Writer GuidePrefaceCopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2012 by its contributors as listed 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/3.0/), version 3.0 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:
documentation@global.libreoffice.org

Publication date and software version
Published 3 April 2012. Based on LibreOffice 3.4.5.

Documentation for LibreOffice is available at www.libreoffice.org

Contents
Copyright.............................................................................................................................. 2
Who is this book for?.......................................................................................................... 4
What's in this book?............................................................................................................ 4
Where to get more help....................................................................................................... 4Help system................................................................................................................................. 4
Free online support...................................................................................................................... 4
Paid support and training............................................................................................................. 5

What you see may be different........................................................................................... 5
Using LibreOffice on a Mac.................................................................................................5
Who wrote this book?..........................................................................................................6
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. 6Preface3

Who is this book for?
Anyone who wants to get up to speed quickly with LibreOffice Writer will find this book valuable.
You may be new to word processing software, or you may be familiar with another office suite.

What's in this book?
This book introduces some of the main features of LibreOffice Writer:

••
•
•
•
•••
•
•

Text entry, editing, and formatting (Chapter 3)
Page-layout methods, including frames, columns, and tables (Chapter 4)
Export to PDF, including bookmarks (Chapter 5)
Templates and styles (Chapters 6, 7, and 10)
Embedding or linking of graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects (Chapter 8)
Built-in drawing tools (Chapter 8)
Tables of data (Chapter 9)
Mail merge (Chapter 11)
Tables of contents, indexes, and bibliographies (Chapter 12)
Master documents, to group a collection of shorter documents into a single long document(Chapter 13)• Fields and forms (Chapters 14 and 15)• Database integration, including a bibliography database (Chapters 11, 12, 15)• And many more

Where to get more help
This book, the other LibreOffice user guides, the built-in Help system, and user support systems
assume that you are familiar with your computer and basic functions such as starting a program,opening and saving files.

Help system
LibreOffice comes with an extensive Help system. This is your first line of support for using
LibreOffice.
To display the full Help system, press F1 or select LibreOffice Help from the Help menu. Inaddition, you can choose whether to activate Tips, Extended tips, and the Help Agent (using Tools> Options > LibreOffice > General).
If Tips are enabled, place the mouse pointer over any of the icons to see a small box (“tooltip”) witha brief explanation of the icon’s function. For a more detailed explanation, select Help > What'sThis? and hold the pointer over the icon.

Free online support
The LibreOffice community not only develops software, but provides free, volunteer-based support.
See Table 1 and this web page: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/
Users can get comprehensive online support from the community through mailing lists. Other
websites run by users also offer free tips and tutorials. This forum provides community support forLibreOffice and other programs: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/
4Preface

Paid support and training
Alternatively, you can pay for support services. Service contracts can be purchased from a vendor
or consulting firm specializing in LibreOffice.

Table 1: Free support for LibreOffice users
Free LibreOffice support
FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/faq/
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq

Documentation

User guides, how-tos, and other documentation.
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications

Mailing lists

Free community support is provided by a network of experienced users
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/

International support

Accessibility options

The LibreOffice website in your language.
http://www.libreoffice.org/international-sites/
International mailing lists
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Local_Mailing_Lists
Information about available accessibility options.
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/accessibility/

What you see may be different
LibreOffice runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems, each of which has severalversions and can be customized by users (fonts, colors, themes, window managers).
The pictures in this book were taken from a variety of computers and operating systems. Some
pictures will therefore not look exactly like what you see on your computer.

Using LibreOffice on a Mac
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 moredetailed list, see the application Help.
Windows or LinuxMac equivalent

EffectTools > Options menu
selection

LibreOffice > Preferences

Access setup options

Right-click

Control+click

Open a context menu

Ctrl (Control)z (Command)

Used with other keys

F5

Shift+z+F5

Open the Navigator

F11z+T

Open the Styles and Formatting window

Using LibreOffice on a Mac5

Who wrote this book?
This book was written by volunteers from the LibreOffice community. Profits from sales of theprinted edition will be used to benefit the community.

Acknowledgements
This book is based on OpenOffice.org 3.3 Writer Guide. The contributors to that book are:
Jean Hollis Weber
Magnus Adielsson
Bruce Byfield
Alexander Noël Dunne
Katharina Greif
Lou Iorio
Stefan A. Keel
Sigrid Kronenberger
Alan Madden
Scott Rhoades
Joe Sellman
Barbara M. Tobias
Bob Wickham

6Michele Zarri
Agnes Belzunce
Daniel Carrera
Laurent Duperval
Tara HessJohn Kane
Jared Kobos
Peter Kupfer
Paul Miller
Carol Roberts
Robert Scott
Catherine Waterman
Claire Wood

Gary Schnabl
Ken Byars
Dick Detwiler
Martin Fox
Peter Hillier-Brook
Rachel Kartch
Michael Kotsarinis
Ian Laurenson
Vincenzo Ponzi
Iain Roberts
Janet M. Swisher
Sharon Whiston
Linda Worthington

Preface