The Difference Between Export and Export Directly in LibreOffice

This short tutorial explains the main difference between Export, Export As and Export Directly in LibreOffice.

When you’re working on a document that needs to be saved to a PDF or any other file format, you can easily do so via LibreOffice’s export options. However, there are three different options to choose from: Export Export As PDF and Export Directly as PDF.

This can be a little confusing for new users who may not know the difference between these options, let alone when to use them. The first option, Export, allows you to save your document in a different file format, such as .html, .pdf, .epub, .png and more.

Export Directly as PDF does exactly what it says – when you select this option, LibreOffice saves your document as a PDF file on your computer without any further interaction needed from you. However, when you need to save only a certain part or pages of a document, then Export as PDF comes into play.

Going with the Export as PDF provides more options for customizing the PDF export, such as adding a watermark, selecting specific pages to be exported, and adding a password or digital signature to the PDF file.

Wrapping Up

In summary, choose the appropriate export option based on your needs. Use Export to save a document in a different format, and use Export Directly to quickly save the document in the selected format without any further customization.