Documentation team meeting minutes Friday August 22th, 2025 --** 15:00 UTC **--

Presents: Dione, Bernardo, Olivier

Completed Actions Items:

Pending Action Items:
Getting started with Base chapter needs rewrite?

Topics

Help pages (recurring)

  • Updates and fixes
  • New pages for new features

Getting Started Guide

Calc Guide

Guide Bugs reported in Bugzilla

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167650
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137487
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=167965

Misc

No meeting on Aug 29th, Sept 5th and 12th. Back in Sept 19th.

New Template

References (not discussed)
+ “on page”
+ Figures/ Headings

Tables (Not discussed)
+ 5% left, 5% right
+ split table
+ Repeat heading
+ Colors?

Images
+ Define resolution of screenshots,
+ current: 96dpi perceived as “good” on the screen
+ PDF Export at 300dpi
Action Item: Investigate and document:
File>Properties>General>Prefered resolution (Dione)

Numbered Lists
+ Alignment of numbers (left or right)
+ Spacing to text
+ Keep tab character for list alignment
+ Base (Numbering 1): 0.5 cm
+ Numbering 2: 70% of Base = 0.35 cm
+ Numbering 3: 70% of Base = 0.35 cm
+ Evaluate creating of a outline for lists
+ Can make significant manual adjustments
+ can turns more complex to manage in text
Action item: test outline and report (olivier)

Peter Schofield proposals
+ First page Image
Action Item: Produce a document with 3 proposed “xplosions” (Bernardo)
+ position of the top LibreOffice logo (left or right)
Decidion: Keep current (team template) titles styling.

File management in NextCloud.
+ pending

Provide sample spreadsheets?
+ pending

Videos
+ Stalled - under evaluation

Help Chatbot
+ Will discuss in Budapest

Sanity check extension
+ Working

General Info:

Doc team Telegram - group

Doc team in TDF Jitsi

Doc team pad for minutes
https://pad.documentfoundation.org/p/documentation

Next meeting:
+ Fridays at 15:00 UTC.

I’ have created a document about this matter with testing images (unziped from documents)
This pdf (exported at 300dpi) is the result of my tests in writer. Resoluciones.pdf (336,7 KB)

In my opinion:

  • Captures must be taken and inserted the images into the documents avoiding subsequent treatments that create ugly images. (saturation or sharpened filtrers)
  • I think not necessary change the dpi of screenshots
  • PDF export must be at 300dpi that is a good resolution for standar printers…
  • I can not see any difference in changes of File>Properties>General>Prefered resolution
    (Unzipping the images they have the original dpi)

Hello Olivier

Could you please let me know what colour has to be used for the headings for paragraphs, notes, tips and cautions. If you could aend me the hex number for each colour I can up date the templates.

I know that some people disagree with my versions of the templates, but there is reasoning behind them which does involve making things easy for the user

I am well experienced in producing user guides that a user can easily understand and use the information in a user guide. This does involve using some Simplified English rules about sentence and paragraph length. Short sentences and short paragraphs help the user in understanding what has been written. Some of my experience in technical writing has come from discussing with users what they would like to see in a user guide.

It is my opinion that some of the LibreOffice user guides are very difficult to understand and it is very difficult to locate the information or procedure that you are looking for. Very often the steps in numbered procedures are too long and confusing. Numbered steps should be short and easy to understand.

Regards
PeeWee

2 Likes

Hi @PeeWee
Sorry for the delay in answering, our community is in Budapest for the LibreOffice Conference 2025.

The color hex number for the headings is #007C3C, set in the “Heading” style and inherited by all “Heading nn” styles .

There are no changes in the Note, Tip and Warning colors.

Our discussion on the template is restricted to styles and small variations on the current templates. The contents is not in the discussion. We think these changes as an evolving process to bring our guides to a “2025 design” (whatever that means). Think on the automobile industry: annouce new cars with small changes on the car design for the same car platform just to make it “the 2026 edition”. Does it pays for LibreOffice guides as it pays for automobiles?

Last but no least: All your experience and advises are welcome, It is undisputed that using simplified English is a must for the guides, many recent reviews on the latest guides worked in that direction. It is not controversial that long procedures should be avoided, especially those containing repetitions of basic setups (e.g. “open the styles deck on the sidebar using F11” repeated each time a style is the subject). I also agree that procedures that spans in several pages should be re-thinked for clarity and usefullness.

Cheers

Olivier

Hello Olivier

Thanks for the reply.

I can now make sure I am using the correct colours in the Draw and Impress user guides.

It has made me wonder what is happening with the user guides and the development team behind LibreOffice, especially after the renaming of list types. This one thing that should be changed back to bullet and numbered lists. Majority of users will not understand what unordered and ordered lists are in LibreOffice when asked by their boss to create a bullet list agenda for the next meeting.

Terminology is important which is why I try to use Simplified English. There are several versions and it would be difficult to choose which one to adopt. However, in my opinion, the suggestions about sentence and paragraph length in my version of the templates is good starting point.

What brought about my suggestions is the difficulty of trying to find information in the Writer Guide. I wanted more information on creating master documents, but found the information in the Writer Guide very confusing and difficult to understand. Consequently, I am not using master guides for Impress and Draw user guides. Master documents are not really required for these two user guides because I am the only one who is updating and correcting the Impress and Draw user guides.

One thing to close. Are we going to create users guides for LO25.8 or wait for LO26.2?

Regards

PeeWee (Impress & Draw)