Welcome to the spoken tutorial on Using Find, Replace and Autocorrect in Writer.
In this tutorial, we will learn to use:
Find and Replace
Spell check and
Autocorrect features
This tutorial is recorded using
Ubuntu Linux OS version 18.04 and LibreOffice Suite version 6.3.5
Let us start by learning to use the Find and Replace feature in Writer.
With this feature, we can search for a particular text and/or replace it in the entire document.
Let us understand this through an example.
Open the file “Resume.odt” which we have created earlier.
This 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.
Before we proceed with the tutorial, let’s first delete some unwanted pages which were created earlier.
In our Resume file, go to the fourth page.
Select the lines “This is the fourth page” by dragging the cursor along the text.
Then press the Backspace key twice.
The 4th page is deleted and is no longer seen.
Now repeat the same steps to delete the third page also.
We have only 2 pages in this document now.
Let’s place the cursor on the first page of the document, before the word Resume.
First let us learn how to find a word or text in the document.
For an example, we will search for the word Ramesh in our Writer document.
At the bottom left, we can see the Search bar.
If it is not visible, then go to the View menu and select Toolbars.
From the sub-menu check the Find option, if unchecked.
The Search bar will become visible.
Type Ramesh in the Find field and press Enter.
The word Ramesh gets highlighted.
Let’s place the cursor before the word Resume.
Press Ctrl + F keys to go directly to the Find field.
Now type NAME in the Find field and press Enter.
This searches for the word NAME in the entire document.
The first instance of the word NAME gets highlighted.
Next to the Find field, we can see Find Previous and Find Next icons.
Click on these icons to find other occurrences of the word NAME in the document.
To search NAME in the entire document, click on the Find All option.
Notice that all the instances of the word NAME get highlighted in the entire document.
To navigate between the pages while searching, use the Previous page and Next page icons.
Now, click anywhere in the document to deselect the highlighted words.
Next, let’s learn about the Find and Replace option.
By using this feature, we can easily replace the search word with a new one.
Let’s replace the word page on page 2.
We can see the Find & Replace icon in the Standard toolbar.
Alternatively, click on the Edit menu in the menu bar and then on the Find & Replace option.
Either ways the Find & Replace dialog box opens up.
In the Find field, type the text that you wish to find and replace.
By default, the earlier search word NAME is visible here.
Delete the word NAME and type the word page in the Find field.
In the Replace field, type the text that you want to replace with.
I want to replace the word page with sheet in my document.
So, I’ll type sheet in the Replace field.
Now, click on the Replace All button.
A message is displayed Search key replaced 3 times.
And then click on the Close button
On page 2 we see that all occurrences of the word page get replaced with sheet
Press Ctrl + H keys to open the Find & Replace dialog box once again.
In the dialog box, we can see the Other options section.
Click on the arrow icon before Other options, to expand the section if not visible.
The Other option section contains a list of specific Find & Replace options.
Replace Backwards option searches for the text from bottom to top.
Current selection only searches for the text inside the selected portion of the document.
It has other advanced options like Regular expressions and Similarity search.
There are three more buttons at the bottom of the dialog box.
They are Attributes, Format and No Format.
All of these provide us with various types of advanced Find & Replace options.
You can explore and learn more about them on your own later.
Click on the Close button at bottom right corner to close this dialog box.
After learning about Find and Replace, we will now learn how to use Spellcheck.
Spellcheck is used for checking spelling mistakes in a document.
The Spell Check feature is distinct for each language.
Click on the Tools menu in the menu bar and then click on Options.
In the Options dialog-box, go to the left side section.
Click on the arrow icon before the Language Settings to expand it. Now click on Languages.
In the field User interface, click on the drop-down and select Default - English (USA).
In the Locale setting, click on the drop-down and select English (India) if not already selected.
Now go to the Default Languages for Documents section.
In the Western field, click on the drop-down and select English (India).
Finally, click on the Apply button at the bottom of the dialog box. And then click on the OK button.
Let us now see how the spell check features works for the language - English India.
To use the Spelling and Grammar option, go to Tools in the menu bar. And confirm that the Automatic Spell checking option is checked.
If not, then click on Automatic Spell checking to check it.
Now keep the cursor next to the word HOUSEWIFE and press the Spacebar.
Then type HUSEWIFE and press the Spacebar once.
We see that a curly red line appears just below the incorrect word.
We can also see the curly red lines below the names. This is because Indian names are not a part of the LibreOffice Writer’s inbuilt dictionary.
Now place the cursor on the word HUSEWIFE.
Then click on the Check spelling icon in the Standard toolbar.
The Spelling dialog box opens.
Under Not in dictionary, the incorrect word is highlighted in red color.
And the suggestions for correct words are shown in the Suggestions box.
In the Suggestions box, first click on the word HOUSEWIFE. Then click on the Correct button.
In some cases, a Confirmation pop-up window may appear.
It says “Continue checking at the beginning of the document ? Click on the No button.
Now click on the Close button to close the Spelling dialog box.
We see that the correct spelling has now been replaced.
Press Ctrl+Z keys until the newly added word HOUSEWIFE gets deleted.
Next, we will learn about the AutoCorrect feature.
The AutoCorrect feature is an extension of Spellcheck.
Let me demonstrate how to use the Autocorrect feature.
Go to the Tools menu and select AutoCorrect.
From the sub-menu select the AutoCorrection Options.
The AutoCorrect dialog box opens.
The AutoCorrect feature automatically corrects the text as we type.
The corrections are made according to the options we select in the Options tab.
There are several AutoCorrect options here like-
Delete spaces and tabs at beginning and end of paragraph
Ignore double spaces
Close the Autocorrect dialog box by clicking on the X icon.
Let us see how these work through an example.
In our Resume file, move the cursor below the word Hobbies and press Enter twice
Now type This is the Spoken Tutorial Project with single, double and triple spaces between words.
Go to the Tools menu and select Auto Correct. From the sub-menu select the AutoCorrection Options.
Under the Options tab put a check on Ignore double spaces.
And click on the OK button at the bottom right corner.
In the new line, type This is the Spoken Tutorial Project with double and triple spaces between words.
I will type, This is the and press the Spacebar twice.
Notice that, Writer does not allow us to add double or more spaces.
Complete typing the sentence.
AutoCorrect feature can also be used to replace long text with an abbreviation.
It saves typing effort by creating shortcuts to long words.
We have used a few words repeatedly in our document.
With shortcuts, we can avoid typing these words again and again.
Keep the cursor next to the word tutorial and press Enter.
Now type This is the Spoken Tutorial Project repeatedly in our document, say 2 times.
To avoid repeated typing, we can create an abbreviation.
This will directly get converted into the required text.
Now I will demonstrate how abbreviation stp converts to Spoken Tutorial Project.
Go to the Tools menu and select Auto Correct. From the sub-menu select the AutoCorrection Options.
AutoCorrect dialog-box opens up. Click on the Replace tab.
Under Replacement and exceptions for language select English India from the drop-down list.
Type stp in the Replace field.
In the With field, type Spoken Tutorial Project.
Then click on the New button on the right.
We see that the entry is made in the replacement table.
Click on the OK button at the bottom right.
Now, type the text “This is the stp” in a new line and press the Spacebar.
Immediately the stp abbreviation gets converted to the words Spoken Tutorial Project.
This feature is very helpful when the same text is repeated several times in a document.
Save the changes and close the file.
This brings us to the end of this spoken tutorial. Let us summarise
In this tutorial, we learnt how to use: Find and Replace , Spell check and Auto Correct features
As an assignment, Type the following text in a new Writer document
Now find and replace the word document in your text with the word file
Replace the word text with t x t
Use the Spell Check feature to correct the spelling to text
Use “English(India)” as your default language
Create an abbreviation for the text “This is LibreOffice Writer” as “TLW”.
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
Please 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.