Use Colors in LibreOffice

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Foreword

The video "Farben in LibreOffice" ( "Colours in LibreOffice" ) links to this page here, which contains further information.

How to use colors - settings and choices.

Link to the Video

Link to the Video (in German [DE]):

Farben in LibreOffice

Colours and Colour palettes

Colours are defined in Colour palettes.

LibreOffice has several Colour palettes to choose from.

You can add any colours you like.

And you can also create your own (user-defined) Colour palettes.

Editing of Colour palette

Editing a color palette using Writer as an example.

Choose View ▸ Format Styles ( F11 ).

Right-click on a Paragraph style, for example.

Note:
Instead of the Paragraph Style, any other Format Style that allows the colour settings can be used. The Format Style used for creating colours should not be changed either. It is only here a tool for colour setting.

Choose Modify from the context menu.

In the dialog that opens, select the "Area" tab and click the Colour button.

At Colour - "New" select the desired colour via RGB or Hex value or via the Pick….

Then click on the Add button at "Custom Palette".

In the "Name" dialog, enter a name for your new colour and click OK.

Repeat for other colours you want.

When you have entered all the desired colours you want click Cancel.

in the "Paragraph Style" dialog pick a Colour

Create a new colour

Create a new colour with the colour values

In the "Paragraph Style" dialog you can add new colours to the Colour palette "custom" or modify existing colours.

Click at the "New" colour box and enter the desired values, e.g. R = 255, G = 255, B = 127.

Alternatively, enter a Hex value.

You click on Add and enter a new name, e.g. "Medium yellow" and click OK.

Then you see the colour in the colour box.

The new colour is added to the palette at the end.

You have now created a new color "Medium yellow".

Visually select and create a new color

"Pick a Color" dialog

However, you may prefer to select a colour visually, or you may have received special specifications
in the HSB (HSV) color space (for hue/saturation/brightness).

To do this, select the button Pick… in the "Paragraph Style" dialog.

In the "Pick a Colour" dialog that opens you can now make further settings.

Specify your required colour, the base colour above the vertical colour bar.

You can then click anywhere in the large Colour area.

The values for RGB, HSB and CMYK are immediately displayed for the clicked point.

If you like the colour, just click on OK.

The colour is displayed in the horizontal colour bar.

See Image: "Pick a Colour" dialog.

This colour can then be applied with the Add button.

Create a new Color palette

You can also create a completely new color palette.

Select colour in the LibreOffice Components

In the individual components of LibreOffice the colours can be selected directly or you better use the Format Styles.

Choose the Colour palette "custom" to select your new colours.

Colour Replacer

Tools ▸ Colour Replacer menu

" Colour Replacer" dialog

" Colour Replacer" icon

Texts taken from the online help:

Colour Replacer

The Colour Replacer can be accessed in LibreOffice Draw and Impress.

Open the Colour Replacer dialog, which is used to replace colors in bitmap files (for example BMP, GIF, JPG or PNG) and meta-graphics (for example WMF).

Up to four colors can be replaced at the same time.

The transparency attribute is also considered a color.

You can replace transparency in an image with a color, for example, white.

This is useful if, for example, your printer driver has problems printing transparent graphics.

You can also use the Colour Replacer to make colors in images transparent (translucent).

To access this command:

Choose Tools ▸ Colour Replacer…. Colour Replacer Icon
Click the Colour Replacer icon and position the mouse pointer over the colour you want to replace in the image. The colour appears in the box next to the icon.
Click the colour in the image. The colour appears in the first Source colour box and the check box next to the colour is selected.
In the "Replace with box", select the new colour. This replaces all occurrences of the Source colour in the image.
If you want to replace another colour while the dialog is open, mark the check box in front of Source colour in the next row and repeat steps 3 to 5.
Click Replace.

Note:
If you want to expand or contract the colour selection area, increase or decrease the tolerance of the Colour Replacer tool and repeat your selection.

Colour Replacer colour

Displays the colour in the selected image that directly underlies the current mouse pointer position. This features only works if the Colour Replacer tool is selected.

Replace

Replaces the selected source colours in the current image with the colours that you specify in the Replace with boxes.

Colours

Lists the source colours and the replacement colours.

Source colour check box

Select this check box to replace the current Source colour with the colour that you specify in the Replace with box.

Source colour

Displays the colour in the selected image that you want to replace. To set the source colour, click here, click the Colour Replacer, and then click a colour in the selected image.

Tolerance

Set the tolerance for replacing a source colour in the source image. To replace colours that are similar to the colour that you selected, enter a low value. To replace a wider range of colours, enter a higher value.

Replace with

Lists the available replacement colours. To modify the current list of colours, deselect the image, choose Format - Area, and then click the Colours tab.