How to change the Word Completion key and other Word Completion settings in Writer (LibreOffice)

Word completion is a text editor feature that offers suggestions for the complete word as you type words. If you see that the program has suggested the correct word, then you can press the button (“Enter” by default) and the word will be added automatically.

All in all, it is a handy feature, although it does take some getting used to for it to really improve your productivity.

Suggested words, by default, are taken from the list of words you have previously used.

There are two things about how the Word Completion function is configured by default that make it not very convenient.

First, the “Enter” key, which is selected for Word Completion by default, has another use – to move to the next line. Sometimes we complete a word and need to move on to the next line. But the Word Completion feature shows a hint with a longer word. As a result, if we press Enter, part of a longer word will be inserted, which we do not need.

Secondly, only words from the list of collected most common words are offered, and by default this list contains only 1000 words – which is quite small.

This instruction will show you how to solve both of these problems.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to assign a different key for autocompletion in Writer (LibreOffice), as well as other settings for the Word Completion function.

How to change the Word Completion key in Writer (LibreOffice)

To change the Word Completion settings in the menu, go to “Tools” → “AutoCorrect” → “AutoCorrect Options...”.

In the window that opens, go to the “Word Completion” tab.

Find the "Accept with" setting.

You can select any key. I like the “Tab” key. Firstly, it is almost not used when typing. Secondly, in the command line, the same key is used for autocompletion.

When everything is ready, click OK.

How to increase the word count for AutoComplete in Writer (LibreOffice)

To change the Word Completion settings in the menu, go to “Tools” → “AutoCorrect” → “AutoCorrect Options...”.

In the window that opens, go to the “Word Completion” tab.

Set the number of words to store for auto-completion in the “Max. entries”.

Settings Word Completion

Enable word completion

Store frequently used words and automatically complete the word after the first three letters of the saved word are entered.

Append space

If there is no punctuation after a word, LibreOffice adds a space. This space is added when the user starts typing the next word.

Show as tip

The completed word appears as a hint.

Collected Words

Adds frequently used words to the list. To remove a word from the Word Completion list, select the word and click “Delete” button.

When closing a document, remove the words collected from it from the list

If this list is activated, then when closing the current document the list will be deleted. If the list is deactivated, then after closing the current document, the current word substitution list will remain available for other documents. The list will be available until you finish working with LibreOffice.

Accept with

Select the key that will be used to accept automatic word completion.

To reject word completion, press ESC.

Min. word length

Enter the minimum word length for which automatic completion will be possible.

Max. entries

Enter the maximum number of words that can be stored in the auto-completion list.

Collected Words

Displays a list of collected words. The list is valid until the current document is closed. To make the list available to other documents in the current session, enable the “When closing a document, remove the words collected from it from the list” check box.

If the automatic spell check feature is turned on, only words that are recognized by the feature will be collected.

Delete

Removes selected words from the word completion list.