Documentation/Development

What we do
The LibreOffice Documentation Team is responsible for the development of the English language documentation. In particular, we maintain the official LibreOffice User Guides.

Other documentation we work on includes:


 * Other printable documentation, including how-tos and tutorials, and printable reference cards
 * The built-in help content
 * User documentation on this wiki

Systems to display documentation, such as the help websites, fall more within the duties of the Website/Infrastructure Team, though there is some overlap.

How to join the team

 * 1) Sign up for the Documentation mailing list.
 * 2) * Send a blank e-mail message to documentation+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org. You should receive a response containing further instructions, but usually just reply to the sender to confirm your subscription.


 * 1) Email the mailing-list at [mailto:documentation@global.libreoffice.org documentation.libreoffice.org] to introduce yourself briefly (we don't need a CV!).
 * 2) * If you'd like to help with the published documentation, request a user account for our Documentation cloud site below.
 * 3) You can also participate in our bi-weekly team meeting, announced in advance in the documentation list.
 * 4) * The online meeting room is in https://jitsi.documentfoundation.org/tdfdocteam


 * 1) * The collaborative pad for writing the meeting minutes is in https://pad.documentfoundation.org/p/documentation
 * 2) * The topics to be discussed in the bi-weekly meeting are previously announced in the documentation mailing list. Stay tuned!

For text-based chat with the team you can use

You can also subscribe to a Telegram channel and chat with us with your mobile, tablet or computer. All devices have Telegram support.

To get some idea of topics that users ask questions about, also consider joining:


 * The "Users" mailing list - [mailto:users+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org users+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org]
 * The "Discuss" mailing list - [mailto:discuss+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org discuss+subscribe@global.libreoffice.org]
 * Ask LibreOffice (Q&A site) - https://ask.libreoffice.org/ (Click Please sign in in upper right.)

We look forward to hearing from you. :)

Requesting access to our Documentation cloud
Our documentation cloud is hosted in a NextCloud server. Here are the steps to follow to access the cloud:
 * 1) Follow the instructions on Single Sign On to get a user ID.
 * 2) Write to documentation at libreoffice dot org asking to access the Documentation cloud, and inform your user ID.
 * 3) Wait for the response (it is manual and subject to availability of humans and besides, we want to be in control).


 * 1) Access the cloud pointing your browser to https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org.
 * 2) Log in with your user ID.
 * 3) * Your landing page in the cloud shall be the cloud file explorer, where the folder LibreOffice Documentation is accessible to you.


 * 1) * Navigate to the corresponding folder where the files are stored. The navigation is straightforward.
 * 2) * Exceptionally you may want to synchronize the cloud folder with a local computer folder. If that is the case, follow these instructions

Note on the User ID: You User ID will uniquely identify you in every public service of the Document Foundation, for example, the wiki and the cloud.

How to contribute
The section lists some ways you can contribute to LibreOffice documentation.

Easy tasks
These are tasks that you can perform quickly and easily, which do not necessarily require much knowledge of LibreOffice and technical writing.


 * Report mistakes in any documentation to [mailto:documentation@global.libreoffice.org documentation@global.libreoffice.org], providing as much detail as you can. If you know what the correction should be, please tell us that too.


 * Bring up issues related to documentation and join the discussion on the mailing list.
 * If have experience as a Wikipedia editor, contribute positively to the page (and related pages) by making strong, citation-supported edits and by engaging politely on the Talk page. The desired outcome is not a slant for LO or against AOO; it's to have a neutral and objective article that not even an opponent could reasonably argue against. Useful guides include:

User guides
From easy to involved:


 * Review a draft of a chapter or book
 * Update a chapter or book for the current version of Libreoffice, or add missing information
 * Write a new user guide chapter for the current version of Libreoffice


 * Adopt a user guide book or chapter and coordinate with other people to keep it up to date, reviewed, edited, indexed and published on time
 * Adopt one or a few chapters of a single guide
 * Adopt related chapters in several guides, for example on printing, setup options, keyboard shortcuts or customization
 * Adopt a full user guide

See the User Guides page for further instructions.

Other guides and tutorials
From easy to involved:


 * Finish an abandoned draft
 * Update an existing guide for the current version of LibreOffice
 * Adapt an old OpenOffice.org guide for the current version of LibreOffice
 * Write a new guide

See Documentation/Publications and Documentation/Other Resources for examples of completed works, many of which could use updating.

See Documentation/Wish List for other ideas of things to be done.

Built-in help
We always need help updating and improving the in-program help content.

See Documentation/Help for instructions.

TDF wiki
From easy to involved:


 * Add missing links to user documentation pages to Documentation/Other Resources
 * Find how-tos and tutorials about LibreOffice on the web and add them to Documentation/Other Resources
 * Pick an unanswered question from the list of FAQs and answer it


 * Correct inaccurate or out-of-date information.
 * Update an outdated wiki page, or revise a one that needs better organization
 * Write a new wiki page for a topic that is missing
 * Improve the overall structure and content of the wiki

In order to edit pages on the Document Foundation wiki (the site you are at now), click Create account in the upper right, or Log In, followed by creating an account.)