Dyslexia-friendly fonts in LibreOffice: a complete setup guide
LibreOffice Writer is the word processor of choice for a large slice of readers and writers: Linux users, people who avoid subscriptions, students on tight budgets, and anyone who prefers open-source software. If you have dyslexia, the default setup - Times New Roman at 12 pt with 1.15 line spacing on a glaring white page - is one of the harder reading environments you can face.
The good news is that LibreOffice is deeply configurable. You can install any system font and use it by default, adjust spacing at the paragraph level, tint the page background, and save everything as a template that applies automatically to every new document. This guide walks through all of it, from font installation to final template, in order.
If you also use Microsoft Word or Google Docs, the font choices here are the same - what changes is where you find the settings.
Which font to use
Three freely licensed fonts consistently come up in dyslexia accessibility discussions. All three install on Windows, macOS, and Linux and work in LibreOffice without any plug-ins.
| Font | Designed by | Best for | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenDyslexic | Abelardo Gonzalez | Readers who confuse similar letters (b/d, p/q) | SIL OFL (free) |
| Lexend | Thomas Jockin / Google Fonts | Reading speed; clean modern look | SIL OFL (free) |
| Atkinson Hyperlegible | Braille Institute | Low-vision clarity; minimal look | SIL OFL (free) |
If you are unsure which to try first, start with Lexend. It is the most neutral-looking of the three, so documents stay professional even when shared with colleagues who do not know what a dyslexia font is. For a deeper comparison, see Lexend vs Atkinson Hyperlegible and the broader round-up in best fonts for dyslexia in 2026.
Step 1: install the font on your operating system
LibreOffice uses system fonts - there is no internal font manager. You need to install the font at the OS level first, then it appears automatically inside Writer.
Windows: download the font (Google Fonts or the font's own site), unzip, right-click the .ttf file, and choose "Install for all users". No restart needed for LibreOffice if it is already closed.
macOS: open the .ttf file with Font Book and click "Install Font". LibreOffice picks it up immediately.
Linux (Ubuntu/Debian): copy the font files to ~/.local/share/fonts/ and run fc-cache -f -v. Alternatively, many dyslexia-friendly fonts are in distribution repositories - on Ubuntu, sudo apt install fonts-opendyslexic installs OpenDyslexic directly.
Once installed, open a blank LibreOffice Writer document and type the font name into the font box at the top left to confirm it appears.
Step 2: change the default font in LibreOffice
The quickest route is through the Default Paragraph Style - this controls the base font that every new document inherits unless another style overrides it.
- Open Tools → Options → LibreOffice Writer → Basic Fonts (Western). Change the "Default" and "Body text" entries to your chosen font at your chosen size (13-14 pt is comfortable for most dyslexic readers; 12 pt is often cited as too small). Click OK.
- Open the Styles panel (F11 or View → Styles). Right-click Default Paragraph Style and choose Edit Style. Under the Organizer tab, confirm the name. Under Font Effects, double-check nothing is overriding your choice.
- Still in Edit Style, go to the Alignment tab and set alignment to Left (not Justified). Justified text creates uneven word gaps that are particularly disruptive for dyslexic readers.
The Options route (step 1) affects new documents. Editing the style itself (step 2-3) is what you need when you want to change an existing document or make sure the style propagates through headings and body text consistently.
Step 3: set line spacing and paragraph spacing
Font choice alone is not enough. Line spacing and letter spacing have a measurable effect on how easily a dyslexic reader can track from the end of one line to the start of the next. In LibreOffice:
- Right-click Default Paragraph Style again and choose Edit Style.
- Go to the Indents & Spacing tab. Set Line spacing to "Proportional" and enter 150% (equivalent to 1.5x). Some readers prefer 160-170% - experiment on a long paragraph before committing.
- Set Spacing below paragraph to about 0.2 cm (or 6 pt). This adds a small visual gap between paragraphs without wasting space on the page.
- Leave Above paragraph at 0 to avoid double-spacing between headings and body text.
If you use Heading styles, repeat the left-alignment step for Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on. Headings that are centred or justified while body text is left-aligned create an inconsistency that some readers find disorienting.
Step 4: adjust page background colour
A pure white page reflects more light than most readers need, and for some people with dyslexia this contributes to visual stress - words appearing to shimmer or move slightly on the page. Switching to a warm off-white or light cream reduces glare without making text harder to distinguish.
Research into background colours for dyslexia suggests that light cream (#FFFAEB or similar), very pale yellow, or soft grey tend to work well for the broadest range of readers. Avoid strong tints unless you know from experience that a specific colour helps you.
In LibreOffice Writer:
- Go to Format → Page Style.
- Click the Area tab (in older versions, this is called Background).
- Choose Color, click "Custom Color...", and enter a hex value such as
#FFFAEB(warm cream) or#F5F5F0(neutral off-white). - Click OK. The background applies to the current document's page style.
Note: the page background colour appears on screen but does not print by default - LibreOffice suppresses background printing to save ink. If you need it to print, go to Tools → Options → LibreOffice Writer → Print and check "Page background". For on-screen reading, no extra step is needed.
Step 5: adjust page margins
Narrow margins produce long line lengths. Long line lengths make it harder to track back to the start of the next line - a specific problem for dyslexic readers who already spend extra cognitive effort on that movement. The default LibreOffice margins (2 cm) can produce lines of 80 or more characters on an A4 page at 13 pt, which is wider than recommended.
A practical target is 55-70 characters per line. To achieve this:
- Go to Format → Page Style → Page tab.
- Increase left and right margins to 3.0-3.5 cm. On A4 at 13 pt Lexend, 3.2 cm margins produce roughly 65 characters per line - inside the comfortable range.
- Click OK.
Step 6: save as your default template
At this point you have a document with the right font, spacing, background, and margins. The last step is to make this the template LibreOffice uses every time you create a new blank document - otherwise you will have to repeat these steps for every file.
- Save the document as a template: File → Templates → Save as Template. Name it something like "My Reading Setup". Choose the "My Templates" category.
- Make it the default: go to File → Templates → Manage Templates. Find your template, right-click it, and choose Set as Default.
- Close LibreOffice. Reopen it and choose File → New → Text Document. The new document should open with your font, spacing, and background already in place.
If you share documents with others, consider keeping a second "Clean" template with standard formatting for files that leave your computer. It takes about three seconds to switch templates when you need to.
What about Impress and Calc?
The same fonts work in LibreOffice Impress (presentations) and Calc (spreadsheets). For Impress, create a custom slide master with your chosen font and spacing - save it as a template the same way as above. For Calc, the font change in Tools → Options → LibreOffice Calc → Default Fonts applies globally, though background colour in spreadsheets is cell-level, not page-level.
For detailed guidance on reading tables and grids with dyslexia, see reading spreadsheets with dyslexia.
Beyond the document: reading on the web
LibreOffice handles your local documents, but a large part of reading happens in a browser - email, articles, research, online forms. The font you have configured in Writer does not carry over to websites; each site controls its own typography.
LexiFont is a Chrome extension that applies your chosen dyslexia-friendly font - OpenDyslexic, Lexend, Atkinson Hyperlegible, or others - to every website you visit. You configure it once and it works across tabs without manual intervention. If you are setting up a dyslexia-friendly environment end to end, pairing LibreOffice's template with LexiFont in Chrome covers both offline and online reading with a consistent typeface.
Get LexiFont Pro — apply dyslexia-friendly fonts to every website, one-time purchase
Common problems and fixes
The font does not appear in LibreOffice. Restart LibreOffice after installing the font at the OS level. If it still does not appear, run the font cache refresh for your OS (Linux: fc-cache -f -v; Windows: no command needed, but a full reboot sometimes helps).
The background colour disappears when I export to PDF. LibreOffice includes background colours in PDF export by default. If yours is missing, check File → Export as PDF → General and make sure "Export page backgrounds" or equivalent is ticked - the exact label varies by version.
Shared documents look wrong on other people's computers. If the recipient does not have your font installed, LibreOffice substitutes a system font and the line breaks change. For documents going outside your own machine, embed fonts: File → Export as PDF and choose "Embed standard fonts" and "Embed fonts in the document". This increases file size but guarantees the recipient sees what you intended.
The template resets after a LibreOffice update. This is a known issue in some LibreOffice versions. After any update, check File → Templates → Manage Templates to confirm your template is still set as default. Takes under a minute to reapply.