LibreOffice has been my office suite of choice for a very long time. This open source office suite has been part of every book I’ve written over the years, and it has never failed to serve.
One way I use LibreOffice for that workflow is by using templates. I work with a few different templates (such as the one inside a preformatted paperback that I depend on) and LibreOffice makes creating and using them easy.
If you have never working with a template first, let me explain its purpose. Essentially, a template is a pre-formatted or pre-written document that you create, use, and reuse to save you the time-consuming process of formatting the document to specifications or just simply write the same boilerplate. and ends. Instead, you just open the template and start adding the necessary content or details.
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Anyone who has ever worked in an office has used a template.
So, how can you create your own templates in the open source office suite LibreOffice? Let me show you how.
Create a LibreOffice template
Request
To successfully create and use a template, the only thing you need is a running instance of LibreOffice. It doesn’t matter what version of LibreOffice you’re using (although I recommend always updating to the latest version) nor does it matter what operating system you use. To illustrate, I will be using LibreOffice 7.5.0.3 running on Pop!_OS Linux.
With the office suite installed and ready, let’s move on to templates.
From your menu, toolbar, or desktop icon, open LibreOffice and create a new Writer Document from the left sidebar. This can be found under Create.
Create a new document from the LibreOffice Start Center. Screenshots of Jack Wallen/ZDNET
With Writer open, create a template if necessary. You can write a generic document that you will use later, adding boilerplate text (such as Lorem Ipsum) and format it as required, or copy and paste whatever you need into the template.
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If the template is used as a form letter, you can consider add field, so things like dates automatically update when the template is used. Take all the time you need to prototyping exactly as you need it to. This way you will only have to make minor changes (if any) each time you use the template.
Once you’ve created the template exactly as you need it, click File > Templates > Save As Template. In the resulting pop-up, give the template a name, choose a category to save the template, and click Save. If this is the main template you will be using, you can set it as the default template.
I recommend against doing this because the default template is used every time the Writer is opened. So unless you want to use that same template every time you open Writer, don’t check that box. Instead, leave it as it is, so that when you open LibreOffice Writer, you’ll see a blank document to use.
Save the document as a template in LibreOffice. Screenshots of Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Use your new template
There are two ways to use your new template. If you already have Writer open, click File > New > Template. Select the template you just created from the Templates gallery and click Open. A new document will be created, using the selected template.
Select a template from the Templates gallery. Screenshots of Jack Wallen/ZDNET
The next method to use your template is when you open the LibreOffice Start Center (which will be called LibreOffice 7.5) in your desktop menu.
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From that window, click Templates in the left sidebar and double-click the newly created template to open a new document. You can now start creating a new document, based on the template, in the resulting window.
Select a template from the LibreOffice Start Center. Screenshots of Jack Wallen/ZDNET
And that, my friends, is all it takes to create LibreOffice templates. Create as many of these as needed to make your workflow more efficient.
