How to Insert or Draw a Horizontal Line in LibreOffice

This beginner’s tutorial guides you through the steps on how to insert horizontal lines in your text documents in LibreOffice Writer.

One of the most common visual elements people often like to use in their text documents is the horizontal line, also known as ruled line. It comes in a variety of styles, such as simple lines, double lines, jagged lines, and dotted lines etc. These lines are used to add visual flair to a text document and serve as a means of separating large blocks of text from important parts of a document, such as a signature line.

LibreOffice Writer, as a powerful word processing application, also allows you to insert variety of lines (both horizontal and vertical) into your document, and even customize them if you use the shape tool to draw the lines.

Insert Basic Horizontal Line

The easiest way to add a horizontal line into a document is typing three hyphen characters and then press the Enter. If the auto-correct options are turned on, LibreOffice Writer would recognize the pattern and automatically replace the characters with a line.

So, here’s the steps:

• Put the cursor where you want to add the line.
• Type three hyphens (—).
• Press the Enter key on your keyboard.
• LibreOffice Writer auto-corrects the hyphens with a line.

You can insert other types of lines as well using different characters, for example:

• Single Line: Type three hyphens (—) and press Enter.
• Bold Single Line: Type three underscores (___) and press Enter.
• Plain Double Lines: Type three equal signs (===) and press Enter.
• Dotted Line: Type three asterisks (***) and press Enter.
• Wavy Line: Type three tildes (~~~) and press Enter.
• Triple Line: Type three pounds (###) and press Enter.

Note: If auto-correct isn’t working, make sure to turn it on in the AutoCorrect options.

Step 1: Go to Tools > AutoCorrect > AutoCorrect Options from the top menu-bar.

Optionally, if you’re using a different user interface, such as the Tabbed UI, where the top menu-bar is not visible, you can utilize the built-in search functionality in LibreOffice. Simply press the Shift + Esc keys on your keyboard. This will open a search pop-up where you need to type autocorrect to access the option.

Once the AutoCorrect dialog opens, navigate to Options > check the Automatic *Bold*, /italic/, -strikeout- and _underline_ and then click OK.

From now on, LibreOffice Writer will automatically format your text in different styles when you type the corresponding characters.

Traditional Way of Adding Horizontal Line

For those who prefer to insert horizontal lines in their document manually, simply go to Insert > Horizontal Line from the top menu-bar. However, if you are using the Tabbed UI or other user interface that doesn’t display the menu-bar, you will not be able to access this option.

Inserting a Horizontal Line Using the Shape Tool

The basic horizontal lines don’t offer much customization options, but the shape tool available in LibreOffice Writer gives you the ability to create unique and decorative lines. You can choose from a variety of styles such as arrow lines, curved lines and many more.

Go to Insert > Shape > Line from the top menu-bar, and select a option of your desire.

Once you’ve selected your desired line shape, simply click and drag the mouse on the document to draw the line. To remove the line, just click on it and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Additionally, If you take some time to explore the available customization options, you can easily modify the style of the line, including adjusting its thickness, color, or adding arrow pointers at the edge etc.

Wrapping Up

Horizontal lines are one of the most used style element in any document, and LibreOffice Writer has got you covered with plenty of options to add different types of lines, both horizontal and vertical.

In this tutorial, I’ve showed you how to add horizontal lines, but if you want to explore more, check out my other tutorial on adding vertical lines as well. If you found this tutorial helpful, or ran into any trouble, please leave a comment down below.