Copyright

This document is Copyright © 2021 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors are listed below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), version 4.0 or later.

All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors

To this edition

Jean Hollis Weber

Kees Kriek

To previous editions

Jean Hollis Weber	Rafael Lima	Kees Kriek
Olivier Hallot	Steve Fanning	Ron Faile Jr.
John A Smith

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Publication date and software version

Published September 2021. Based on LibreOffice 7.2 Community.
Other versions of LibreOffice may differ in appearance and functionality.

Introduction

You can use LibreOffice without requiring a pointing device, such as a mouse or touchpad, by using its built-in keyboard shortcuts.

This appendix lists some of the most common built-in keyboard shortcuts that apply to multiple components of LibreOffice. For shortcuts specific to Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, or Base, read the relevant component guide or search the application Help.

To assist the user with identification of useful keyboard shortcuts, their existence is indicated by text on menu items and in the tooltips of toolbar icons. For example, in Writer:

The menu item File > Open includes text indicating that Ctrl+O is an equivalent shortcut.
The Underline icon in the Formatting toolbar has a tooltip indicating that Ctrl+U is an equivalent shortcut.
The Paste item in the right-click context menu includes text indicating that Ctrl+V is an equivalent shortcut (providing that Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View > Visibility > Shortcuts is not set to Hide).

LibreOffice provides further information about the available shortcuts in the list presented on the Keyboard tab of the Tools > Customize dialog.

Warning

Some of the shortcuts listed here may not work if your operating system uses the same shortcuts for other tasks.

To resolve any conflicts, assign different keys to these shortcuts by reconfiguring either LibreOffice (see Chapter 14, Customizing LibreOffice, in this book) or your operating system (see system documentation).

Assistive tools in LibreOffice

In addition to keyboard shortcuts, LibreOffice supports some assistive technology tools like screen magnification software, screen readers, and on-screen keyboards. Please note that except for the Windows platform, accessibility support relies on Java technology for communications with assistive technology tools. This means that the first program startup may take a few seconds longer, because the Java runtime environment has to be started as well.

A current list of supported assistive tools can be found on the Wiki at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Accessibility

Tip for Macintosh users

Some keystrokes are different on macOS from those used in Windows and Linux. The following table gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this chapter. For a more detailed list, see the application Help.

Windows or Linux	macOS equivalent	Effect
Right-click	Control+click and/or right-click depending on computer setup	Open a context menu
Ctrl (Control)	⌘ (Command)	Used with other keys
F11	⌘+T	Open the Sidebar Styles deck

Getting help

Shortcut Keys	Result
F1	Opens the LibreOffice Help contents in your default browser. If the local Help package is not installed, LibreOffice opens the online Help located at https://help.libreoffice.org.
Shift+F1	Turns the cursor into the What’s This? question mark. Shows the tip for an item underneath the cursor. The shortcut does not work with the online help.
Shift+F2	Shows tip for a selected item. The shortcut does not work with the online help.

General keyboard shortcuts

Opening menus and menu items

Shortcut Keys	Result
Alt+<?>	Opens a menu where <?> is the underlined character of the menu you want to open. For example, Alt+F opens the menu File. With the menu open, you will again find underlined characters. You can access these menu items directly by pressing the underlined character key. Where two menu items have the same underlined character, press the character key again to move to the next item. There may be instances where an item in a menu has no underlined character. This will have to be clicked directly.
Esc	Closes an open menu.
F6	Repeatedly pressing F6 switches the focus and circles through the following objects: Menu bar Every toolbar from top to bottom and from left to right Every free window from left to right Document
Shift+F6	Switches focus through objects in the opposite direction.
Ctrl+F6	Switches the focus to the document.
F10 or Alt	Switches focus to the Menu bar and back.

Accessing a menu command

Press Alt or F6 or F10 to select the first item on the Menu bar (the File menu). With the right‑arrow, the next menu to the right is selected; with the left-arrow, the previous menu. The Home and End keys select the first and the last item on the Menu bar.

The down-arrow opens a selected menu. An additional down-arrow or up-arrow moves the selection through the menu commands. The right-arrow opens any existing submenus.

Press Enter to run the selected menu command.

Running a toolbar command

Press F6 repeatedly until the first icon on the toolbar is selected. Use the right and left arrows to select any icon on a horizontal toolbar. Similarly, use the up and down arrows to select any icon on a vertical toolbar. The Home key selects the first icon on a toolbar, and the End key the last.

Note

If the first object in the toolbar has an editable text field, like the Load URL or the Paragraph Style, the Home, End, left and right arrow keys work on the text instead. In these cases you can use Tab and Shift+Tab to navigate to other objects.

Press Enter to action the selected icon. If the selected icon normally demands a consecutive mouse action, such as inserting a rectangle, then pressing the Enter key is not sufficient: in these cases press Ctrl+Enter.

Press Ctrl+Enter on an icon for creating a draw object. A draw object will be placed into the middle of the view, with a predefined size.

Press Ctrl+Enter on the Selection tool to select the first draw object in the document. If you want to edit, size, or move the selected draw object, first use Ctrl+F6 to move the focus into the document.

Navigating and selecting with the keyboard

You can navigate through a document and make selections with the keyboard.

To move the cursor, press the key or key combination given in the following table.
To select the characters under the moving cursor, additionally hold down the Shift key when you move the cursor.

Key	Function	Plus Ctrl key
Right, left arrow keys	Moves the cursor one character to the left or to the right.	Moves the cursor one word to the left or to the right.
Up, down arrow keys	Moves the cursor up or down one line.	Moves the cursor up or down one paragraph.
Home	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.	Moves the cursor to the beginning of the document.
End	Moves the cursor to the end of the current line.	Moves the cursor to the end of the document.
PgUp	Scrolls up one page.	Moves the cursor to the header.
PgDn	Scroll down one page.	Moves the cursor to the footer.

Controlling dialogs

When you open any dialog, one element (such as a button, an option field, an entry in a list box, or a checkbox) is highlighted or indicated by a dotted box around the field or button name. This element is said to have the focus on it.

Shortcut Keys	Result
Enter	Activates selected button. In most cases where no button is selected, Enter is equivalent to clicking OK.
Esc	Closes dialog without saving any changes made while it was open. In most cases, Esc is equivalent to clicking Cancel. When an open drop-down list is selected, Esc closes the list.
Spacebar	Checks an empty checkbox. Clears a checked checkbox.
Up, down arrow keys	Moves focus up and down a list. Increases or decreases value of a variable. Moves focus vertically within a section of dialog.
Left, right arrow keys	Moves focus horizontally within a section of a dialog.
Tab	Advances focus to the next section or element of a dialog.
Shift+Tab	Returns focus to the previous section or element in a dialog.
Alt+Down Arrow	Shows items in a drop-down list.

Controlling macros

Shortcut Keys	Result
Ctrl+* (multiplication sign: on number pad only)	Runs a macro field. (See Chapter 13 for more about macros.)
Shift+Ctrl+Q	Stops a running macro.

Managing documents

Shortcut Keys	Result
Ctrl+F4 or Alt+F4	Closes the current document. Closes LibreOffice when the last open document is closed.
Ctrl+O	Launches the Open dialog to open a document.
Ctrl+S	Saves the current document. If you are working on a previously unsaved file, the shortcut launches the Save As dialog.
Ctrl+N	Creates a new document.
Shift+Ctrl+N	Opens the Templates dialog.
Ctrl+P	Opens the Print dialog to print the document.
Ctrl+Q	Closes the application.
Del	In the Save and Open dialogs, deletes the selected files or folders. Items can be retrieved from the Recycle Bin (Trash), if your operating system has one.
Shift+Del	In the Save and Open dialogs, deletes the selected files or folders. Items are permanently deleted: they can not be retrieved from the Recycle Bin.
Backspace	In the Save and Open dialogs, shows contents of the current folder’s parent folder.

Editing

Shortcut Keys	Result
Ctrl+X, Shift+Del	Cuts selected items.
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Ins	Copies selected items to the clipboard.
Ctrl+V, Shift+Ins	Pastes copied or cut items from the clipboard.
Ctrl+Shift+V	Opens the Paste Special dialog.
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V	Pastes unformatted text.
Ctrl+A	Selects all.
Ctrl+Z	Undoes last action.
Ctrl+Y	Redoes last action.
Ctrl+Shift+Y	Repeats last command.
Ctrl+F	Opens the Find toolbar.
Ctrl+H	Opens the Find & Replace dialog.
Ctrl+Shift+F	Searches for the last entered search term.
Ctrl+Shift+I	Shows or hides the cursor in read-only text.

Selecting rows and columns in a database table

These shortcuts apply after the database table has been opened by Ctrl+Shift+F4.

Shortcut keys	Result
Spacebar	Toggles row selection, except when the row is in edit mode.
Ctrl+Space bar	Toggles row selection.
Shift+Space bar	Selects the current column.
Ctrl+Page Up	Moves pointer to the first row.
Ctrl+Page Down	Moves pointer to the last row.

Shortcut keys for drawing objects

Shortcut keys	Result
Select the toolbar with F6. Use the Down Arrow and Right Arrow to select the desired toolbar icon and press Ctrl+Enter.	Inserts a drawing object.
Select the document with Ctrl+F6 and press Tab.	Selects a drawing object.
Tab	Selects the next drawing object.
Shift+Tab	Selects the previous drawing object.
Ctrl+Home	Selects the first drawing object.
Ctrl+End	Selects the last drawing object.
Esc	Ends drawing object selection.
Esc (in Handle Selection Mode)	Exits Handle Selection Mode and returns to Object Selection Mode.
Up/Down/Left/Right Arrow	Move the selected point (the snap-to-grid functions are temporarily disabled, but end points still snap to each other).
Alt+Up/Down/Left/Right Arrow	Moves the selected drawing object one pixel (in Selection Mode). Re-sizes a drawing object (in Handle Selection Mode). Rotates a drawing object (in Rotation Mode). Opens the properties dialog for a drawing object. Activates Point Selection mode for the selected drawing object.
Spacebar	Selects a point of a drawing object (in Point Selection mode) / Cancel selection. The selected point blinks once per second.
Shift+Spacebar	Selects an additional point in Point Selection mode.
Ctrl+Tab	Selects the next point of the drawing object (Point Selection mode). In Rotation mode, the center of rotation can also be selected.
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Selects the previous point of the drawing object (Point Selection mode).
Ctrl+Enter	A new drawing object with default size is placed in the center of the current view.
Ctrl+Enter at the Selection icon	Activates the first drawing object in the document.
Esc	Leaves the Point Selection mode. The drawing object is selected afterwards. Edits a point of a drawing object (Point Edit mode).
Any text or numerical key	If a drawing object is selected, switches to edit mode and places the cursor at the end of the text in the drawing object. A printable character is inserted.
Alt key while creating or scaling a graphic object	The position of the object’s center is fixed.
Shift key while creating or scaling a graphic object	The ratio of the object’s width to height is fixed.

Defining keyboard shortcuts

In addition to using the built-in keyboard shortcuts listed in this Appendix, you can define your own. See Chapter 14, Customizing LibreOffice, for instructions.