How to Enable/Disable and Work with the LibreOffice Sidebar

The LibreOffice Sidebar is an easily accessible options area that displays on the side. It hosts a number of features and proves to be quite useful when we have to make a quick change to the document. The toolbar is basically used to change the style, formatting and other properties and it is handy when it comes to working with diagrams, pictures, functions, slide animation. The exact options that display on it vary on what you are using—Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw.

While the sidebar displays a number of buttons, once you click on those buttons it will expand a Sidebar Deck. This deck has all the values you can input and options that you can change. You can close the sidebar deck and the sidebar remains intact. You can also choose to hide the sidebar or enable it while it is docked or undocked. We prefer it to have on the right side of the application while working with our office files.

Enabling and Disabling the LibreOffice Sidebar

To enable and disable the sidebar, use the View > Sidebar option. It is where you activate and deactivate it. The first button (Sidebar Settings), when clicked, also has a Close Sidebar option which you can use to hide it.

Docking and Undocking

The sidebar is docked by default, meaning, it displays on the right side. It can be freed from that area and undocked and dragged around as you see fit. Just click on the first button (Sidebar Settings) and hit Undock. It will float on your screen and it can be dragged around and placed as per your need. A docked sidebar can also be clicked and dragged to float it. It can also be resized.

Now, to dock a floating sidebar, just click on the same old Sidebar Settings > Dock option. You can also drag the floating options and slam them on the left or the right of the screen to dock them on the either side.

Working With the Sidebar Deck

The sidebar deck is what displays when you click on an option button. It can also be displayed by clicking and dragging on the left edge of the dock. The close button can be used to switch it back to how it was.

The sidebar deck is what holds all the options. Here is the list of options that you can modify.

In LibreOffice Writer:

• Properties
• Page
• Styles and Formatting
• Gallery
• Navigator

In LibreOffice Calc:

• Properties
• Styles and Formatting
• Gallery
• Navigator
• Functions

In LibreOffice Impress:

• Properties
• Slide Transition
• Animation
• Master Pages
• Styles and Formatting
• Gallery
• Navigator

In LibreOffice Draw:

• Properties
• Styles and Formatting
• Gallery
• Navigator

By now, you must have figured out the usefulness of the Sidebar in LibreOffice. It is easily accessible and can be used to make quick changes to your document.

For example: In Writer, we can use the Styles and Formatting button to bring up the options related to the text styles. We can easily change the paragraph, character, frame, page, list and table styles using it. No need to navigate the top menu.

So, discover the usefulness of this inbuilt tool and use it to make quick changes.