How to save a file from LibreOffice to a remote shared folder on your network
Okay, these days collaboration is just a Google Drive or Office 365 account away. After all, cloud services were created with the idea that collaboration should be easy.
To that end, both services have made collaborating with others incredibly easy.
However, there may be times when you do not want to use third-party services for collaboration. You may have highly sensitive data in files that you cannot or do not want to entrust to any third party. In these cases, you may want to keep this data on your network and on your desktops or servers.
This can result in you creating shared folders that can be accessed by different computers on your network.
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A lesser-known feature in LibreOffice is the remote save feature. This option allows you to save a file to a remote service (e.g. an SSH server or a Windows share). There are other options (e.g. Google Drive) but some of them have been broken for a very long time and show no signs of repair. However, the Windows Share feature works very well.
Let me show you how to use it.
How to save a file from LibreOffice to a remote shared folder on your network
The first thing you need to do is set up a new service. Open LibreOffice Writer and click File > Save Remote. From the Manage Service drop-down menu, click Add Service.
Adding a new managed remote storage service in LibreOffice. Image: Jack Wallen
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From the Type drop-down list, select Windows Share, and then configure the required options:
- Host: The IP address of your Windows share on the remote computer.
- Share: The name of the share on the remote computer.
- User: Your valid username on the Windows Share host.
- Password: The password for your user on the remote machine.
- Label: A human-readable name for the share.
- Root: leave blank.
After configuring the sharing, click OK and you’re all set.
Configuring a Windows share as a remote storage service in LibreOffice. Image: Jack Wallen
Now when you share a file for remote Windows sharing, you will be prompted for your remote sharing user password.
Once you’ve authenticated with your remote password, you can save to the remote share. Image: Jack Wallen
And that’s all you need to do to configure LibreOffice to save files to a remote Windows share. If you only have this one remote service configured, every time you perform a remote save, you will be automatically prompted for your remote share credentials and the save will work seamlessly.
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Note that you can configure multiple remote save services. If you do this, when you save remotely, you will be prompted to choose the service you want to use. That being said, this feature should be as simple as saving a file to your local drive.