LibreOffice Tips and Tricks

Calc: Date Format and Partial Entry

If you highlight the column and press CNTL-1 a dialog with options appears. Make sure the language is set to English.

When using Excel, a partial date entry such as MM-DD ie: 1-25 will automatically result in conversion to the configured format, for example MM/DD/YYYY or 1/25/2018. This does not occur by default in Calc because Calc doesn't recognize the dash as a date separator. This was not a problem in older versions (3.5x and earlier). Here's the fix: On the top menu click ( Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages ) and add two additional patterns to the field labeled "Date acceptance patterns:" so that the full contents of the field are as follows:

M/D/Y;M/D;M-D-Y;M-D

Apparently some smug little programmer decided that it was just plain wrong for folks to be using dashes in their date, so he removed it from the standard patterns. There have been multiple complaints and bug reports so it will likely be corrected in future versions.

Tip: CTRL + ; will automatically enter the current date in the active cell.

Calc: Text Wrap in a Cell

1. When in the desired cell right click and choose "Format Cells"
2. In the Format Cells dialog click on the "Alignment" tab
3. Check the "Wrap text automatically" check box

By default the Vertical alignment will stick to the bottom.

Writer: Many Glitches

LibreOffice Writer has too many glitches. Often I can't "Paste Unformatted" and their help forums just make excuses as to why, blaming the X.org and other factors. Other issues is the constant lockups and slowness. So, I found a fix that addresses all of the many problems with LibreOffice Writer.

Solution - wait and hope the next version is better

Calc: Set Print Area

The cells on the sheet that are not part of the defined print range are not printed or exported as PDF.

1. Select the cells that you want to print.
2. Choose Format -> Print Ranges -> Define.

To Clear a Print Range

1. Choose Format -> Print Ranges -> Clear.

All: Security Improvement

Java is a security risk and a performance hog. Disable it entirely except if you use plug-ins which rely on Java.

1. Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice -> Advanced
2. Under "Java Options" uncheck "Use a Java runtime environment"

You can also disable VBA

1. Tools -> Options -> Load/Save -> VBA Properties

Calc: Image Watermark Background

1. Format -> Page -> Background
2. dropdown box defaults as "Color" click on it and change to "Graphic"
3. You can use Position and click the radial button for the top left.

The watermark WILL NOT be WYSIWYG - not visible on the sheet until you select "Print Preview" CNTRL+SHFT+O

Calc: Paste cells with column width formatting

If you copy specific cells from one sheet to another, Calc does not allow you to paste with column width data like some other spreadsheet softwares.

LibreOfice simply fails here. The only workaround is unsatisfactory and works only under some conditions. If on sheet two your pasted data starts in the exact same row and column as the source, you can copy attributes and only the portion of data you want, but only to the exact cell. It will have to be done in a two different actions.

1. go ahead and copy the information from one sheet to the other even though the columns will be the incorrect size for your custom formattting
2. go back to sheet one, highlight the entire columns, by clicking on the column header (where the letters are) and copy. even though you are capturing all the data, you are only going to paste the formats on sheet 2 and not the data.
3. on sheet two go to the first column and click on the header letter, then select to paste only formats.