5 Ways I Made LibreOffice Work For Me

I have never asked anyone "Which writing programs do you use?" I didn't understand why this question needed to asking at all when all a writer needs is something to write on, right? Yes! But also no. When I began my writing journey, I had Microsoft Word, and when I bought my Mac computer, I downloaded the very similar, and very free, LibreOffice. For over a decade I typed away on the word document without a thought about formatting, or outlining, or anything else besides the words I wanted on the page. At the time, that was fine with me, but I had seen that question asked so many times I thought there had to be something. There had to be something I was missing because Microsoft and LibreOffice weren't the obvious answers; apparently, writing software like Scrivener and Ulysses were.

I perused a few of these programs to see what all the hullabaloo was about, and was excited to see its appeal immediately after reading it's blog posts, FAQs, and watched tutorials on how to use them. My excitement was dashed when I thought about how little it would actually benefit me.

Keeping one big project in a neat and organized folder was something I already do with my documents on Mac. These programs' lure for people, whom are looking into easier ways on how to write novels, is it's visual appeal, and I don't work with visuals. Mood boards, mind maps, relationship webs, index cards on a cork board . . . I never use these. Distraction-free writing? I can easily do that with making LibreOffice fullscreen. Want a dark background with a lighter font, or a different color scheme in general? LibreOffice does that too. So I knew without even starting the free trial that I would never use any of these programs to its fullest. It seemed like a total waste. The character outlines, world building notes, and story outlining were also things that I also couldn't see myself using. Yes, a majority of these writing software allow for customization, but that's more work for every project.

For everyone that's carrying a torch for these software, and is about to tell me how I'm wrong, that because I haven't actually tried them I don't know anything, let me say it's great that it works for you, but I know in my bone marrow it's not for me. It's like trying to find a date online—you can tell if a person would not be a good fit for you just by looking at the profile. Even without sending that first message. These writing softwares are just not a good fit for me.

But it did give me something new to think about.

I knew I wanted something like these programs, but my way, with little to no hassle for every writing project. I went back to LibreOffice and dove deeper to see how I could make it behave more like these writing programs. In the process, I found five big ways that has changed the writing game for me. All without downloading plugins or extensions.

1. The Formatting Options

From what I saw on these software, their limited formatting options are the standardized toolbar that any website with a chat box has, from the absolutely-need-all-the-time bold, italics and underline; to the maybe-use-once-or-twice-in-a-novel increase indent or block-quote; to the rarely-if-ever-used-seriously-what-novel-needs-this? bullet-point and numbered list. Only a small number of these software has styles, such as headings or titles. It gave me the impression that these software are just a place to write out your drafts. Then, once you're finished with your novel, you would import it to something more like LibreOffice to fine-tune the formatting to publishing standards.

I prefer to skip the import/export step and write onto LibreOffice. It also helps me not worry about the formatting later when it's the first step I do. I go to LibreOffice's "Page" and "Paragraph" formats and set the specific measurements so that it follows those formats as I write the story. If I need to change the format of a small section, I can highlight those passages and change it right then and there. I would risk missing this section, or other sections, if I tried to format the story as the last step.