LibreOffice is an open-source office software suite that is fully compatible with Microsoft Office documents. I have been using LibreOffice for all my document needs for a couple of years now. Most of the times, I need LibreOffice for viewing the Microsoft Word documents (.docx or .doc files). But I sometimes also create the Word documents which means that I have to type in the LibreOffice Writer (alternative for Microsoft Word). LibreOffice Writer comes with a spelling checker and shows the curvy red underlines for the words that it thinks are not spelled correctly. But it lacks many other features like checking the grammar or sentence structures.
With the help of a LibreOffice extension called LanguageTool, you can add proofreading features to LibreOffice Writer. Even though LibreOffice itself does not require JRE (Java Runtimes Environment) to work, this extension (LanguageTool) is designed using Java and does require JRE to be installed. So before installing Language Tool, you should download and install JRE on your computer.
After you have downloaded the LanguageTool extension, you can simple double-click on it to install it in LibreOffice. When successfully installed, it appears in the Extensions Manager for the LibreOffice. You can access the LibreOffice Extensions Manager by using the hotkey Ctrl+Alt+E.
Before you can use this LanguageTool extension for proofreading your documents, you should set the document language to English (or other supported language). This can be done from the menubar by selecting Tools → Language → For All Text → English. After this, you can see the spelling mistakes with curvy red underlines and the grammatical or proofreading errors with curvy blue underlines. You can also press F7 to perform the text check or select LanguageTool functions from the menubar.
In the LanguageTool options, you can choose which of the language checks it should perform when checking your typed text for errors. It goes beyond just checking the spelling and basic language syntax, it even checks for redundant phrases, non-standard phrases, collocations and more.
All in all, the LanguageTool extension for LibreOffice can assist you in typing an error free document. It should be a must for everyone who uses LibreOffice for typing out documents on a regular basis.
You can download LanguageTool extension for LibreOffice from https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/languagetool.