In LibreOffice, what is the shortcut for italics?

When typing some text in LibreOffice Writer, one can use following in-line shortcuts:

• type *text* to write the word "text" in bold,
• type _text_ to write the word "text" underlined.

What is the corresponding in-line shortcut for writing the word "text" in italics?

There was none, but there is a shortcut for italic now.

To use the shortcut, user must have installed at least LibreOffice 5.4. The addition of markup italic and strikethrough is noted in LibreOffice 5.4 release note.

• Type *bold* to make strong text i.e. bold
• Type /italic/ to emphasize text i.e. italic
• Type -strikethrough- to strike text i.e. strikethrough
• Type _underline_ to underline text (not shown here due to limitation on SE)

Where to check

The shortcuts are handled by AutoCorrect in LibreOffice and AutoCorrect in OpenOffice. To see the option, go to Tools > AutoCorrect > AutoCorrect Options and select "Options" tab.

AutoCorrect has now improved options for bold, italic, strikethrough and underline. In LibreOffice 5.3 and older, the options were limited to bold and underline (bottom half).

The following limitation applies:

• User can only enable or disable the shortcuts all together or none, but not individually.
• User can not change the existing in-line shortcuts to something else.

What about MediaWiki syntax

Some users may think of text formatting markup by MediaWiki. LibreOffice does have an extension for MediaWiki, which is available in the repository or the local repository.

$ apt-cache search libreoffice wiki
libreoffice-wiki-publisher - LibreOffice extension for working with MediaWiki articles
libobasis5.3-extension-mediawiki-publisher - MediaWiki publisher extension for LibreOffice 5.3 .0.3

Unfortunately, MediaWiki extension is for publishing purpose.

The indended use is to export styles and formatting in LibreOffice to MediaWiki format and not the other way round. So users who expect ''italic'' to become italic or '''bold''' to become bold would be not possible in LibreOffice.

Using keyboard shortcut

Alternatively, LibreOffice Help explains that applying text formatting while you type for italic is possible using the keyboard shortcut.

To apply italic formatting

1. Select the text that you want to format.

2. Press Ctrl+I. You can also press Ctrl+I, type the text that you want to format in italic, and then press Ctrl+I when you are finished.

Tested using LibreOffice 5.3 and LibreOffice 5.4 in Xubuntu 14.04.

To the best of my knowledge there is no "in-line" shortcut in LibreOffice Writer for italics (if by in-line you mean the keystrokes appear before the style is converted. You can however toggle italics on and off with the CtrlI key combination. So for instance you can type CtrlI t e s t CtrlI to obtain test

Source: https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/General_Shortcut_Keys_in