Customize Status Bar in LibreOffice Writer

The status bar at the bottom of the LibreOffice Writer workspace provides essential document statistics and quick-access settings. By customizing and interacting with this bar, users can monitor real-time word and character counts, switch page layouts, and manage spellcheck languages directly without navigating complex menus. This guide explains how to toggle and configure word count, page style, and language settings directly from the LibreOffice status bar.

Viewing and Toggling the Status Bar

If the status bar is not visible at the bottom of the window, you can enable it instantly: * Go to the top menu and select View. * Click Status Bar to check or uncheck the display option.

Managing the Word Count Display

The status bar displays the current page number along with total word and character counts.

• View Selection Statistics: When you highlight a portion of text, the status bar automatically updates to show the word and character count of the selected text alongside the document’s total count.
• Open Detailed Statistics: Single-click the word count section to open the Word Count dialog box, which provides a detailed breakdown of words and characters (including and excluding spaces) for both the current selection and the entire document.

Changing and Customizing Page Styles

The page style field shows the style applied to the currently active page (such as Default Page Style, First Page, or Landscape).

• Switch Page Styles: Right-click the page style name in the status bar to bring up a context menu of available page styles, allowing you to switch the active layout instantly.
• Edit the Current Style: Double-click the page style name to open the Page Style settings dialog directly, where you can modify margins, orientation, headers, and footers.

Setting and Toggling Language Settings

The language indicator displays the language assigned to the text at the current cursor position.

• Change Selection or Paragraph Language: Click or right-click the language section on the status bar to open a quick-selection menu. From here, you can assign a language to the current selection, the entire paragraph, or the whole document.
• Access More Dictionaries: Select More… from the language pop-up menu to open the Character formatting dialog for deeper spellcheck and hyphenation configuration.
• Disable Spellchecking: Choose None (Do not check spelling) from the context menu to prevent LibreOffice from flagging text in code blocks or foreign phrases.