OpenRiot v8.0.16: Paper Moon
“The page was white and the words were Aptos. Nobody chose Aptos. Aptos arrived like a relative who moves in over a weekend and starts rearranging the shelves. So we turned the lights down, set every paragraph in Paper Mono, and wrote the new defaults into the registry where they belong.” – The OpenRiot Crew, v8.0.16
Release Overview
LibreOffice now arrives dark and in Paper Mono.
The installer ships a small registrymodifications.xcu that
selects the LibreOffice Dark color scheme, the Breeze Dark
symbol style, and Paper Mono for Writer’s standard, heading,
list, index, and caption fonts. No white page, no Aptos, no
first-launch scavenger hunt through Tools and Options.
The file overwrites the profile on install. That is the point: existing white profiles get the new defaults too, at the cost of whatever else lived in the profile.
Darkness on the Edge of Writer
COLOR_SCHEME_LIBREOFFICE_DARK is a built-in scheme, so no
custom theme file is needed. The bundled registry sets:
/org.openoffice.Office.UI/ColorScheme
CurrentColorScheme = COLOR_SCHEME_LIBREOFFICE_DARK
/org.openoffice.Office.Common/Misc
SymbolStyle = breeze_dark_svg
The first launch is dark. The icons are dark. The document canvas is the dark application background, not the white sheet that looks like a job interview.
Paper Moon
Writer’s default font was Aptos, which nobody asked for and nobody can delete. The registry now sets every Writer default to Paper Mono:
| Slot | Font | Height |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Paper Mono | 353 (10pt) |
| Heading | Paper Mono | 423 (12pt) |
| List | Paper Mono | inherited |
| Index | Paper Mono | inherited |
| Caption | Paper Mono | inherited |
New documents open in Paper Mono where Aptos used to sit. The paper is dark, the type is mono, and the word processor finally looks like it belongs to the rest of the desktop.
The Profile Question
The profile is a 5 MB registry full of recent files, window
geometry, autocorrect lists, and personal settings. The safe
design was preserve_if_exists, which would leave every white
profile white forever and call it caution.
That was not the goal. The bundled file overwrites
~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/registrymodifications.xcu on
install. The trade is deliberate: consistent defaults for
everyone, and the old profile data goes with the white pages.
A person who wants their history back has the history they exported, which is the same answer for every reinstall.
🧾 Files Changed
| File | Change |
|---|---|
config/libreoffice/registrymodifications.xcu |
NEW |
| Dark scheme and Paper Mono Writer defaults | |
install/packages.yaml |
Install the LibreOffice profile |
🗣️ Final Words
“The page went dark, the font went mono, and Aptos went home. The profile had a good run. The new one opens faster anyway.” – The OpenRiot Crew, v8.0.16