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Using Multiple Language Packs in Spell Checker

Sometimes, our documents contain text in more than one language and while running the spell checker, this poses a rather inconvenient problem. In most free Office suites, the way out is to ignore the text of the other language while checking the rest of the document. However, in LibreOffice, you can specify multiple language pack dictionaries and it will automatically decide which one to use on the basis of text. Simply go to Tools-->Language and select the correct option. You can specify a separate language for the current paragraph, a selection of text or the entire document. Further more, you can also download additional language packs from within this menu.

Adding Extensions to LibreOffice

Back in the days of OpenOffice, adding extensions to the software was a pain. However, with the advent of LibreOffice, you can do it easily in a matter of seconds. Once you install the software, head to Tools-->Extensions Manager and then select the extension that you wish to add, remove or tweak. You can also add custom extensions from LibreOffice Online.

Editing PDFs

We know that LibreOffice can easily export a document to PDF from any format, be it ODT or DOC. However, at times we may need to edit an already existing PDF document (and not all of us can afford the luxury of Adobe Acrobat as it isn't open source). In such a case, we can find a work around method using LibreOffice. LibreOffice can import a PDF file, though it will do so as a Draw image, not a Writer document. Once you import the file as an image, you can easily drag and resize text, images and other contents of the PDF file. Once done, simply export the file as PDF just as you would've had it been any other document. While this method is not the best way to edit a PDF file, it surely comes in very handy when we need to make quick and small changes to a file.

Using Hyperlinks in Documents

If you edit documents that involve a lot of hyperlinks, you can activate the Hyperlink Bar for easier editing. To do so, go to View-->Toolbars and select Hyperlink Bar. The bar contains just two areas — the first one is for entering the display text and the second is for the URL. Once you fill in the values for both the fields and hit Enter, the hyperlink will be entered. You can use this toolbar to enter or edit hyperlinks in bulk.

Using Autocomplete in Writer

To enable the Autocomplete option in LibreOffice Writer, go to Tools-->Autocorrect Options and in the Word Completion tab, check 'Enable Word Completion' and 'Collect Words'. This will cause the word processor to create a database from the words you type often and eventually, as you type those words, it will start auto suggesting the same and you will simply need to hit Enter to accept the Autocomplete suggestion.

Using the Thesaurus

LibreOffice comes with an in-built Thesaurus. If you wish to look up a word, simply select it and hit Ctrl+F7. Alternatively, you can also navigate to Tools-->Language-->Thesaurus.

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