LibreOffice
Related articles
From Home - LibreOffice:
- LibreOffice is the free power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers. You, too, can also get involved!
Contents
LibreOffice in Arch Linux
Official support for OpenOffice.org was dropped in favor of LibreOffice, the "Document Foundation" fork of the project, which also includes enhancements and additional features. See Dropping Oracle OpenOffice (arch-general).
Installation
Install one of the following packages from the official repositories:
- libreoffice-fresh is the feature branch, with new program enhancements.
- libreoffice-still is the maintenance branch.
Check the optional dependencies pacman displays. A Java Runtime Environment is not required unless you want to use Libreoffice Base: see Java. You may need hsqldb2-java to use some modules in LibreOffice Base.
Theme
LibreOffice includes support for GTK+ and Qt theme integration. See also Uniform Look for Qt and GTK Applications.
As of LibreOffice v3.5.x toolkit libraries are checked in the following order:
gtk > kde4 > generic
To force the use of a certain VCL UI interface use one of this:
SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen lowriter SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=kde4 lowriter SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk lowriter SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk3 lowriter
It is convenient to save SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN
variable in your shell configuration file, e.g./etc/bash.bashrc
or ~/.bashrc
if using Bash.
However, if it looks like it is using Windows 95/98 icons, go to Tools > Options... in the menus (which presents the Options Dialog), then select LibreOffice > Accessibility and uncheck "Automatically detect high-contrast mode of operating system".
If that does not work immediately, you may need to change the icon set that is in use; this is also in the Options Dialog, under LibreOffice > View with two pop-up boxes for "Icon size and style" (the latter pop-up box should be changed to something other than "High-contrast").
You can force the use of a certain VCL UI interface by editing the file /etc/profile.d/libreoffice-fresh.sh
(and possibly also /etc/profile.d/libreoffice-fresh.csh
) and uncommenting the suitable line.
Firefox themes
LibreOffice 4.x series is able to use Firefox themes. Enter LibreOffice options and choose Personalization > Select Theme, then paste the URL of your favourite one. A convenient button in the dialog box lets you open the browser.
Themes can be found on Mozilla's theme repository.
Disable startup logo
If you prefer to disable the startup logo, open /etc/libreoffice/sofficerc
, find the Logo=
line and set Logo=0
.
Extension management
The following additional extensions are available in the official repositories:
For more extensions, check the AUR, the built-in LibreOffice Extension manager, or libreplanet.
Language aids
Spell checking
For spell checking, please make sure hunspell is properly installed; this should be the case for both still and fresh LibreOffice versions. Then install a language dictionary for hunspell like hunspell-en for English, hunspell-de for German, etc.
- French
- hunspell-fr is sourced from Dicollecte, if the ArchLinux version is outdated, please install it manually from here in Dictionnaires Hunspell. The dictionaries packaged as a LibreOffice extension is also provided.
- Finnish
- However, for Finnish users, there are four packages to be installed instead. Install them in this order: malaga, suomi-malaga-voikko, libvoikko and voikko-libreoffice.
Hyphenation rules
For hyphenation rules, you will need hyphen and a language hyphen rule set (hyphen-en for English, hyphen-de for German, etc).
- French
- hyphen-fr is sourced from Dicollecte, if the ArchLinux version is outdated, please install it manually from here in Césures.
Thesaurus
For the thesaurus option, you will need libmythes and a mythes language thesaurus (like mythes-en for English, mythes-de for German, etc).
Grammar checking
For grammar checking, you will need to install an extension such as LanguageTool, which can be found in the AUR: libreoffice-extension-languagetool or the LanguageTool Website.
Other grammar tools can also be found on the LibreOffice Extension Page or OpenOffice's Website. Not all OpenOffice extensions are guaranteed to work with LibreOffice.
Offline help for en-US
The US English packages in the official repositories do not include the offline help files. Users who desire offline help for en-US can install the libreoffice-still-en-us-help or libreoffice-fresh-en-us-help packages from the AUR.
Installing macros
If you intend to use macros, you must have a Java Runtime Environment enabled. A Java Runtime Environment is enabled by default, but disabling it speeds up the program.
The default path for macros in Arch Linux is different from most Linux distributions. Its location is:
~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/Scripts/
Speed up LibreOffice
Some settings may improve LibreOffice's loading time and responsiveness. However, some also increase RAM usage, so use them carefully. They can all be accessed under Tools > Options.
- Under Memory:
- Reduce the number of Undo steps to a figure lower than 100, to something like 20 or 30 steps
- Under Graphics cache, set Use for LibreOffice to 128 MB (up from the original 20 MB)
- Set Memory per object to 20 MB (up from the default 5 MB).
- If LibreOffice is used often, check Enable systray Quickstarter
- Under Advanced, uncheck Use a Java runtime environment
Troubleshooting
Font substitution
These settings can be changed in the LibreOffice options. From the drop-down menu, select Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Fonts. Check the box that says Apply Replacement Table. Type Andale Sans UI
in the font box and choose your desired font for the Replace with option. When done, click the checkmark. Then choose the Always and Screen only options in the box below. Click OK.
You will then need to go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View, and uncheck "Use system font for user interface". If you use a non-antialised font, such as Arial, you will also need to uncheck "Screen font antialiasing" before menu fonts render correctly.
Anti-aliasing
Execute:
$ echo "Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault" | xrdb -merge
To make the change persistent, add Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault
to your ~/.Xresources
file, and make sure to run $ xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
(source. See X resources for more details.
If this does not work, you can also try adding Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault
to your ~/.Xdefaults
. If you do not have this file, you will have to create it.
If LibreOffice hangs when trying to open or save a document located on a NFSv3 share, try prepending the following lines with a #
in /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice
:
# file locking now enabled by default SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=1 export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING
To avoid overwriting on update you can copy /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice
in /usr/local/bin
. Original post here.
Fixing Java framework error
You may get the following error when you try to run LibreOffice.
[Java framework] Error in function createSettingsDocument (elements.cxx). javaldx failed!
If so, give yourself ownership of ~/.config/
like so:
# chown -vR username:users ~/.config
LibreOffice does not detect my certificates
If you cannot see the certificates when trying to sign a document, you will need to have the certificates configured in Mozilla Firefox (or Thunderbird). If after that LibreOffice still does not show them, set the MOZILLA_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER
environment variable to point to your Mozilla Firefox (or Thunderbird) folder:
export MOZILLA_CERTIFICATE_FOLDER=$HOME/.mozilla/firefox/XXXXXX.default/
Run .pps files in edit mode (without slideshow)
The only solution is to rename the .pps
file to .ppt
.
Add the following script to your home directory and use it to open every .pps file. Very useful to open .pps
files received by email without the need to save them.
#!/bin/bash f=$(mktemp) cp "$1" "${f}.ppt" && libreoffice "${f}.ppt" && rm -f "${f}.ppt"
Media support
If embedded videos are just gray boxes, make sure to have installed the GStreamer plugins required.
Default paper size in Writer and Draw
If the default paper size in blank Writer and Draw documents is persistently incorrect for your locale, try installing the libpaper optional dependency and either updating /etc/papersize
(for a system-wide change) or exporting the PAPERSIZE
environment variable (for a user change) with your preferred paper size.