Hypenation in OpenOffice and LibreOffice

When I write in Italian using LibreOffice on a computer that’s not mine I usually struggle with hyphenation. Every time I have to recap how to enable the Italian language, so I’ve decided to write this post for future reference.

First of all, I have to download the Italian extension here: extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center. Click on “Italian dictionary, thesaurus, hyphenation patterns” and download the file “dict-it.oxt”. OpenOffice and LibreOffice extensions share the common .oxt extension.

Then I have to install the extension in LibreOffice. I have to go to Tools -> Extension Manager, click on Add, then select the dict-it.oxt file and open it. It’s worth restarting LibreOffice to let it know of the new extension.

If hyphenation still does not work, I have to right click on the document, choose Paragraph -> Text flow and make sure that Hyphenation’s flag “Automatically” is checked.