Customize Comment Colors in LibreOffice Writer

Collaborative editing in LibreOffice Writer relies on comments to track feedback, suggestions, and revisions among different reviewers. While Writer automatically assigns distinct colors to different authors and stamps each comment with the creation date and time, you can customize these settings to better fit your workflow. This guide explains how to change reviewer identity colors, adjust visual appearance settings, and manage comment timestamps in LibreOffice Writer.

How Reviewer Colors Work in LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer automatically generates distinct background colors for comment boxes based on the author name stored in the document. Writer assigns these colors automatically from an internal palette to differentiate between multiple reviewers.

Changing the Author Name and Assigned Color

Because comment box colors are tied to author identities, changing or setting your user profile is the primary way to manage individual reviewer colors.

  1. Open LibreOffice Writer.
  2. Navigate to Tools > Options (or LibreOffice > Preferences on macOS).
  3. In the left-hand pane, expand the LibreOffice section and select User Data.
  4. Enter or update your First/Last name/Initials in the corresponding fields.
  5. Click Apply, then OK.

Any new comments you insert will now reflect this user profile, and Writer will assign a consistent author color to your comment boxes.

Customizing Comment Visual Elements

While the individual author box background is assigned automatically, you can adjust the general interface colors related to comments and annotations:

  1. Go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Application Colors (or Appearance in some versions).
  2. Scroll down to the Text Document section.
  3. Locate entries such as Comment, Comment anchor, or Track changes.
  4. Use the drop-down color palettes next to these entries to select your preferred custom colors.
  5. Click OK to save the changes.

Managing and Customizing Comment Timestamps

LibreOffice Writer automatically records a timestamp (date and time) every time a comment is created or modified.

How Timestamps Are Generated

When you insert a comment via Insert > Comment (or Ctrl + Alt + C / Cmd + Option + C): - The current system date and time are automatically applied to the bottom of the comment card. - If a comment is later edited by a reviewer, LibreOffice updates the timestamp or notes the edit time to maintain an accurate audit trail.

Controlling Timestamp Formatting and Locale

Comment timestamp formats are controlled by your operating system locale and document language settings:

  1. Open Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages.
  2. Adjust the Locale setting or Default Languages for Documents to change how dates and times are formatted system-wide in LibreOffice.
  3. Click OK to apply.

Customizing Comment Text and Box Styling

To change the typography, font size, or text color inside comments:

  1. Press F11 (or go to View > Styles) to open the Styles sidebar.
  2. Click the Paragraph Styles icon at the top of the sidebar.
  3. Right-click the Comment style and select Modify.
  4. Adjust the font family, size, effects, indents, or font color under the respective tabs.
  5. Click Apply and OK to update all comment text styling across the document.