux OS version 18.04 and
LibreOffice Suite version 6.3.5
Viewing options We’ll first learn about the various viewing options in LibreOffice Writer.
There are basically two widely used viewing options in Writer.
They are Normal and Web.
The Normal option displays how the document will look when printed.
The Web option displays the document as seen in a web browser.
This is useful when we want to create HTML documents.
It’s also useful when we want to view the document in full screen mode for editing them.
Open the file “Resume.odt” which we have created earlier.
The file has been provided to you in the Code files link on this tutorial page.
Please download and extract the file.
Make a copy and then use it for practising.
To access the Normal option, click on View menu in the menu bar. And then click on the Normal option.
To access the Web option, click on the View menu in the menu bar. Then click on the Web option.
Apart from both these options, one can also view the documents in full screen mode.
Click on the View menu in the menu bar and then on Full Screen option.
The Full screen mode is useful for editing the documents.
It’s also useful for projecting them on a projector.
Press either the Full Screen button. Or the Escape key to exit the full screen mode.
We are back to the Writer window.
Now, let’s click on the View menu once again and then on the Normal option.
Before proceeding further, let us add a new page to our document.
Click the Insert menu in the menu bar, then on the Page break option.
We are moved to a new page in the document.
Press Ctrl+Z keys to undo this change.
Let me demonstrate another way to add a new page.
Click on the Insert menu in the menu bar then on the More Breaks option. Select Manual Break as a sub-option.
The Insert Break dialog box opens up.
Here, select the Page break option.
Then click on the OK button in the dialog box.
Let’s now type some sample text on a few lines in this new page.
We’ll add one more page by pressing Ctrl+Enter keys together.
And type this sample text in the new page.
Press Ctrl+Enter keys once again and create one more new page.
And type this sample text in the new page.
Now, let’s learn to use the Zoom option.
The easiest way to zoom or magnify a document is to use the Zoom slider.
This is located at the bottom right corner of the Writer window.
We can use the plus and minus icons on either side of the slider, like this.
Or we can drag the Zoom head to increase or decrease the magnification, like this.
Let's learn another way of zooming.
Click on the View menu in the menu bar and click on Zoom.
A few options are displayed in the context menu.
We’ll skip these and click on the Zoom option.
Zoom & View Layout dialog box opens up.
It has 2 headings namely - Zoom Factor and View Layout.
The Zoom Factor sets the magnification in which to display the document.
Under Zoom Factor we see many options.
Click on Optimal and then on the Ok button at the bottom right.
On doing so, we get the most comfortable magnified view of the document.
Again open the Zoom & View Layout dialog box.
Click on Fit width and height and then on the Ok button at the bottom right.
This view fits the document across the entire width and height of the page. So, it displays one page at a time.
Next option is Fit Width. This fits the page to its width.
100% view will display the page in its actual size.
Try out these 2 options on your own.
Next we have the most important zoom option called the Variable.
Here, we can type the zoom factor at which we want to view the document.
For example, let’s type the value as 75% in the Variable field. And then click on the OK button
Observe how the text is zoomed.
Another feature in the dialog-box is View Layout.
We see 2 options here - Automatic and Single page.
Automatic option displays pages side-by-side.
Single page displays pages one below another.
Let’s try out some combinations now.
For example- we’ll select Fit width and height option under Zoom Factor
Then click on the Automatic option under the View Layout And click on the OK button.
We see that the pages are displayed side-by-side.
Open the Zoom & View Layout dialog box once again, as shown here.
This time we’ll select Single page under View Layout and click on the OK button.
We see that the pages are displayed one below the other.
Let’s use the zoom slider and bring the Zoom head to the centre of the slider.
There are 3 more controls on the Writer Status Bar that can be used for page displays.
These also allow us to change the zoom and view layout of our document.
The icons are as follows:
Single-page view, Multiple-page view and Book view.
Book view displays two pages adjacent to each other, as in an open book.
Let’s click on Single page view and bring the Zoom head to the centre of the zoom slider.
Next, we will learn about Print Preview.
Click on the Toggle Print Preview icon in the Standard toolbar.
The Print Preview bar appears when we view the document in preview mode.
It basically shows how the document will look like, when it is printed.
Scroll down to see all the pages in the document.
From this screen, one can proceed to printing the document, by clicking the Print icon. But I will not do so now.
Click on the Close Preview button to close the preview.
We can also click on File menu in the menu bar and click on Print Preview.
Next, we will learn how to print our LibreOffice Writer document.
Please, ensure that the printer connection is configured correctly on your machine.
To directly print the entire document, click on the Print icon in the Standard toolbar. This is known as quick printing.
We can have more control over printing our document by using the Print option.
Click on the File menu in the menu bar and then click on Print.
The Print dialog box appears on the screen.
There are 2 tabs with different settings in this dialog box.
We can either leave these as default or change the setting as per our printing requirement.
Under Printer drop-down, let’s select Print to File option.
This option is used predominantly to print the document into PDF file format.
The button at the bottom of the dialog box says Print to File. Click on it.
Choose the location to save and type a filename for the new document. Then click on the Save button at the top right.
The document will be printed to the file
Press Ctrl+P keys on your keyboard. This is the shortcut to open the Print dialog box.
This time under Printer, we will select our configured printer’s name.
Under Range and Copies, I will select Pages as 2 and Number of copies as 3.
Finally, click on the OK button to start the printing.
The pages and copies we mentioned will now get printed.
Next, we will see how to access other Print options.
Click on the Tools menu in the menu bar and then click on Options.
Click on the arrow beside LibreOffice and then click on Print.
A dialog box appears on the screen, giving us several options to select from.
Choose these options as per requirements.
These settings are now valid for all prints from LibreOffice Writer, in the future.
I will keep all the default settings and then click on the OK button at the bottom.
Save our file by pressing Ctrl + S keys.
Then close it by clicking on the X icon at the top right.
This brings us to the end of this tutorial. Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we learnt to: View documents, Print documents in LibreOffice Writer
As an assignment Open practice.odt file
Type the text “This is LibreOffice Writer”
Choose View and select Full Screen option
Exit Full Screen option
Explore all the available Zoom options
Explore all the available Page preview options
The video at the following summarises the Spoken Tutorial project Please download and watch it.
We conduct workshops using spoken tutorials and give certificates. For more details, Please contact us.
Post your timed queries in this forum.
The Spoken Tutorial project is funded by MHRD Govt of India.
This tutorial was originally contributed by DesiCrew Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in 2011
This is Pratik Kamble along with the Spoken Tutorial team from IIT Bombay signing off. Thank you for watching.