LibreOffice Conference 2026: Managing colours and fonts in LibreOffice for visual accessibility

Duration: 8:55 805 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The presentation focuses on enhancing visual accessibility within LibreOffice by addressing the challenges posed by default high-contrast interfaces, such as white pages surrounded by dark gray or black borders. While these neutral colors are standard for many users, they can significantly increase reading difficulties for individuals with text dimension issues or specific contrast sensitivities. To mitigate this, LibreOffice utilizes system APIs to integrate native accessibility settings from Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions, automatically adjusting visual readability based on the operating environment. This integration ensures that documents remain legible regardless of whether they are dynamic files or legacy formats, providing a seamless experience across different platforms. A key feature highlighted is the automatic font color tool found in the Accessibility menu, which forces hardcoded dark text to remain readable even when placed against challenging backgrounds. The software also supports full keyboard navigation for users who prefer not to use a mouse, allowing interaction through shortcuts like F6 for menu bar navigation and specific combinations to open context menus or access direct options. Furthermore, LibreOffice offers robust support for screen readers including NVDA, Zoom Text, and VoiceOver, enabling features like read-only cursor modes that facilitate seamless text selection and traversal for visually impaired users. The discussion also covers the built-in accessibility sidebar in Writer, which provides real-time warnings when contrast levels between foreground and background colors are insufficient. This tool allows users to configure document backgrounds, such as changing them from white to dark or yellow, while automatically calculating luminance to ensure adequate contrast is maintained. However, the presenters acknowledge a complex challenge regarding user input; if a user manually draws text in a low-contrast color like yellow, the system must decide whether to override that choice to preserve accessibility standards or respect the user's specific design intent, a balance that requires careful configuration and community collaboration to resolve effectively.

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I'm software developer. I live in Barry and uh I I'm here for you to present accessibility in Libra Libra office. Uh so um this um when when we open uh a word processor or impress or any any uh any software um we have um a contrast barrier, a white page and um a blank page uh surrounded with a fixed gray or or dark um interface. Oops. Sorry. Uh the the this this black page um for for a lot of um years is considered uh as a neutral p neutral uh color, a neutral page. But um for people who have um some um some u uh problems with uh high contrast or text de dimension. Um this uh increase the reading difficulty uh for for this uh for these people. Uh, Libra, Libra Office use to um some uh use some API to um integrate integrate uh is the code with this uh operating system. Uh for in Windows uh you use the um native eye contrast team uh from from the system. In uh Mac OS we interact directly with apples NSA and um ATSPI2 uh for the new Linux in in visual uh re readability to to increment the visual readability. We uh Libra Office uh had some um automatical uh tools that um are used to uh automatically uh increment the um the readability of the of the file. also uh is uh is true for um dynamic contracts uh and legacy legacy file. So uh in Libra Office we have an option in accessibility menu uh use an automatic font color for screen display. Uh this uh this option force hardcoded dark text to remain readable. Also uh we have um possibility to use uh only the keyboard to interact uh with the system. Uh for example, if uh if I I press F6 um in my keyboard, uh I can navigate in in the menu uh in the menu bar. With the uh shift dot plus f10 I can open context menus or with alt plus uh some keys uh I can open uh direct different direct menu. Uh these are uh what what uh in in the last release of um of Libra Office uh for stable accessible identifiers top bottom window reading uh integration with wh way Linux and keyboard also uh we have um the global accessibility um ecosystem and the community collaboration. So uh we can also use screen reader API with a full support for NVDA, zoom text and voice over or read only cursor mode. uh queen. So we can uh use use text selection cursor in read only text document that enables m screen reader transversal. uh and we uh uh if we have um a suggestion we can uh talk we can open um an integration a request of the integration with the community collaboration. Uh so uh that's it. >> You are aware of the accessibility sidebar in writer. >> Sorry. >> In brighter there is an accessibility sidebar. You know this? >> Yeah. >> At least for the contrast I think there's information. writer cipher. >> Yeah, >> there's a section accessibility. >> Yeah, >> since you talked about contrast, font color, background color, and you get a warning in this sidear if the contrast is not okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Automatic check, accessibility check. >> It's a checker and get info. Please >> change this this option. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> There's some information. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> I think very interesting topic. Happy to chat more afterwards if you want. You mentioned there's ice chain with the default white background documents. the document is white. And that's also something that can be set in dark. >> There's a swift >> white and you can change the background to any other automatic means we decide whether to use white font color or black or black font color >> depending on the luminance of the color that you use. And the calculation it is um that's a challenge. what what is bright and whatever you do you end up with in a situation where possibly the contrast is not sufficient when we talk about accessibility they if you want to have contrast it is white and black >> but you can spoil it you can break it >> I have a ticket that's why I'm coming to the accessibility side but ticket uh to override user input if the user draws text in yellow then we should ignore it. >> Okay. >> In some situation and I think I rejected it. >> Okay. >> It is useful if you configure your your document background as yellow >> yellow >> in what can I do? You do wrong. >> Okay.