Work with documents¶

Open¶

libera                             # the start window
libera ~/Documents/note.docx
libera ~/Documents/budget.xlsx
libera ~/Documents/network.vsdx

The document decides which editor you get. There is no command to pick one, in the same way there is no command to pick a text editor for a .txt: you open the document and the right editor comes up. An .xlsx opens in Tables, a .pptx in Slides, a .vsdx in Diagrams.

libera on its own opens the start window: a new document of any kind, an open dialog, your recent documents, and where the payload came from. Pick something and the start window goes away, leaving you with the document.

Libera Suite opens one document per window, so a shell glob does what it looks like it does:

libera ~/Documents/*.docx     # one window each

You can also open a document from inside the editor, through File ▸ Open or File ▸ Open Recent. Either opens a new window; neither disturbs the document you already have open.

File ▸ New offers a Document, a Spreadsheet or a Presentation from any window, each in a window of its own. On macOS, ⌘N makes one of the same kind as the front window. Inside the editor, you get the same choice from File ▸ Create New.

Save¶

File ▸ Save writes back to the document you opened. File ▸ Save As asks where to put it. From then on that is the document you are editing.

Saving converts the editor's working format back into a real document, which takes about a second.

Export¶

Save As is also how you export: its dialog has a File Format popup.

Choosing a format renames the file in the dialog. The dialog will not let the two disagree: you cannot end up with an ODT called .docx.

Not every format the converter can read is one it can write. .doc in particular opens but does not save; use .docx or .rtf for something that has to go back to an old Word.

If you are looking for a Download As entry in the File menu, there isn't one. The editors hide it when they run as an offline desktop application and put Save As in its place: the same job, one menu entry earlier.

The menu bar¶

On Linux and Windows the bar sits inside the window: File, Edit, View and Help, the last holding Libera Help and About Libera Suite. Three differences follow from what the menu there offers. None of the items has a keyboard shortcut, so the keys below belong to the editor and work inside the page. Open Recent is built when the application starts, so a document you open today appears in it tomorrow. Nothing greys out, so Save with nothing to save does nothing.

On macOS it is a real Mac menu bar, with the same items plus Window. The usual shortcuts work there whether or not the editor has focus:

File ▸ Open Recent is rebuilt each time you open it. The Window menu lists every open document.

Save, Undo and Redo are greyed out when there is nothing to save or undo. The editor declines those silently: a menu item that stayed available would look broken.

Closing¶

Closing a window with unsaved changes asks first: Save, Don't Save or Cancel.

Choosing Don't Save is not final. Libera Suite keeps what you wrote, and offers it back the next time you open that document.

Print¶

File ▸ Print, or the printer button, renders the document to PDF and opens it in your system's PDF viewer, where the print dialog lives.

That is the choice for now: the viewer you already have gives you page ranges, paper size, scaling and a preview, none of which we would build better in the first version.

Images¶

Images embedded in a document are preserved on open and save. Insert ▸ Image adds an image from disk.

Spell checking¶

Misspellings are underlined, and right-click offers suggestions. Which dictionary is used follows the document's language, which you set from the status bar at the bottom of the window, per document.

Dictionaries for five languages ship: English (US and UK), French, German, Spanish and Italian. A language with no dictionary is not an error; its words are simply treated as correct. Words you add through Add to dictionary come back next session, because personal dictionaries are not stored yet.

Your name in documents¶

Tracked changes and comments are attributed to a person, whose name is written into the saved file. Libera Suite takes it from your account: your full name as macOS knows it, the display name of your Windows account, or the full-name field of your Unix account on Linux, falling back to your login name.

There is no setting for it yet. If a document has to go out under a different name, that is worth telling us about.

Where your working files go¶

While a document is open, Libera Suite keeps a session directory alongside its application data. It holds the editor's working copy and a running log of your changes, which makes saving fast and undo reliable. It is not a backup: the document is where you saved it.

What works today is the next page: what is built and the problems we already know about. If you meet one that is not on that list, tell us.