You can now add AI images directly into LibreOffice documents – here’s how

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• There’s a new LibreOffice extension for AI-generated images.
• The extension uses AI Horde to generate images.
• Images are automatically placed in your document.

Although I don’t use AI for image generation, I know a lot of people who do. Some of those people regularly work with documents and need the ability to quickly insert AI-generated images into those documents.

Last week, I came across a LibreOffice extension that makes this easy. Even better, thanks to AI Horde, it allows users to do this for free. 

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What is AI Horde?

AI Horde is a volunteer-driven, distributed cluster of image generation workers that is run by the Haidra organization (another volunteer group). By going this route, you don’t have to directly use a service like ChatGPT to generate your images. Instead, the LibreOffice extension connects with AI Horde, which then does the heavy lifting for you.

You can register for a free AI Horde account, which then simplifies the process of generating the required API Key (the process is very simple). Once you have your key (and the extension installed), generating images for your documents is just a few clicks away.

Using the LibreOffice-Stable Diffusion extension is very easy. Let me show you how.

Installing the necessary extension

What you’ll need: The only things you’ll need for this are a running instance of LibreOffice (make sure you’re using the most recent version) and an AI Horde API Key. Make sure you save the API Key in a file or note.

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The first thing you must do is download the LibreOffice-Stable Diffusion extension from the official site. Make sure you remember where you saved the loshd.oxt file.

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Open LibreOffice Writer and click Tools > Extensions. In the resulting window, click Add and then locate the .oxt file and click Open. This will add the extension and require you to restart LibreOffice.

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You can add as many extensions as you like.

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET

Using the new extension

Once you have the extension installed, using it is very easy. Write your prompt in the LibreOffice document, highlight the prompt, click Insert > Image From Text, paste your API Key in the required field, and click Process. The extension will contact AI Horde and process the query.

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You can also change the size of your image before it’s processed.

Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET

There are a couple of things that you’ll want to know. 

First, the process will fail sometimes because AI Horde is too busy. If that happens, try again. You can also select which model is used for your query from the Model drop-down.

Second, you have the option of including NSFW images or censoring NSFW images. Also, there’s the Max Wait option, which allows you to increase the time until your image is generated. The higher the Max Wait time, the more likely it is that your image will be generated by AI Horde.

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As with anything AI-generated, your results may vary. I’ve tested this new extension on several different prompts and found that the image is viable, maybe 30% of the time. Another thing to consider is that with an Nvidia GPU on your system, you can add hosts, which means the likelihood of your image being generated is considerably higher. 

If you like to use AI for image generation and want to easily insert those images into LibreOffice documents, this extension is for you.

Then there are kudos, which you earn by connecting a worker to the AI Horde. The more kudos you earn, the more likely it is that your image will be generated. Adding a worker to the AI Horde is beyond the scope of this article and does require a fairly powerful GPU.

Although the new LibreOffice-Stable Diffusion extension isn’t perfect (it’s a crap shoot whether your image will be generated and/or if it will be viable), it’s still a worthy option to add to the office suite. With this extension, you can generate images that will automatically be placed in your document.

Give this extension a try and see if it doesn’t meet your AI-generated image needs for LibreOffice.