LibreOffice 6.1+ comes with different user interface options and icon styles. Here’s how they look and how to apply them.
LibreOffice 6.1 introduced some major and visible improvements which were long due. Among all, this version comes with options to choose cool icon styles and user interfaces.
How to Change LibreOffice Default Look and Feel
Icon Styles
LibreOffice 6.1 is having below list of cool icon sets:
- elementary
- Breeze
- Tango
- Karasa Jaga
- Colibre
- Sifr Dark
Sifr
For Linux, elementary is the default icon set. And for Windows – Colibre. All the icon styles are modern looking and carefuly designed by maintaining a standard to align with other Office products.
How to apply Icon Styles in LibreOffice
- Open LibreOffice.
- Go to Tools > Options.
- Under View section, you can find the Icon Style drop-down. Select the Icon Style you want.
You can also change the other options related to Icons – such as – Toolbar Icon Size etc.
- Press ok. And you can see the new Icon Style applied in toolbar.
User Interface
LibreOffice slowly moving towards developing more modern interface options along with traditional standard toolbar type. Most popular office products have tabbed, grouped icons today. It is an evolution towards that.
LibreOffice 6.1 comes with below types of User interfaces and quick look at them. Do keep in mind that below user interface options are still experimental.
Contextual Group
Contextual Single
Tabbed
Tabbed Compact
Grouped Bar
Grouped Bar Compact
How to Change User Interface in LibreOffice
Follow below steps to change the user interface.
- Open LibreOffice.
- Go to menu Tools > Options. Under Advanced, select Enable Experimental Features.
- Go to menu View > User Interface.
- Select your option.
- You can now see the toolbar is changed with new user interface.
Watch Video
You can have a look at the below video on how to change the default look of LibreOffice.
Tip
- If you select Tabbed, Grouped Bar UI option – you can find the Menu option at the extreme right section to go back top UI chooser.
- If you are looking for Dark Mode in LibreOffice in a combination with above icon and toolbar styles, check out the below article.
Download
If you are interested in LibreOffice and want to give it a try, head over to below link for download options and details:
Summary
New styles and UI options definitely gives LibreOffice an edge among other free Office suites and this is step in the right direction for user adoption and user base increase. The UI options are still in development (may not work properly for all components – Impress, Draw etc as they are experimental) – and in coming days it would be available for all components.
Drop a comment below if you have any questions.
Looking for something else?
Read our complete tutorial index of Calc, Writer, Impress and Draw.
Is this performing better than Open Office?
Not sure. However, LibreOffice’s new modern looks and approaches looks promising.
Do you know any option to bypass a blur display of icons ? I try something, looks better but still a bit blur :/
Here is what I try if you want to see : https://ask.libreoffice.org/fr/question/191758/icones-floues/
Is there any way to get a dark theme? I look at computers for my job and much of my free time and find that bright white backgrounds tend to give me eyestrain. I can’t seem to find any way to change the appearance to be darker. I’d even be willing to make the graphics for one, if anyone is willing to show me how to apply it.
Yes, you can. Check out here:
https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/01/how-to-enable-dark-mode-libreoffice/
Wow, my hero <3 Thank you! That really wasn't even buried that deep, I guess I'm just that oblivious
Is there a way to actually edit the user interfaces?
I really like the look and feel of contextualized groups, but I feel as though I can put more icons/functions on that toolbar. However, there doesn’t seem to be any feasible way of accomplishing this.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to edit this under the Customize > Toolbars.
As per I know, it is not yet possible to edit the user interface as of latest version.