Can LibreOffice add a “TK” flagging mechanism?

[surfbathing]

I’m a longtime Open/LibreOffice user and a journalist. One of the quirks of my world is the use of “TK” or “TKTK” in a body of writing to indicate that something missing is “to come.” This is used to flag sources to be cited, information yet outstanding, or really about anything in the draft of something that will be filed. Reporters and editors use this shorthand to move quickly through the review of a document and as a reminder of work ahead. There are word processing interfaces that flag TK by automatically changing its text’s color or populating “TK” outside the margin of a document.

Is there any way that this could be done in LibreOffice, either by a user like me, or by the brain trust that manages its code (that’s way above my pay grade)? It would be greatly appreciated — a quick visual survey is faster than searching for TK in the document and sometimes in my world every second matters.

I don’t think that I’m the only one who would welcome this, and forgive me if this has been addressed — the forum search rejected TK and TKTK as search terms. Thanks so much,
J. Matt

[elmau]

Interesting, I want to be clear why a comment is not useful for this?

It is quite clear and visual, and you can use the browser to find them quickly.

[Wanderer]

@elmau

I want to be clear why a comment is not useful

For .odt it would be a more modern choice, but depending on your workflow other options are still valid. For example I have no clue what will arrive if I copy a text into email and the receiver forwards it to some old interface “we use this for 30 years” collecting texts.
.
So if I would need this I’d use the suggestion by @ajlittoz for an autotext. (For my own documents I simply use @@

To come (publishing)

[LeroyG]

Suggestion for a feature enhancement to Writer

I tried to follow a filing an enhancement link, it led to reporting bugs, so I’m putting this out there in the forum. I love LibreOffice, more and more as time using it passes. But as a journalist it would be great if “TK” (our abbreviation for “to come”) could be automatically flagged with a “TK” populating in the margin for easy locating and addressing the outstanding issue. Substack’s composer does this perfectly, for an example in practice. It doesn’t sound like much, and asking the forum i…

[ajlittoz]

If a comment as proposed by @elmau is not your choice (it is my favourite), create an AutoText entry named TK consisting of any sentinel of your choice (e.g. TK or TKTK) upon which a specific character style is applied. Use a custom character style, not direct formatting as a character style will give you more versatility (possibility to change the look of all TK flags simultaneously and others).

How to use the AutoText entry? Type TK and immediately press F3 to make the transformation.

[surfbathing]

Thanks all, I’ve been under the gun and away from anything that isn’t a deadline. The comment option is how we cite our sources for factchecking editors to confirm, I’m very familiar with that option but it is not as fast as typing “TK” inline in the moment. I suppose it’s a question or recommendation for the open source coders that work on Libre Office — to have a TK populate also in the margin for quick reviewing as Substack does. Thanks again!

[LeroyG]

@ajlittoz

AutoText

And with AutoCorrect?

[Lupp]

@surfbathing

The comment option is how…

I would prefer bookmarks. They can be named to hint what is “to come”.
I you are in full control of your IT equipment and your workflow, you can use the “TK” (preferably with an additional character), and then run a little macro of less than 30 lines to find all the marks and to set bookmarks for them, and a special cell style if wanted. You may choose the names yourself as already mentioned. A few additional lines of code would be needed to create unique names automatically.

[Lupp]

@LeroyG

And with AutoCorrect?

AutoText and AutoCorrect(useful?) are per user profile. A macro for a special purpose can be part of a template, and would also run with different machinery/profile if execution is permitted.

[Wanderer]

@Lupp

if execution is permitted.

But especially in professional environment often forbidden.
.
And for my company I would have the macro installed on every computer wich needs it. Signed documents/macros are a way out of this, but forbidding often seems easier…

[mikekaganski]

Extensions should be used for this. They avoid the problems of macro restrictions, and allow easy deployment using unopkg.

[Lupp]

@surfbathing

There are word processing interfaces that flag TK by automatically changing its text’s color or …

If there actually isn’t more about it, that’s really simple:
– Only once for all: Create a character style for the flagging placed in the template you use for your work as an author.

• Derive your work files from that template. You can set this one as your Default template.

– Every time when needed:

• Open your TK-enriched document.
• Call Find&Replace (Ctrl+H by default).
• Enter the literal TK behind Find: .
• Click on Find All (May be restricted to the current selection).
• If not already shown: Call the Stylist (>Styles>Manage Styles: F11 by default).
• Choose Character styles (second icon).
• Doubleclick on the name of the style you want to use for the “flagging”.

= = Editing 2025-06-25 about 18:20 UTC = =
I reconsidered the question. The result was that if I myself needed such a functionality I would do it the way demonstrated in the attached document.
If you try it, look at the navigator.
AutomaticBookmarksForFindingsSimplifiedX.odt (57.6 KB)