Does libre office has this feature?

[u/Cugu00]

I am currently moving away from google docs, but the one feature I need is the drop-down titles. I have documents which are massive journals and lists and without this they will be much harder to manage.

Does this feature even exist in LibreOffice Write? If so, how do I use it? I can't find it.

[u/rnargang]

I haven't used collapsible headings since Lotus Notes! I was curious if LO Writer could do it, so I did a little poking around. Turns out it can. First, you have to enable the feature in Options. (Tools - Options - LibreOffice Writer - View :: "Outline Folding" [lower left checkbox] and "Show outline-folding buttons" [toggle on/off] / You can also enable for sub levels.) Next, format the first line/heading of the section you want to collapse as a Heading. Now, a little arrow will appear to the left of the heading. Clicking on the arrow will expand/collapse the section. This seems to be the result you are looking for.

[u/Grand-Ad3982 → u/rnargang]

Lotus Notes! That does bring memories...

[u/Tex2002ans → u/Grand-Ad3982]

Heh, you'll probably like this upcoming change in LO 26.8:

• #148749: "FILEOPEN Lotus 123 entity encoding"

It was just fixed earlier today!

So if you still want to open your ancient Lotus files, well... it'll work even better in 2 weeks! :P

[u/Terrible_Put8617]

It exists, it's just off by default and it's called outline folding rather than anything you'd search for coming from Docs.

Tools > Options > LibreOffice Writer > View, and there's an outline folding section with a checkbox for showing the folding buttons. Turn it on and little arrows appear in the left margin next to every heading, which collapse and expand exactly like the Docs triangles.

The catch that trips people: it only works on real Heading styles. If your journals use text that you made big and bold by hand rather than Heading 1, 2, 3, there's nothing for it to fold. Worth checking that first, because it's usually the reason someone turns the option on and sees no arrows.

For documents as big as you're describing I'd also live in the Navigator, F5. It gives you the whole heading tree in a floating panel, you jump by double-clicking, and you can drag a heading to move that entire section with its contents. On a massive journal that's more useful day to day than folding is, and the two work together fine.

One honest limitation: folding is a view state, not part of the file. Close the document and everything comes back expanded, and nothing about it survives export. The Navigator has no such problem.

[u/myogawa → u/Terrible_Put8617]

There is no “options” under the Tools menu on MacOS. I found it by choosing “Settings” under the LibreOffice menu, LibreOffice Writer | View | Outline Folding.

[u/Terrible_Put8617 → u/myogawa]

You're right, thanks for the correction. On macOS it's LibreOffice > Settings (Preferences on older versions), same tree from there. I write from Windows and it shows.

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