How to Open Google Drive in LibreOffice

Google Drive provides a free option for managing your LibreOffice documents in the cloud. To access your online documents directly from within LibreOffice, you must sync the files to your desktop using the Google Drive client application. When using this combination, however, you are limited to opening files saved in the LibreOffice or Microsoft Office formats. To open files saved in the Google Docs format, you must install a LibreOffice extension designed for this purpose.

Navigate to the Google Drive website (link in Resources).

Click "Connect Drive to Your Desktop," and then download and install the Google Drive client on your computer. Allow the application to sync your Google Drive documents to your computer during the installation.

Launch LibreOffice, click "Open," select the "Google Drive" folder in your Favorites section, and then double-click a file to open it. You can open any file saved in either a LibreOfiice or a Microsoft Office format.

Navigate to the OpenOffice.org2GoogleDocs extension download page on the LibreOffice website (link in Resources).

Click the download link, and then open the downloaded file in LibreOffice when prompted by your browser. If your browser doesn't give you the option, launch LibreOffice, select "Extensions Manager" from the "Tools" menu, click "Add," and then double-click the downloaded file. Follow the prompts to complete the installation, and then restart LibreOffice to enable the extension.

Click the "File"menu, select "Google Docs & Zoho," and then click "Import From Google Docs."

Enter your Google credentials on the next screen. To avoid having to enter this information each time you open a document, check the box next to "Remember Password."

Click "Get List" to retrieve a list of your Google Drive documents.

Select a file and click "Open" to open the document in LibreOffice. The extension converts documents in the Google Docs format to the LibreOffice format.

Save the document back to Google Drive by clicking the "File" menu, selecting "Google Docs & Zoho," and then clicking "Export to Google Docs." Check the box next to "Convert to Google Docs" if you want to convert the file. Click "OK" to save the file.