Libreoffice Writer for LaTeX users

Even if LaTeX is the most used document generator for academic papers there are some users who are not satisfied with the program. The next better alternative after pdflatex is the Libreoffice Writer software. It is working completely different from latex and it is used only occasional for academic writing, but never the less it makes sense to give a short tutorial how to do so.

First thing to mention is, that former latex users will miss many useful tools. Libreoffice has no bibtex like reference manager. What can be created instead is a single column table at the end of the document which stores the items in the format [AuthorYear] text. Such a table can be sorted alphabetically. If the user likes to cite on of the papers he types into the normal text the [AuthorYear] string without a dedicated link.

Second important thing to mention is the placement of figures. Libreoffice supports the many graphics formats like SVG, JPG and PNG which can be inserted as a link. Similar to latex, this will reduce the filesize. But if the image was only linked it is not possible to send the file to someone else. So the better idea is to embedded the picture. In the default setting the libreoffice software will placa an image at the here position. But a simple click into the context menu allows to position the image on top of the page. After inserting or deleting the text, the pictures' position get adjusted to the next top position, similar to what latex knows as a float figure.

The mechanism isn't working as accurate as in latex because in many cases, the user has to manuall adjust some settings but with a bit effort it works.

Another important aspect are fonts int he libreoffice Writer program. The best idea is to use the default one which is liberation serif and not embedded additional fonts like Latin modern roman. The reason is, that technically it is possible to embedded fonts but it will increase the file size drastically.

It is pretty easy to recognize which software was used to create a document. Libreoffice has a complety different hyphenation algorithm, doesn't have microtypographic enhancement and it lacks in vertical adjustment of the glue. So the average latex user can identify easily which sort of program was used. Never theless both programs (libreoffice and LaTeX) can be used to create well formulated academic papers. The resulting pdf file will contain all the graphics, and the text can be read on the screen. Main advantage of the .odf file format is, that it can be used to track changes of different users and very important it is not LaTeX which has become a mainstream ecosystem.

 

Creating a newspaper with libreoffice

 

The libreoffice suite has an interesting feature which wasn't recognized by the public yet. The feature is called siimply text box or frame and allows to transform Libreoffice into a software similar to Scribus. But let us slow down the workflow and bit. Suppose the idea is not to create a text but a newspaper with multiple columns. The existing Libreoffice or LaTeX software is not suited well enough for the task because a newspaper is working visual.

Instead of using a different software, the idea is to built around the frame concept the document structure. The interesting fact is that the frames in Libreoffice can be linked together, similar what Scribus provides. So the user can define different frames and let the text flow in this structure.

The screenshot shows the rendered pdf file. The interesting situation is that the filesize is very small (34 kb which includes the png image) and very important the user can create as many columns he like. He has the freedom of a layout software but can handle text in the frames.

Writing high quality documents with Libreoffice

There is some sort of shared knowledge available that existing WYSIWYG text processors are not able to create academic text especially if they are longer and if the quality requirement are high. And of course the more powerful alternative is LaTeX, Lyx and other authoring tools like Framemaker.

The reason why especially the Lyx software is a great choise for creating technical documents is because it combines an outline editor for creating the content on a textual level with the powerful latex backend to render the document in a high quality PDF version.

But sometimes there is a need to create documents without latex and the question is if this is possible at all? The following blog post tries to explain how to create technical documents only with the libreoffice program which is preinstalled in the Debian operating system.

After starting the Libreoffice software the first time it will look like in the screenshot. The user sees a blank page and a blinking cursor. Also the user sees lots of icons and formatting symbols to change the font which is pershaps the main reason why experienced latex users doesn't like such a software very much. In Libreoffice there is no clear seperation between content and layout and the user can modify both in the text which makes it hard to focus only on the text.

The first step is modify the GUI a bit so that it will look like the lyx GUI. The Libreoffice program has a feature called navigator which can be compared with the outline view of lyx. the navigator shows the document structure in a side tab.

Suppose, the user has entered some text and want to change the font. In LaTeX and lyx as well the only way in doing so is to adjust the global font parameter which will affect the entire document. The Libreoffice program has a similar feature which is hidden in styles->edit style->font

Getting a preview of the pdf file is a bit complicated. First thing to do is to swtich to the normal view and then the print preview button is visible.

The main problem with the software is, that there are an endless amount of buttons and menus available. The user has to learn to ignore most of them. In contrast, latex and lyx has a more minimalistic approach. But from a tehcnical perspective, libreoffice can replace lyx very well. It has also the ability to act as an outline editor and it is also possible to render the document into a pdf file.

Let us focus on the core element of an outline editor which is the outline pane. Unfurtunately the Libreoffice tool window looks a bit messy. It contains a lot of icons and the size is fixed. This makes the interaction compared with the Lyx software difficult. But, it is not impossible to use the software. In theory the user is able to create and edit outline oriented text content in Libreoffice similar to other authoring software like emacs org mode or the scrivener app.

Using C++ like MS-Excel

Microsoft Excel and the Open Source clone Libreoffice calc are very good programs for developing prototyping spreadsheets. A new Excel file is created fast, and the user can try out some calculations. The major problem is, that the amount of programming inside an Excel sheet is not very high, that means it is impossible to use MS-excel for prototyping GUI games, or simple search algorithm.

What is possible is to use the MS-excel metaphor for describing the workflow in the C++ programming language. Let us imagine, that C++ is like Excel and we want to create a software prototype. How do we do this?

At first, we are creating a working directory and inside the folder we are executing “git init”. In the folder we are creating the project-subfolder called “project1”. In this folder we can store small .cpp files. Every cpp file is equal to an MS-excel tab. That means, the project1 folder is equal to an excel file, and the cpp files are the tabs in the file.

Now we can enter some content. Like in Java, each file can only have one class. file1.cpp has class1, file2.cpp the class2 and so on. As an additional constraint the maximum lines of code for each files is limited to 100 lines of code. That means, the files must be small. And at a last constraint the sum of all files should only have 500 lines of code, otherwise we must create a new project-folder.

The overall idea of this structure is to use C++ as a prototyping programming language for trying out new sourcecode. We can switch between the parts of our program with browsing through the files, and the idea is to use only well known statements like std::string, for loops and if-statements. That means reducing C++ to a Python like language which is not aware of pointers, STL and other complicated stuff. Instead we imagine, that C++ is our MS-excel spreadsheet and the idea is not to write software but doing some trial&error workflow.

A new project folder is not created for writing stable software, but make a new iteration in the software prototype. If the limit of 500 lines of code is reached, the old project will get stopped, instead a new project is created from scratch. The idea is, that if the lines of code is slower, it is easier to understand the code.

Working with git and C++ in such a way is from a technical point of view possible. It is only a question if the user is aware of it. Most users think, that git needs branches and that C++ projects needs to be very complicated and contains a lot of pointers. No, they don't. There is no need for making things complicated. Small is beautiful.

I think, C++ and git were developed for prototyping reasons as a replacement for MS-Excel. The use case is to write new algorithm quickly and throw away everything if the user is bored.