Documentation
Contributors’ Guide

Chapter 1
Joining the LibreOffice
Documentation TeamCopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2016 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors are listed
below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), version 3.0 orlater.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors
Jean Hollis WeberFeedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to the Documentation Team’s
mailing list: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
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.

Publication datePublished 7 October 2016.

Documentation for LibreOffice is available at http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation

Contents
Copyright.............................................................................................................................. 2Contributors................................................................................................................................. 2Feedback..................................................................................................................................... 2
Publication date........................................................................................................................... 2

Who we are and what we do............................................................................................... 4
Where we work..................................................................................................................... 4
How you can help.................................................................................................................4How to get started................................................................................................................5Logins needed...................................................................................................................... 6
What’s in this guide?........................................................................................................... 6

Joining the LibreOffice Documentation Team | 3

Who we are and what we do
The LibreOffice Documentation team is a group of volunteers who strive to provide high-quality
guides in English for LibreOffice users.
You can become part of the Documentation team by contributing to one or more of our projects. Nomatter what your level of experience is, you can make a valuable contribution.
Here are some ways you can help: writing, reviewing, editing, research, maintenance, artwork. See“How you can help” below.
Examples of current projects:•User guides•FAQs•Help•

Tutorials and how-tos

We also work with translators, many of whom use the English version of guides as their starting
point. In a few cases, we start with translations from other languages and edit them for publication
in English.

Where we work
Where the group does its work on the user guides:•ODFAuthors, http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english.
Working files are stored here as they are written, revised, reviewed, and edited.

•Wiki, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development andhttp://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development/UserGuideTasks.
Here we coordinate our work. The FAQs are also located on the wiki.

Where the group publishes its work:•Wiki, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation.
Here we place copies of published documents for easy download by users.

•Documentation page of the main LibreOffice website:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/.
The documents referenced on that page are actually stored on the wiki.

How we communicate:•Mailing list, documentation@global.libreoffice.org. See page 6 for subscription information.

•Wiki, http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development/UserGuideTasks

How you can help
Here are some ways you can help.
Writing
If you are good at organizing information, explaining concepts, and writing instructions, youcan help most by writing.
Ideally you are an experienced technical writer and have good English skills. But neither of
those ideals are requirements, because other people can edit your English.
If you wish to write in another language, or help with translations, please contact the relevant
native language project. See https://www.libreoffice.org/community/nlc/
4 | How you can help

Reviewing
If you don't feel confident of your writing skills or your level of knowledge about LibreOfficeitself, reviewing a Help topic or a user guide chapter is a great way to start. Read theinformation while using LibreOffice. Is it written well for the audience? Are the instructions
correct? Is anything missing? Are the screenshots up to date? Let us know what needs
fixing, or correct it yourself.
Editing
Sometimes called “proofreading” although the two are not the same. Here you do need good
English skills. In addition to correcting errors, editors help make the docs more readable.
ResearchWriters often don't have time to make sure existing docs are complete and up to date. You
can help by reading the forums and mailing lists to see what questions users have. Is info
missing from our docs, or just hard to find? Do we need a new FAQ, a how-to, or a section ina user guide?
Artwork
Help writers by capturing, cropping, and labeling screenshots, or creating diagrams and otherartwork.
Indexing
Our user guides are produced in ODT, PDF, and printed forms. Book indexes may begin with
automated tools, but they are much improved by people’s decisions about topics.
Publicity
If you are on any social media, share things you see about LibreOffice or our documentation,such as posts on the LibreOffice Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/libreoffice.org),
Twitter account (@libreoffice), or Google+ (https://plus.google.com/+libreoffice/).
Suggestions and wish lists
New ideas are welcome. Is there a better way to do something? Discuss your ideas on themailing list.

How to get started
Sign up on the mailing list (see next page), introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your experienceand what interests you.
•Choose what you’d like to work on. You are welcome to ask for guidance on the list.

•Decide what to do: see list in previous section.

What to read:•Relevant chapters of this Contributors’ Guide.

•For user guides: Follow instructions in Chapter 2 of this Guide to write, review, or index
chapters and create artwork. See other chapters of this Guide for information on writing
style, use of paragraph and characters styles in the template, and so on.

•For writing or editing Help: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/HelpContent

How to get started | 5

Logins needed
Some tasks (such as research and reviewing) can be done without extra logins, much knowledgeof LibreOffice, or a lot of time or long-term commitment. However, most tasks require one or moreof the following logins.
•Mailing list – Most of our day-to-day communication takes place on the mailing list.
To subscribe, send a message to documentation+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org andfollow the instructions that will be mailed back to you.
Other ways to read and contribute to the mailing list:
Digest subscription: documentation+subscribe-digest@global.libreoffice.org
Archives: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/
Mail-Archive.com: http://www.mail-archive.com/documentation@global.libreoffice.org/
GMANE: http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.documentfoundation.libreoffice.documentation•Wiki – Go to the wiki and create an account for yourself. The Create account link is in theupper righthand corner of each wiki page.

•ODFAuthors – Ask on the mailing list for an administrator to create an account for you.

What’s in this guide?
This guide includes the following chapters:
1)

Joining the Documentation Team (this chapter)2)

Producing LibreOffice User Guides

3)

Using the ODFAuthors Website

4)

Style Guide for Writers (including preferred terminology)

5)

Using the Chapter Template (includes list of paragraph and character styles and when touse them, plus other information)

6 | What’s in this guide?