This post, LibreOffice Draw, includes a PDF file that is a LibreOffice diagram saved as a PDF file. It has some instructions on how to create a diagram. MySampleDraw.pdf Click the name of the pdf file to view it.

You can download LibreOffice here. The latest version as of February 2018 is 6.0.1. As of August 2018 the version is 6.0.6.

You can download VRT Network Equipment – 1.2.0 for LibreDraw here to add computer and network objects.

We have another post at this site on LibreOffice. It briefly introduces you to a few of the free applications you get with this office suite.

You can download some shapes at Mark Lautman’s website here. They are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence. Download the file you need. Open it in LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Copy the desired shape using Ctrl+C, and paste special as Drawing Format into your own drawing. That’s all!

Other Programs

There are other programs you could use: Visio, Gliffy, SmartDraw, draw.io, Flowgorithm, Figma, Lucidchart, Canva and others.

Document Template

You can create a template to use as the basis for creating new text documents. One nice thing about this is that you can create styles. For example, if you want you default font size to be 10 (or whatever) you can create a style in a template and use that template for all of the files you create and you have access to your style. Just select you object (rectangle, ellipse or basic shape) and double click you named style to change the object.

1. Create a document and add the content and formatting styles that you want.
2. Choose File – Templates – Save As Template.
3. In the New Template box, type a name for the new template.
4. Select a template category in the Categories list.
5. Click OK.

So how you create styles? In this example I am going to set a style for a rectangle to be used in my flow charts.

1. click rectangle on tools
2. draw on canvas
3. right-click, Area, click white box, OK
4. click the box to select it and type some text
5. select the text, Format, Character, Size 10, OK
6. select the box
7. in upper right of GUI, New Style from selection
8. give it a name, ok
9. draw a new box, double-click the new style in the Styles and Formatting section on the right side of the GUI
10. now you have a style you can use for all of your boxes
11. Save the file as a template

When you need more boxes, the easiest thing to do is select the box and just use Copy and Paste. It pastes on top of the old one so just use the arrow keys to move the new one off the old one.