Help with Libreoffice

stragglebod

Don't know about LibreOffice, but in Word I'd insert a shape with no fill, no outline, the size of the blank area I wanted to keep, and set its position as 'in line with text'.

that

Someone beat me to white letters

The other way is to set up tab stops and let the word jump to tabs

The yet another way is to use a fixed pitched font like Courier, and then use spaces.

It may help if we knew what you were using it for?

tempus_fugit

Sounds like something I would use a tab stop or a table for, but maybe that is overkill for what you are needing.

abssorb

Libreoffice Writer, like MS Office, is a word processing tool and it's job is to replace a typewriter.

If you want to do the job of a printing press layout, where you can more freely position text on a page, you need a desktop publishing tool rather than a word processor. Microsoft have MS Publisher, and although LibreOffice doesn't have an equivalent, there is a tool called Scribus which is open:
https://www.scribus.net/

If you want to stick with Writer, you can use tables to have better control over columns and text start positions. So if you want to have some text on the far right of the page:

Table / Insert Table. Choose 2 columns and 1 row, and untick the "Border" option.

Put the text you don't want to move in the right column, and you can freely compose in the left column and it won't be affected. Add rows as necessary.

DoaM wrote: »

Unless the document is printed on non-white paper.

Actually white text would be fine, there is no way for printers to make white ink from CMYK, so the letters would still be invisible on coloured paper.

Heedtheadvice

With many a program there are several ways to achieve results. The best is often the one that meets the reason.
A bit more info might help choose!


Is it a one off? Repetitive? Change format of layout for several different textual content areas? Actually delete text or just make 'invisible'

Do you want to show that there is something missing? Show the text that has been 'deleted' or redact certain bits?

Will other characters do as well as spaces or do you need a blank area?
Are there other reasons such as keeping positions of pictures the same or othr layout objectives?


Answering these might give some very specific good responses!

[Deleted User]

As above, what are you actually trying to achieve and why?

Changing the text to white is probably still the best option but LibreOffice can actually use hidden text but it's much more convoluted. Depending on your use it may work out better long term though.

https://help.libreoffice.org/6.0/en-GB/text/swriter/guide/hidden_text.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=WIN