Bottom line up front: I want a dark theme that includes a dark page for writing, but I want to print in normal black on white when I print. That’s the short version and I hope someone can help.
I’ve already searched this and other sites. And I’ve found a lot of people asking essentially the same question, but it seems they keep getting shouted down without an answer. And honestly, if the correct and full answer to my question is “you really can’t do that”, I thank you. It is better to know than to keep trying - right?
Details on what I’m trying to accomplish: I want a dark theme in LibreOffice Writer. To me, that includes the written page. ESPECIALLY the page because the point of the dark theme is that I prefer to look at bright letters on a dark background instead of dark letters on a bright background. To me, that’s like trying to see shadows in the middle of a spotlight and I hate it.
All of the people who have asked this question have had the question NON-answered in two ways:
- People who have a different preference and think everyone should have their preference. I’m not asking for help to make my eyes like yours, I’m trying to make my LibreOffice setup look and feel like dozens of other applications that are doing this just fine. If you want to reply to tell me this is not something I should want - save yourself some time. I really want this.
- People who are puzzled by the prospect of typing on a “dark page” but printing on a “white page”. If you’ve never used any other application, this might seem strange, but a great many other apps do this just fine. The most basic concept would be a negative. Everything you see gets reversed when you print! In practice a negative would not be the most appealing, and so most applications are more nuanced than this and there are entire palettes of application colors versus printing colors, and people survive and actually prefer this. There are also ways to do “print preview” if you need to be sure that the red is a fire engine red instead of a brick red and so forth.
Okay, so hopefully everyone who’s inclined to say this isn’t something I should ask and everyone who can’t imagine how a dark typing page turns into a white printed page have wandered off. For everyone that has stuck it out - thank you!! I apologize if this has a tone, but I read at least five posts where the question never got answered and I needed to skip over the responses I knew my question would attract.
The easiest solution: has anyone out there created a theme the could share that incorporates all of the changes necessary to make my wish come true? I would love to be able to download and apply a theme or style and be done.
Slightly more challenging: Has anyone documented a series of customizations that can be made to any existing theme to make this happen. In particular, I’d like to be able to see hyperlinks (unvisited and visited) and other common document styles. My own personal attempts have made some progress at this level but I got caught in a loop where the style I needed to apply to accomplish some things was overwriting the control options so that the formatting changes for hyperlinks was locked out and I couldn’t make the change. The best I’ve been able to achieve is having hyperlinks the same color as the rest of the text. I should probably celebrate and be done, but I’m sure there will be other special formats or edit/review marks or something else that will just keep hitting me in the face until everything is the same color, which is not the desire.
Then there’s the nuclear option: advanced configuration changes made to my system as a whole, to the registry for LibreOffice, or something “merely” deep inside the advanced settings that I haven’t already touched. If this is the route you’ve gone with success, I will need a really detailed explanation to be sure I don’t mess anything up. I realize this is asking a lot and so I suppose I’m only asking if you’ve already found a resource that’s suitable for someone with limited comfort editing registry and system configuration settings… because that’s as far as I’ll go before I tap out.
I suppose another option would be to do all my writing in freaking NOTEPAD and then cut and paste the text into the bright and shiny world of LibreOffice, but if I can’t do my writing and editing inside the app, it rather defeats the point of having the app. Yes?
Anyway, that’s my hope and dream… that someone has solved this issue. If you have, please let me know. OR… if you know that what I’m seeking cannot be reached in LibreLand, letting me know my hopes are futile would actually be a help so I don’t waste any more time.
Thanks to all and thanks in advance!!
-Pat.
