Make Office Better Top tips for MS Office & LibreOffice
Issue 631 • 11 – 24 May 2022 4747LIBREOFFICE WRITER &
MICROSOFT WORD
Use keyboard shortcuts to add
double space between lines
There are several ways to
double-space entire
documents in Word, so
that there’s extra room between lines.
The most commonly used is to click the
Home tab followed by the ‘Line and
Paragraph Spacing’ icon in the Paragraph
section, then select 2.0 (or a smaller or
larger number to match the amount of
space you want between lines).
You can set this at the beginning of a
document, before you start writing, or
change it when you’ve finished. A quicker
way of doing the latter, though, is to
highlight the text then press the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+2. The text will change
instantly to double spaced.
There’s no equivalent shortcut built
into LibreOffice Writer, but you can add
your own. Open a document, then click
the Tools tab at the top, followed by
Customise at the bottom. In the box that
appears click the Keyboard tab at the top,
then Format in the Category box (^1 in
our screenshot below). Now scroll downthe Function box and select ‘Line
Spacing: 2’^2 , then choose your
shortcut keys in the box above – we’ve
opted for Ctrl+6^3 (this will appear
in the Keys box bottom-right).
Finally, click Modify^4 , then OK.MICROSOFT EXCEL
Compare lists to find data
that’s different
You can compare two lists in
Excel to find any data present
in one that’s missing in the other.
Highlight the cells, then click the Home
tab followed by Conditional Formatting in
the Styles section. Next, select Highlight
Cells Rules, then Duplicate Values. Now
select Unique in the dropdown menu (^1
in our screenshot below), and choose
how you want the data that’s different to
be shown. For example, we’ve chosen
‘Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text’^2.
You’ll see the differences highlighted in
the style you chose^3.ONLYOFFICE
Turn on dark mode in
documents and spreadsheets
Version 7.0 of OnlyOffice,
released in January, added a
dark mode to documents. To
turn it on, click the top-right menu (three
horizontal lines), then select ‘Dark mode’.
Note that you’ll only see this option if
you’ve already set the interface to dark,
affecting the editing options
around the document. To do
this, click File at the
top left, then Advanced Settings
(^1 in our screenshot above) and
select Dark in the ‘Interface
theme’ dropdown menu^2.
You can also tick the ‘Turn on
document dark mode’ option^3 ,
which activates the dark mode
for documents, saving you from
having to do so through the
top-right menu described above.
It’s the same process for
turning on dark mode for the
spreadsheet interface, though
there isn’t an option to make the
actual spreadsheets dark.Fill blank cells with the same data
you’ve already added
You can instantly fill a
column’s blank cells with
data, saving you the hassle
of doing so manually. Highlight the
whole column, then click the Home
tab at the top. Now click ‘Find &
Replace’ at the top right, then select Go
To Special. Select ‘Blanks’ in the box
that appears, click OK, and you’ll see
all but one of your blank cellshighlighted in grey.
The exception will be the first blank
cell: this will remain white, ready for you
to type a value into it. In our screenshot,
this is B4. We want all the blank cells to
be filled with £25, so we type that then
press Ctrl+Enter to finish the job.MICROSOFT EXCEL1 2
(^3)
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