Is it possible to open Writer directly on Mac OS X?

Is it possible to open Writer directly (on Mac OS X)? It’s not just about the extra step to open Writer from Start Center, which is a minor annoyance, but also that when Writer does open, the screen size/configuration is set to match that of Start Center, and then it requires some fussing around with my mouse to get the windows set in a usable way (I use Navagator which, when opening a blank document, ends up blocking the left half of the Writer window).

Thanks,
Brett

One possibility is create a link to swriter in folder /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/

You can do this by browsing to that folder, create a duplicate of swriter and drag it to your desktop.

I hope this helps?

Kind regards,

Joren

(@jorendc is a Real Mac User, and not just one of us gnu/linux types trying to help by making educated guesses… :slight_smile:

One possible way is to save a .ott template and open that. It should open libreoffice writer with a blank document.

Hi @berchca,

At least on a GNU/Linux system (and probably on OSX), the LO program has several command-line switches. From 'man libreoffice':

libreoffice(1)                   User Commands                  libreoffice(1)
...
OPTIONS
...
...
       --writer
              Starts with a new Writer document.

So you could make a new shortcut for LibreOffice (or tweak your existing one) and make it run

libreoffice --writer

There may even be a convenience alias already in place for you. On Ubuntu, you can just use lowriter, which runs this script:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice --writer "$@"

Create a launcher for OS X? I don’t know about it.

@jorendc, Could you confirm that one can make a shortcut on OSX to launch Writer directly?

You can create shell scripts, cannibalize LibreOffice’s icons, and use a freeware app creator called Platypus to create standalone apps that invoke each LibreOffice application. Instructions here:

http://61abe2e4.host22.com/tech/libreapps/

This writeup also includes a link to a DMG file with the apps pre-built.

Enjoy!

Broken link. It looks like it is possible, but no dice on finding the instructions web site on google, either.

Libreoffice is an App by now and does not include a direct swriter link anywhere in the system. The easiest thing to do (so you also have the shortcut for Spotlight) for me was to create a shellscript that starts the libreoffice writer:

#!/bin/bash
/Application/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --writer

and then make an Application with Automator that invokes this script. You can of course just paste the script into Automator and execute it directly, I just like to execute script files.
Once you save your newborn Application into the Application folder (in my case under the name Writer) you can start it by using Spotlight, or any other method you may choose.

Hope this helps!

It should be /Application/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --writer

i.e. add s at the end of Applications

Try this (on mac).

*Process

  • Convert the .SVC icons from libreofice to .ICO
  • Open Platypus
    • Create a new app
      • Default Icon = your .ICO file
      • App name = LibreOffice Write/Draw/etc…
      • Script Type = Shell
      • Script path = New
      • Sript content = /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --**
      • Run with root privileges = OFF
      • Run in background = OFF
      • Remain running after execution = OK
        Default ico = LibreOffice icon with .ico extension
  • Save the app on the desktop and move it to your Application folder.

**Select the correct package accordingly

–writer → Creates an empty Writer document.
–calc → Creates an empty Calc document.
–draw → Creates an empty Draw document.
–impress → Creates an empty Impress document.
–base → Creates a new database.
–global → Creates an empty Writer master (global) document.
–math → Creates an empty Math document (formula).
–web → Creates an empty HTML document.

A couple additional tips:

  • You will need to create an .icns file, not .ico … For this purpose I found it easiest to take a 512x512 PNG and use an online service to create a .icns file from it.
  • In order to avoid having an extra app in the dock that needs to be quit separately, use the following settings:
  • Interface = None
  • Run in background = ON
  • Remain running after execution = OFF