Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Writer 5.4 Guide

Chapter 3

Working with Text: Advanced

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

License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), version 4.0 or later.

All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors

Jean Hollis Weber

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to the Documentation Team’s

mailing list: [email protected]

Note: Everything you send to a mailing list, including your email address and any other personal

information that is written in the message, is publicly archived and cannot be deleted.

Acknowledgments

This chapter is updated from part of previous versions of Chapter 3 in the LibreOffice Writer Guide.

Contributors to earlier versions are:

Jean Hollis Weber John A. Smith Hazel Russman

John M. Długosz Ron Faile Jr.

This chapter is adapted from part of Chapter 3 of the OpenOffice.org 3.3 Writer Guide. The

contributors to that chapter are:

Jean Hollis Weber Agnes Belzunce Daniel Carrera

Laurent Duperval Katharina Greif Peter Hillier-Brook

Michael Kotsarinis Peter Kupfer Iain Roberts

Gary Schnabl Barbara M. Tobias Michele Zarri

Sharon Whiston

Publication date and software version

Published 26 December. Based on LibreOffice 5.4.

Note for Mac users

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on a Mac from those used in Windows and Linux.

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

detailed list, see the application Help.

Windows or Linux Mac equivalent Effect

Tools > Options menu

selection

LibreOffice > Preferences Access setup options

Right-click Control+click or right-click

depending on computer setup

Opens a context menu

Ctrl (Control) ⌘ (Command) Used with other keys

F5 Shift+⌘+F5 Open the Navigator

F11 ⌘+T Open the Styles and Formatting window

Documentation for LibreOffice is available at http://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/

Contents
Copyright..............................................................................................................................2
Contributors................................................................................................................................. 2
Feedback..................................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................ 2
Publication date and software version.........................................................................................2
Note for Mac users...................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction..........................................................................................................................4
Using built-in language tools..............................................................................................4
Using paragraph and character styles.........................................................................................4
Using Tools > Language..............................................................................................................5
Using language settings in Options..............................................................................................5
Using the status bar..................................................................................................................... 6
Advanced find and replace techniques.............................................................................7
Find and replace text attributes and formatting............................................................................7
Find and replace paragraph styles...............................................................................................8
Find and replace character styles................................................................................................8
Find and replace special characters............................................................................................8
Use similarity search.................................................................................................................... 8
Use wildcards and regular expressions.......................................................................................9
Tracking changes to a document.....................................................................................10
Preparing a document for review...............................................................................................10
Recording changes.................................................................................................................... 11
Accepting or rejecting changes..................................................................................................12
Comparing documents...............................................................................................................13
Merging modified documents.....................................................................................................13
Adding other comments....................................................................................................13
Using footnotes and endnotes.........................................................................................15
Inserting footnotes and endnotes...............................................................................................15
Defining the format of footnotes/endnotes.................................................................................15
Linking to another part of a document............................................................................16
Using cross-references.............................................................................................................. 17
Using bookmarks....................................................................................................................... 17
Using hyperlinks........................................................................................................................ 17
Inserting hyperlinks using the Navigator................................................................................17
Inserting hyperlinks using a dialog........................................................................................18
Editing hyperlinks..................................................................................................................19
Line numbering..................................................................................................................19
Chapter 3  Working with Text: Advanced | 3

Introduction

This chapter covers the more advanced tools for working with text in Writer:

• The built-in language tools

• Advanced find-and-replace techniques, including wildcards

• Track changes and insert comments

• Footnotes and endnotes

• Linking to other parts of a document

• Line numbering

This chapter assumes that you are familiar with the basic text techniques described in Chapter 2,

Working with Text: Basics. We recommend that you also display formatting aids, such as end-of-

paragraph marks, tabs, breaks, and other items in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer >

Formatting Aids.

For information on formatting text (characters, paragraphs, lists), see Chapter 4.

Using built-in language tools

Writer provides some tools that make your work easier if you mix multiple languages within the

same document or if you write documents in various languages:

• Paragraph and character styles

• The functions in Tools > Language

• Language settings in Options

• The functions available on the status bar

The main advantage of changing the language for a text selection is that you can then use the

correct dictionaries to check spelling and apply the localized versions of AutoCorrect replacement

tables, thesaurus, and hyphenation rules. A grammar checking dictionary may be available for the

selected language.

You can also set the language for a paragraph or a group of characters as None (Do not check

spelling). This option is especially useful when you insert text such as web addresses or

programming language snippets that you do not want to check for spelling.

Using paragraph and character styles

Specifying the language in character and paragraph styles can be problematic unless you use

different styles for each language. Changing the Language on the Font tab of the Paragraph Styles

dialog (Figure 1) will change the language for all paragraphs that use that paragraph style.

You can also set certain paragraphs to be checked in a language that is different from the

language of the rest of the document by putting the cursor in the paragraph and changing the

language on the Task Bar.

See Chapter 9, Working with Styles, for information on how to manage the language settings of a

style.

4 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Figure 1: Setting the language for a paragraph style

Using Tools > Language

You can set the language for the whole document, for individual paragraphs, or even for individual

words and characters, from Tools > Language on the Menu bar.

• For Selection applies a specified language to the selected text. If the language you wish to

apply is not listed in the submenu, choose More...

• For Paragraph applies the specified language to the paragraph where the cursor is

located. If the language you wish to apply is not listed in the submenu, choose More...

• For all Text applies the specified language to all of the document, including text inserted

after making the change. If the language you wish to apply is not listed in the submenu,

choose More...

• More... opens the Character dialog, where you can select the required language on the

Font tab. After a language has been applied to a selection or paragraph in the document,

that language appears on the submenus for selections, paragraphs, and all text.

Notice the Reset to Default Language option on the submenu. This is the fastest way to return a

selection, paragraph, or all text to the default language set in Tools > Options (described below).

Using language settings in Options

Another way to change the language of a whole document is to use Tools > Options > Language

Settings > Languages. In the Default languages for documents section (Figure 2), you can

choose a different language for all the text that is not explicitly marked as a different language.

Using built-in language tools | 5

Caution

Unlike the menu tool that applies to the individual document, a change in the default

language from the Options dialog is a general change of settings of LibreOffice and

will therefore apply to all the documents created in the future. If you want to change

the language for the current document only, be sure to select the For the current

document only option (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Options available in the Languages settings

Note

The spelling checker works only for those languages in the list which have the symbol

next to them. If you do not see this symbol next to your preferred language, you

can install the dictionary using Tools > Language > More dictionaries online.

Using the status bar

The language used for checking spelling is also shown in the status bar, next to the page style in

use. You can change the language for the paragraph or the entire document; click on the language

in the status bar to pop up a menu of choices.

Figure 3: Language choices on the status bar

Notice the Reset to Default Language option on the menu and submenu. This is the fastest way to

return a paragraph or the entire document to the default language set in Tools > Options

(described above).

6 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Advanced find and replace techniques

In addition to finding and replacing words and phrases (described in Chapter 2), you can use

Writer’s Find & Replace dialog to find and replace text attributes, formatting, and paragraph styles.

With the Alternative Find & Replace extension, you can also find and replace character styles and

perform other advanced searches.

Find and replace text attributes and formatting

To find specific text attributes such as alignment, background, font color, line spacing that have

been changed from the default. All text that has a directly coded font attribute, and all text where a

style switches the font attribute, are found.

1) On the Find & Replace dialog (with Other Options displayed), click the Attributes button.

2) Select the attribute you wish to search for from the list in the Attributes dialog and click OK.

The names of the selected attributes appear under the Find: box. For example, to search

for text that has been changed from the default font color, select the Font Color attribute.

3) Click Find Next or Find All to search the document.

To find specific formatting such as bold, italic, font size, open the Find & Replace dialog with Other

Options displayed.

1) To find text with specific formatting, enter the text in the Find: box. To search for specific

formatting only, delete any text in the Find: box.

2) Click Format to display the Text Format (Search) dialog. The tabs on this dialog are similar

to those on the Paragraph and Paragraph Style dialogs.

3) Choose the formats you want to search for and then click OK. The names of the selected

formats appear under the Find: box. For example, you might search for all text in 14-point

bold Times New Roman. The option Paragraph Styles changes to Including Styles.

4) To replace the format, click in the Replace: box, choose the format to use, and then click

OK. The format selected will be displayed below this text box. To replace text as well as

formatting, type the replacement text in the Replace: box.

To search for specific text with specific formatting (for example, the word hello in bold),

specify the formatting, type the text in the Find: box and leave the Replace: box blank.

To remove specific character formatting, click Format, select the Font tab, then select the

opposite format (for example, No Bold). The No Format button on the Find & Replace

dialog clears all previously selected formats.

5) Click Find Next, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

Advanced find and replace techniques | 7

Tip

Unless you plan to search for other text using those same attributes, click No Format

to remove the attributes after completing your search. If you forget to do this, you may

wonder why your next search fails to find words you know are in the document.

Find and replace paragraph styles

If you combine material from several sources, you may discover that lots of unwanted paragraph

styles have suddenly shown up in your document. To quickly change all the paragraphs from one

(unwanted) style to another (preferred) style:

1) On the expanded Find & Replace dialog, select Paragraph Styles. The Find: and Replace:

boxes now contain a list of styles in use in the document.

If you have attributes specified, this option is labeled Including Styles. Select No Format to

remove any attributes and return the option to Paragraph Styles.

2) Select the styles you want to search for and replace.

3) Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each style that you want to replace.

Find and replace character styles

The Find & Replace dialog does not provide a convenient way to find and replace character styles.

You may wish to consider installing the Alternative dialog Find & Replace extension, which includes

this feature and others as described on this page:

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center/alternative-dialog-find-replace-for-writer

After installing the extension, you need to close LibreOffice and reopen it before it appears in the

Edit menu in Writer. Instructions for use are given in the extension itself (click the ? button).

Find and replace special characters

To enter special characters into the Search for and Replace with text input boxes, select the text

box and press Ctrl+Shift+S. Select the required character from the Special Characters dialog and

click OK. This version of the Special Characters dialog permits only a single character to be

selected and does not allow the font family to be selected.

Use similarity search

Find terms that are similar to the Find: text. For example, a similarity search can find words that

differ from the Find: text by two characters.

Select Similarity search and click the Similarities button to open a dialog in which you can modify

the text search by length and number of characters different from the search term (see Figure 4).

Exchange characters

Enter the number of characters in the search term that can be exchanged. For example, if

you specify 2 exchanged characters, "black" and "crack" are considered similar.

Add characters

Enter the maximum number of characters by which a word can exceed the number of

characters in the search term.

Remove characters

Enter the number of characters by which a word can be shorter than the search term.

Combine

Searches for a term that matches any combination of the similarity search settings.

8 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Figure 4: Similarity search dialog

Use wildcards and regular expressions

Most users will be familiar with the concept of a wildcard—a special character that represents one

or more unspecified characters. Wildcards make text searches more powerful but often less

specific. LibreOffice enables you to use combinations of characters known as regular expressions

which are more specific than simple wildcards but less so than a literal string. Regular expressions

are very powerful but not very intuitive. They can save time and effort by combining multiple finds

into one.

Table 1 shows a few of the regular expressions used by LibreOffice.

Tip

The online help describes many more regular expressions and their uses.

To use wildcards and regular expressions when searching and replacing:

1) On the Find & Replace dialog, click Other Options to see more choices. On this expanded

dialog, select the Regular expressions option.

2) Type the search text, including the wildcards, in the Search for box and the replacement

text (if any) in the Replace with box. Not all regular expressions work as replacement

characters; the line break (\n) is one that does work.

3) Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All (not recommended).

Note

To search for a character that is defined as a wildcard, type a backslash (\) before the

character to indicate that you are using it literally. For example, to find the text $5.00,

you would conduct a search using \$5\.00.

Advanced find and replace techniques | 9

Table 1: Examples of search wildcards (regular expressions)

To find

Use this

expression

Examples and comments

Any single character . (a period or

full stop)

b.d finds bad, bud, bid, and bed.

One of the specified

characters

[xyz] b[iu]n finds bin and bun.

Any single character in

this range

[x-y] [r-t]eed finds reed, seed, and teed; ranges must be in

alphabetically ascending order.

Any single character

except the characters

inside the brackets

[^x] p[^a]st finds post and pest, but not past.

The beginning of a word \<start \<log finds logbook and logistics, but not catalog.

The end of a word end\> log\> finds catalog, but not logistics.

A paragraph marker $ Does not work as a replacement character. Use \n

instead.

A line break \n Finds a line break that was inserted with Shift+Enter.

When used as a replacement character, it inserts a

paragraph marker.

Tracking changes to a document

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

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

name, or both), then use Writer to compare the two files and show the changes you made.

This technique is particularly useful if you are the only person working on the document, as

it avoids the increase in file size and complexity caused by the other methods.

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

problems with documents of nontrivial size or complexity, especially if you save a lot of

versions. Avoid this method if you can.

• Use Writer’s change marks (often called “redlines” or “revision marks”) to show where you

have added or deleted material or changed formatting. Later, you or another person can

use one of Writer’s many convenient methods to review and accept or reject each change.

Note

Not all changes are recorded. For example, changing a tab stop from align left to align

right and changes in formulas (equations) or linked graphics are not recorded.

Preparing a document for review

When you send a document to someone else to review or edit, you may want to prepare it first so

that the editor or reviewer does not have to remember to turn on the revision marks. After you have

protected the document, any user must enter the correct password in order to turn off the function

or accept or reject changes.

1) Open the document. To check whether it contains multiple versions, click File > Versions. If

multiple versions are listed, save the current version as a separate document with a

different name and use this new document as the review copy.

10 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

2) With the review copy open, make sure that change recording is turned on. The Edit >

Track Changes > Record Changes menu item has a check mark next to it when recording

is turned on.

3) Click Edit > Track Changes > Protect Changes. On the Enter Password dialog, type a

password (twice) and click OK.

Tip

An alternative to steps 2 and 3 above is to choose File > Properties > Security tab,

select the Record changes option, then click Protect and enter the password.

Recording changes

See Chapter 20, Setting up Writer, for instructions on setting up how your changes will be

displayed, if you don’t like the default settings.

1) To begin tracking (recording) changes, choose Edit > Track Changes > Record Changes.

To show or hide the display of changes, click Edit > Track Changes > Show Changes.

Tip

Hold the mouse pointer over a marked change; you will see a Help Tip showing the

type of change, the author, date, and time of day for the change. If Extended Tips are

enabled, you will also see any comments recorded for this change.

2) To enter a comment on a marked change, place the cursor in the area of the change and

then click Edit > Track Changes > Comment on Change.

In addition to being displayed as an extended tip, the comment is also shown in the list in

the Manage Changes dialog (Figure 6).

To move from one marked change to the next, use the arrow buttons. If no comment has

been recorded for a change, the Text field is blank.

3) To stop recording changes, click Edit > Track Changes > Record Changes again.

Tip

See also “Adding other comments” on page 13 for a way to annotate text that is not

associated with a recorded change.

Figure 5: Inserting a comment during change recording

Tracking changes to a document | 11

Accepting or rejecting changes

To accept or reject recorded changes, use any of these methods:

• Changes toolbar

• Right-click (context) menu

• Manage Changes dialog

• Manage Changes pane in the Sidebar

The results of accepting or rejecting a change are as follows:

• Accepting a change incorporates the alteration into the document and removes the change

indication marking.

• Rejecting a change reverts the document to its original state and removes the change

indication marking.

Changes toolbar

For quick and easy accepting and rejecting of changes, you can use the Changes toolbar, which

includes buttons for the same functions as appear on the Edit > Track Changes submenu. To

enable the Changes toolbar, click View > Toolbars > Changes on the Menu bar. You can dock this

toolbar in a convenient place or leave it floating.

Right-click (context) menu

1) If recorded changes are not showing, click Edit > Track Changes > Show Changes.

2) Hover the mouse pointer over a recorded change. A box appears with information about the

type of change, who made it, and the date and time.

3) Right-click on the changed text. In the context menu, choose Accept Change or Reject

Change.

Manage Changes dialog

1) Click Edit > Track Changes > Manage Changes. The Manage Changes dialog (Figure 6)

opens, showing changes that have not yet been accepted or rejected.

2) When you select a change in the dialog, the change itself is highlighted in the document, so

you can see what the editor changed.

3) Click Accept or Reject to accept or reject the selected change. You can also click Accept

All or Reject All if you do not want to review the changes individually.

To show only the changes of certain people or only the changes on specific days or various other

restrictions, use the Filter page (Figure 7) on the Accept or Reject Changes dialog. After specifying

the filter criteria, return to the List page to see those changes that meet your criteria.

Figure 6: The List tab of the Manage Changes dialog

12 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Figure 7: The Filter page of the Manage Changes dialog

Manage Changes pane in the Sidebar

The Manage Changes pane in the Sidebar shows the same information as in the Manage Changes

dialog described above.

Comparing documents

Sometimes reviewers may forget to record the changes they make. You can find the changes if you

compare the original document and the one that is edited. To compare them:

1) Open the edited document. Select Edit > Track Changes > Compare Document.

2) The Insert dialog appears. Select the original document and click Insert.

Writer finds and marks the changes and displays the Manage Changes dialog. From this point, you

can go through and accept or reject changes procedure as described earlier.

Merging modified documents

The processes discussed to this point are effective when you have one reviewer at a time.

Sometimes, however, multiple reviewers all return edited versions of a document. In this case, it

may be quicker to review all of these changes at once, rather than one review at a time. For this

purpose, you can merge documents in Writer.

To merge documents, all of the edited documents need to have recorded changes in them.

1) Open one copy.

2) Click Edit > Track Changes > Merge Document and select and insert another copy of the

document to be merged with the first.

3) After the documents merge, the Manage Changes dialog opens, as in Figure 6, showing

changes by more than one reviewer. If you want to merge more documents, close the

dialog and then repeat step 2.

4) Repeat until all copies are merged.

All recorded changes are now included in the open copy. Save this file under another name.

Adding other comments

Writer provides another type of comments, which authors and reviewers often use to exchange

ideas, ask for suggestions, or mark items needing attention.

Adding other comments | 13

You can select a block of text, including multiple paragraphs, to be highlighted for a comment, or

you can insert a comment at a single point. To insert a comment, select the text, or place the

cursor in the place the comment refers to, and choose Insert > Comment or press Ctrl+Alt+C.

The anchor point of the comment is connected by a dotted line to a box on the right-hand side of

the page where you can type the text of the comment. A Comments button is also added to the

right of the horizontal ruler (see Figure 8); you can click this button to toggle the display of the

comments.

Writer automatically adds at the bottom of the comment the author’s name and a time stamp

indicating when the comment was created. Select Tools > Options > LibreOffice > User Data to

configure the name you want to appear in the Author field of the comment, or to change it.

Click somewhere on the page to finish your comment. Otherwise, you will not be able to move

away from this location.

Figure 8: Comments in LibreOffice

If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different

background color. Figure 8 shows an example of text with comments from two different authors. If

an author selects text that overlaps another author’s comments, then the comments from the

second author are nested with those of the first author.

Right-click on a comment to open a context menu where you can delete the current comment, all

the comments from the same author, or all the comments in the document. From this menu, you

can also open a dialog to apply some basic formatting to the text of the comment. You can also

change font type, size, and alignment from the Menu bar.

To navigate from one comment to another, open the Navigator (F5), expand the Comments

section, and click on the comment text to move the cursor to the anchor point of the comment in

the document. Right-click on the comment to quickly edit or delete it.

You can also navigate the comments using the keyboard. Use Ctrl+Alt+Page Down to move to the

next comment and Ctrl+Alt+Page Up to move to the previous comment.

Comments can be printed next to the text in the right margin as they appear on screen. Each page

is scaled down in order to make space for the comments to fit on the underlying paper size.

14 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Using footnotes and endnotes

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page on which they are referenced. Endnotes are collected

at the end of a document.

To work effectively with footnotes and endnotes, you need to:

• Insert footnotes and define their format

• Define the location of footnotes on the page, and the color and line styles for separator

lines, if the defaults do not meet your needs (see Chapter 5, Formatting Pages: Basics).

Inserting footnotes and endnotes

To insert a footnote or an endnote, put the cursor where you want the footnote or endnote marker

to appear. Then select Insert > Footnote and Endnote from the Menu bar and choose Footnote

or Endnote, or click the Insert Footnote or Insert Endnote button on the Standard toolbar.

A footnote or endnote marker is inserted in the text and, depending on your choice, the cursor is

relocated either to the footnote area at the bottom of the page or to the endnote area at the end of

the document. Type the footnote or endnote content in this area.

You can also choose use Insert > Footnote and Endnote > Footnote or Endnote to open the

Insert Footnote/Endnote dialog (Figure 9), where you can choose whether to use the automatic

numbering sequence specified in the footnote settings and whether to insert the item as a footnote

or an endnote.

If you use Insert Footnote or Insert Endnote, the footnote or endnote automatically takes on the

attributes previously defined in the Footnote Settings dialog.

You can edit an existing footnote or endnote the same way you edit any other text.

To delete a footnote or endnote, delete the footnote marker. The contents of the footnote or

endnote are deleted automatically, and the numbering of other footnotes or endnotes is adjusted

automatically.

Figure 9: Inserting a footnote/endnote

Defining the format of footnotes/endnotes

To format the footnotes themselves, click Tools > Footnotes and Endnotes. On the

Footnotes/Endnotes Settings dialog (Figure 10), choose settings as required.

Using footnotes and endnotes | 15

Figure 10: Defining footnote formatting

Linking to another part of a document

If you type in cross-references to other parts of the 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

• Cross-references

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

Writer: you are taken directly to the cross-referenced item. However, they also have major

differences:

• The text in a hyperlink does not automatically update if you change the text of the linked

item (although you can change it manually), but changed text does automatically update in

a cross-reference.

• When using a hyperlink, you do not have a choice of the content of the link (for example

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

including bookmarks.

• To hyperlink to an object such as a graphic, and have the hyperlink show useful text such

as Figure 6, you need to either give such an object a useful name instead of leaving it as

the default name (“Graphics6”), or you need to use the Hyperlink dialog to modify the

visible text. In contrast, cross-references to figures with captions automatically show useful

text, and you have a choice of several variations of the name.

16 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

• If you save a Writer document to HTML, hyperlinks remain active but cross-references do

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

Using cross-references

To ensure that references update if you reword a heading, caption, or other linked item, use

automatic cross-references. For details, see “Using automatic cross-references” in Chapter 17,

Fields.

Using bookmarks

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

click. In HTML documents, bookmarks are converted to anchors that you can jump to by hyperlink.

For more about bookmarks, see “Using bookmarks” in Chapter 17, Fields.

Using hyperlinks

When you type text (such as website addresses or URL) that can be used as a hyperlink, and then

press the spacebar or the Enter key, Writer automatically creates the hyperlink and applies

formatting to the text (usually a color and underlining).

If this does not happen, you can enable this feature using Tools > AutoCorrect Options >

Options and selecting the URL Recognition option.

If you do not want Writer to convert a specific URL to a hyperlink, choose Edit > Undo Insert from

the Menu bar or press Ctrl+Z immediately after the formatting has been applied.

You can also insert hyperlinks using the Navigator and the Hyperlink dialog, and you can modify all

hyperlinks using the Hyperlink dialog, as described in this section.

Note

Hyperlinks between documents can be set as relative or absolute, using the Save

URLs relative to option in Tools > Options > Load/Save > General.

Relative linking is only possible when the document you are working on and the link

destination are on the same drive, and you need to create the same directory structure

on your hard disk as will apply on the destination website.

LibreOffice uses absolute path names internally, so when you move your mouse

cursor over a hyperlink, the tooltip displays the absolute reference even when it is set

to be a relative link.

Inserting hyperlinks using the Navigator

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

Navigator:

1) Open the document containing the items you want to cross-reference.

2) Open the Navigator (by clicking its icon, choosing View > Navigator, pressing F5, or

selecting the Navigator Tab on the open Sidebar).

3) Click the arrow next to the Drag Mode icon, and select Insert as Hyperlink.

4) In the list at the bottom of the Navigator, select the document containing the item that you

want to cross-reference.

5) In the Navigator list, select the item that you want to insert as a hyperlink.

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.

Linking to another part of a document | 17

Figure 11: Inserting a hyperlink using the Navigator

Inserting hyperlinks using a dialog

To display the Hyperlink dialog (Figure 12), click the Hyperlink icon on the Standard Toolbar or

choose Insert > Hyperlink from the Menu bar. To turn existing text into a link, select it before

opening the dialog.

On the left hand side, select one of the four types of hyperlink:

• Internet: a web address, normally starting with http://

• Mail: an email address.

• Document: another document or to another place in the presentation.

• New document: the hyperlink creates a new document.www.libreoffice.org

Figure 12: Hyperlink dialog showing details for Internet links

The top right part of the dialog changes according to your choice for the hyperlink type. A full

description of all the choices, and their interactions, is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here is a

summary of the most common choices used in presentations.

For an Internet hyperlink, choose the type of hyperlink (choose between Web, FTP or Telnet), and

enter the required web address (URL).

For a Mail hyperlink, specify the receiver address and the subject.

18 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

For a Document hyperlink, specify the document path (the Open File button opens a file browser);

leave this blank if you want to link to a target in the same presentation. Optionally specify the target

in the document (for example a specific slide). Click on the Target icon to open the Navigator

where you can select the target, or if you know the name of the target, you can type it into the box.

For a New Document hyperlink, specify whether to edit the newly created document immediately or

just create it (Edit later) and the type of document to create (text, spreadsheet, and so on). For a

text document, Edit now is the more likely choice. The Select Path button opens a directory

picker.

The Further settings section in the bottom right part of the dialog is common to all the hyperlink

types, although some choices are more relevant to some types of links.

• Set the value of Frame to determine how the hyperlink will open. This applies to documents

that open in a Web browser.

• Form specifies if the link is to be presented as text or as a button.

• Text specifies the text that will be visible to the user.

• Name is applicable to HTML documents. It specifies text that will be added as a NAME

attribute in the HTML code behind the hyperlink.

• Event button: this button will be activated to allow LibreOffice to react to events for which

the user has written some code (macro). This function is not covered in this book.

Editing hyperlinks

To edit a hyperlink, click anywhere in the link text and then open the Hyperlink dialog by clicking

the Hyperlink icon on the Standard Toolbar or choosing Edit > Hyperlink from the Menu bar.

Make your changes and click Apply. If you need to edit several hyperlinks, you can leave the

Hyperlink dialog open until you have edited all of them. Be sure to click Apply after each one.

When you are finished, click Close.

The standard (default) behavior for activating hyperlinks within LibreOffice is to use Ctrl+click. This

behavior can be changed in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Security > Options, by deselecting

the option Ctrl-click required to follow hyperlinks. If clicking in your links activates them, check

that page to see if the option has been deselected.

To change the color of hyperlinks, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance, scroll to

Unvisited links and/or Visited links, select those options, pick the new colors and click OK. Caution:

this will change the color for all hyperlinks in all components of LibreOffice—this may not be what

you want.

In Writer and Calc (but not Draw or Impress), you can also change the Internet link character style

or define and apply new styles to selected links.

Line numbering

Line numbering puts line numbers in the margin. LibreOffice can insert line numbers in an entire

document or in selected paragraphs. Line numbers are included when you print the document. You

can also add a separator between line numbers. Figure 13 shows an example with numbering on

every line.

You can choose how many lines are numbered (for example, every line or every tenth line), the

numbering type, and whether numbers restart on each page. In addition, a text separator (any text

you choose) can be set on a different numbering scheme (one every 12 lines, for example).

Line numbering | 19

Figure 13: Line numbering example

To add line numbers to an entire document:

1) Click Tools > Line Numbering and select the Show numbering option in the top left

corner of the Line Numbering dialog (Figure 14).

2) Then select any options you want and click OK.

Figure 14: The Line Numbering dialog

To add line numbers to specific paragraphs, you need to first disable the feature for the document

and then enable it for specific paragraphs or paragraph styles.

To disable line numbering for the document, edit the Default Style paragraph style (because all

paragraph styles are based on the Default Style):

1) In the Sidebar, go to the Styles and Formatting pane and click the Paragraph Styles icon.

2) Right-click the Default Style paragraph style and choose Modify.

3) Click the Outline & Numbering tab (see Figure 15).

4) In the Line Numbering area, clear the Include this paragraph in line numbering

checkbox.

5) Click OK.

20 | Chapter 3 Working with Text: Advanced

Figure 15: Disabling line numbering for a document

To enable line numbering for specific paragraphs:

1) Select the paragraphs where you want to add the line numbers.

2) Choose Format > Paragraph, and then click the Outline & Numbering tab.

3) Select Include this paragraph in line numbering.

4) Click OK.

You can also create a paragraph style that includes line numbering, and apply it to the paragraphs

that you want to add line numbers to. For example, you might want to number the lines of example

code in a document; for code, you will probably want to use a font or indentation that is different

from normal text.

To specify the starting line number:

1) Click in the paragraph and choose Format > Paragraph.

2) On the Outline & Numbering tab, make sure the Include this paragraph in line

numbering checkbox is selected.

3) Select the Restart at this paragraph checkbox and enter a line number in the Start with

box.

4) Click OK.

Line numbering | 21