Custom installing LibreOffice on Windows

The typical installation may not fit your needs. It may have left out components and languages that you want, or you may want a smaller installation size and choose to remove some things from the installation.

This is why the LibreOffice Installation Wizard gives you a way to customize the installation. There is a list of languages and components that can be added or removed. They are located on the Custom Setup page in the wizard.

Read the section below to learn how to get to the page.

Setup Type

The Setup Type page was covered in the Windows setup page. It is the second page in the wizard, and it is the starting point for a custom installation.

  1. Click the Custom radio button so a dot is in it.
  2. Click next.

You will be taken to a Custom Setup page, which is covered in the below section. The page allows you to add and remove the components and languages to the installation mentioned in the introductory section. It also allows you to choose where LibreOffice will be installed.

Selecting

The languages and components that can be added or deleted are found in the field that takes up most of the dialog. The Optional Components and Additional user interface languages are folders that contain many items.

Click the plus next to Optional Components or Additional user interface languages to reveal what each folder contains. Dictionaries and Extensions in Optional Components are subfolders and have there own plus symbols and contain more items.

Once you find the desired language or component perform the following steps to make changes:

  1. Click the desired item that you want to include or exclude. A menu appears with three choices.
    • This feature will be installed on local hard drive. When you select this, you can choose where on the hard drive you want to store it. See the Install to section.
    • This feature, and all subfeatures, will be installed on local hard drive. This choice only applies when the item is a sub-folder in which items are contained. These are Dictionaries and Extensions. When you select this, you can choose where on the hard drive you want to store it. See the Install to section.
    • This feature will not be available
  2. Click one of these three settings.

Optional Components

  • Dictionaries: This folder contains 50 language dictionaries that can be included in the installations. By default most are excluded. Click here for a list of those languages.
  • Image Filters: Additional filters required to read alien image formats.
  • XSLT Sample Filters
  • Online Update: This component connects to the LibreOffice Website and informs you when a new version of LibreOffice is available for download and installation.
  • LibreLogo: This is a small turtle-shaped icon. It’s purpose is to teach programming. It does not have to be included in the installation. Click here to learn more about it and how it teaches programming.
  • ActiveX Control: This feature was removed in version 5.4, though it has not been removed from the installation wizard. It allowed Internet Explorer to display LibreOffice documents. Microsoft did not include this technology in its Edge browser.
  • Windows Explorer Extension: Activating this allows Windows Explorer to show thumbnails and perform full-text search.
  • Quickstarter: This item is the list of applications that will appear when the when you right-click on the LibreOffice icon, if it has been pinned to the taskbar. This feature is no longer available starting with version 6.0. The item in the wizard is yet to be removed.
  • Report Builder: This helps design database reports. It requires Java to be installed.
  • Extensions: This sub-menu contains extensions for programming languages that can be used for macros and one that connects to a Media Wiki. Click here to see the list of extensions.

Space button

Clicking this button launches a dialog that displays size and availability information about each drive. The dialog is Disk Space Requirements. It gives Disk Size, Available, Required, and Differences.

File Type

This page lists different Microsoft applications with check boxes next to them. A check in a check box means that the LibreOffice counterpart of the Microsoft application will open a document that is double-clicked. For example, if the Microsoft Word Documents checkbox is chosen, then each time a DOCX document is double-clicked, it will be opened by LibreOffice Writer.

The choices are as follows:

  • Microsoft Word Documents. These will be opened by Writer.
  • Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets. These will be opened by Calc.
  • Microsoft Powerpoint Presentations. These will be opened by Impress.
  • Microsoft Visio Documents.

Click the Next button to go to the Ready to Install Program page, and press the Install button. This was covered in the install on Windows page.

Ready to Install the Program

The Ready to Install the Program window has two choices to make. A shortcut for LibreOffice can be placed on the desktop. Users also can choose to have Windows launch LibreOffice when the operating system is booted. This is also the page in the Typical install process.

Place a check in either box, if desired. Then click the Install button. The installation process will begin.

The process may take a few minutes. The steps are the same if you are upgrading the installed version of LibreOffice to a newer version, rather than installing the suite for the first time.