How to Change the Default File Format in LibreOffice

LibreOffice uses the Open Document Format (ODF) as one of its primary supported file formats for saving documents. However, when working in a collaborative space where you need to share files with others who don’t use LibreOffice, you may need to save the document in a file format that is supported by their office suite. In most cases, the office suite that your colleagues or friends might be using is Microsoft Office.

Don’t worry, being an open-source project, LibreOffice understands the need for improved interoperability with other office suites, and has made great strides in reading and writing files in Microsoft Office formats, such as .doc and .docx.

By changing a simple setting in LibreOffice, you can choose to always save your files in the Microsoft Office format, so you don’t have to worry about converting them every time you need to share them. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to change the default file format for saving new files in LibreOffice, so you can pick the best option for your workflow.

Changing the default file format

Go to Tools > Options from the top menu-bar. Once the options dialog open, navigate to Load/Save > General.

As you can see from the above screenshot, the red bordered area is where you can change the default file formats for each LibreOffice application, including Writer, Calc, and Impress.

First, select the document type, and just below it you will find the available file formats. This will be the default format in which all future text documents will be saved. Similarly, you can change the default file formats for Calc spreadsheets and other document types as well.

Wrapping Up

In this tutorial, I have shown you how to change the default file formats of LibreOffice to MS Office compatible .doc and .docx formats. If you have any further questions or doubts about the steps, please leave a comment below. I will be happy to assist you.