The Document Foundation Blog

2014/07/30

LibreOffice 4.3: today, you can’t own a better office suite

Filed under: Announcements, LibreOffice — Tags: , , , , , — italovignoli @ 06:00

- Better OOXML interoperability, and support of legacy Mac file formats

- Better comment management, and highly intuitive spreadsheet handling

- 3D models in Impress, and support for “monster” paragraphs

Berlin, July 30, 2014 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.3, the 8th major release of the free office suite since the birth of the project in September 2010. The application includes the combined effort of thousands of volunteers and hundreds of developers, and has reached a point of maturity that makes it suitable for every kind of deployment, if backed by value added services by the growing LibreOffice ecosystem.

LibreOffice 4.3 offers a large number of improvements and new features, including:

- Document interoperability: support of OOXML Strict, OOXML graphics improvements (DrawingML, theme fonts, preservation of drawing styles and attributes), embedding OOXML files inside another OOXML file, support of 30 new Excel formulas, support of MS Works spreadsheets and databases, and Mac legacy file formats such as ClarisWorks, ClarisResolve, MacWorks, SuperPaint, and more.

- Comment management: comments can now be printed in the document margin, formatted in a better way, and imported and exported – including nested comments – in ODF, DOC, OOXML and RTF documents, for improved productivity and better collaboration.

- Intuitive spreadsheet handling: Calc now allows the performing of several tasks more intuitively, thanks to the smarter highlighting of formulas in cells, the display of the number of selected rows and columns in the status bar, the ability to start editing a cell with the content of the cell above it, and being able to fully select text conversion models by the user.

- 3D models in Impress: support of animated 3D models in the new open glTF format, plus initial support for Collada and kmz files that are found in Google Warehouse, in order to add a fresh new look and animations to keynotes (support of this feature is currently on Windows and Linux versions only).

LibreOffice 4.3 also support “monster” paragraphs exceeding 65,000 characters (an example of an 11 years old bug solved thanks to the modernization of the OOo source code, which is an exclusive function of LibreOffice). In addition, the accessibility technology on Windows has become a standard feature, thanks to the improvements based on IBM’s IAccessible2 framework.

The entire list of new features and improvements of LibreOffice 4.3 is here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/4.3.

“The LibreOffice project shows that a large free software community can live and thrive without the patronage of a software vendor, to liberate PC desktops”, says Thorsten Behrens, Chairman of The Document Foundation. “Today, you can’t own a better office suite than LibreOffice, in term of features, interoperability, support for document standards and independence. After many years, LibreOffice brings the control of the PC desktop back into the hands of the users”.

According to the Coverity Scan service, joined by LibreOffice in October 2012, the quality of LibreOffice source code has improved dramatically during the last two years, with a reduction of the defect density per 1,000 lines of code from an above the average 1.11 to an industry leading 0.08 (for more information: http://softwareintegrity.coverity.com/register-for-libreoffice-scan-report.html).

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change logs here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.0/RC1 (fixed in RC1), here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.0/RC2 (fixed in RC2), here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.0/RC3 (fixed in RC3) and here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.3.0/RC4 (fixed in RC4).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.3 and LibreOffice 4.2.6 – which will be released on Friday – are available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions and templates to supplement the installation of the software and add specific features can be found here: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to enhance the project both at global and local level.

About The Document Foundation (TDF)

The Document Foundation is an independent, self-governing and meritocratic organization, based on Free Software ethos and incorporated in Germany as a not for profit entity. TDF is focused on the development of LibreOffice – the best free office suite ever – chosen by the global community as the legitimate heir of OOo, and as such adopted by a growing number of public administrations, enterprises and SMBs for desktop productivity.

TDF is accessible to individuals and organizations who agree with its core values and contribute to its activities. At the end of June 2014, the foundation has just over 200 members and well over 3,000 volunteer contributors worldwide.

Media Contacts: https://www.documentfoundation.org/contact/.

2014/07/24

The Document Foundation congratulates the UK government for their revolutionary and historic choice of open document standards

Filed under: Standards — italovignoli @ 07:00

UK citizens will be the first in Europe to be liberated from proprietary lock-ins

Berlin, July 23, 2014 – The Document Foundation (TDF) congratulates the UK government for the selection of the Open Document Format (ODF), in addition to Portable Document Format (PDF), to meet user needs. LibreOffice, the free office suite developed by TDF, supports both ODF – the native document format – and PDF (including PDF/A).

The original UK government press release is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/open-document-formats-selected-to-meet-user-needs. In addition, the UK government has published a policy paper with more details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/sharing-or-collaborating-with-government-documents.

“TDF has always been a strong supporter of ODF, and a believer in open document standards”, says Thorsten Behrens, TDF Chairman. “July 22 will be a date to remember, as the culmination of a dream inaugurated when ODF become a ISO standard on November 30, 2006. By standardizing on ODF and PDF, the UK government is showing the world that it is entirely possible to find a way out of proprietary formats to enhance user freedom”.

LibreOffice is a reference implementation of ODF, a document standard which is supported by a growing number of applications (including proprietary ones). ODF is independently managed by OASIS (https://www.oasis-open.org/), a non-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society.

To leverage the advantages of ODF, you can download LibreOffice from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions and templates to supplement the installation of the software and add specific features can be found here: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/.

Complementing ODF, LibreOffice manages Hybrid PDF files, which combine the advantages of PDF and ODF by embedding a fully editable ODF document into a PDF without breaking any of the standard characteristics of both formats.

2014/07/21

Membership Committee upcoming election

Filed under: Announcements, Community, Foundation — Florian Effenberger @ 09:36

Thorsten Behrens, Chairman of the Board at The Document Foundation, has announced the elections for the Membership Committee.

Dear Community,

all members of The Document Foundation are called to vote on a new Membership Committee. Therefore, the Board of Directors hereby announces the elections to the Membership Committee with the following timeline:

  1. 2014-07-19: announcement of the elections (this e-mail); and start of the nomination phase
  2. 2014-08-27, 24:00 CET/UTC+2: end of the nomination phase
  3. 2014-09-04, 00:00 CET/UTC+2: official start of the elections
  4. 2014-09-11, 24:00 CET/UTC+2: end of the elections
  5. 2014-09-12: announcement of the preliminary results; and start of the challenging phase
  6. 2014-09-17, 24:00 CET/UTC+2: end of the challenging phase
  7. 2014-09-18: official announcement of the final results
  8. 2014-09-19: new Membership Committee officially in charge

Members of The Document Foundation as of 2014-07-01 are eligible to vote in the elections, and any eligible voter can also be elected to the Membership Committee. Members may self-nominate.

To announce your candidacy, send a message to board-discuss@documentfoundation.org with your full name, e-mail, corporate affiliation (if any), and a description of your reasons for
wanting to serve as a committee member. All candidates should also send a summary of their candicacy announcement to elections@documentfoundation.org – a compilation of the summaries will be mailed to all registered voters prior to the elections. Summaries should be no more than 75 words of continuous text (so no bullet lists or multiple paragraphs) and must be received by the nomination deadline given above.

Available slots will be filled by a single transferable vote system, seats filled in decreasing order of preference. This election is according to our statutes, and the term of office is two years.

All discussion related to the elections should be held on board-discuss@documentfoundation.org where members are invited to ask questions to one or all candidates. Instructions explaining how to vote will be sent via e-mail to all eligible voters in time before the election.

The board will announce preliminary results as soon as possible after the elections close, along with instructions on how to access the votes archive and how to independently verify the vote count.

Any eligible voter may challenge the preliminary results by e-mailing elections@documentfoundation.org within the aforementioned deadline. Once any challenges have been resolved, the board shall announce the final results.

Any questions regarding these procedures should be directed to the board by e-mail to elections@documentfoundation.org

We are looking forward to all candidacies, and would like to thank you for your work, engagement and dedication for The Document Foundation!

On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Thorsten Behrens

2014/06/20

LibreOffice 4.2.5 hits the marketplace

Filed under: Announcements, LibreOffice — italovignoli @ 11:25

Berlin, June 20, 2014 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.2.5 “Fresh”, the fifth minor release of the most feature rich version of the software, ready for enterprise deployments. For more conservative users, The Document Foundation suggests LibreOffice 4.1.6 “Stable”.

LibreOffice 4.2.5, as well as LibreOffice 4.1.6, have been developed by over 800 contributors, who have joined the project since the launch in late September 2010 (source: http://www.ohloh.net). “This is a wonderful achievement”, said Thorsten Behrens, Chairman of The Document Foundation. “We have managed to attract at least three new contributors per month, for 46 months in a row, with an average of more than 200 new contributors per year”.

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change logs here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.5/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.5/RC2 (fixed in RC2). In total, over 150 bugs or regressions have been solved.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2.5 and LibreOffice 4.1.6 are both available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions and templates to complement the installation of the software and add specific features are available here: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to grow the project both at global and local level.

2014/06/17

LibreOffice community working hard to make the next major release the best ever

Filed under: Announcements, QA — italovignoli @ 12:32

Berlin, June 17, 2014 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the second LibreOffice 4.3 bug hunting session, from June 20 to June 22. The community has already made a large collective effort to make LibreOffice 4.3 the best ever, based on automated stress tests and structured tests by Quality Assurance volunteers.

Enterprise and individual LibreOffice users can now contribute to the quality of the best free office suite ever by testing the release candidate to identify issues in their preferred user scenario.

Participating is easy. Details of the bug hunting session are on TDF wiki (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugHunting_Session_4.3.0_RC1). The list of LibreOffice 4.3 new features, which have to be tested for bugs and regressions, is also on the wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/4.3.

To participate, it will be necessary to have a PC with Windows, MacOS or Linux, and LibreOffice 4.3 RC1 (available at http://www.libreoffice.org/pre-releases). A previous Quality Assurance experience is not mandatory.

Filing bugs is also easy, thanks to the help of the experienced volunteers who will be around on the QA mailing list (libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org) and IRC channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/#libreoffice-qa).

2014/05/08

LibreOffice 4.2.4 at LinuxTag and FISL

Filed under: Uncategorized — italovignoli @ 11:02

Berlin, May 8, 2014 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.2.4. The software is on stage at LinuxTag in Berlin (Hall 6, Booth D06) and at FISL in Porto Alegre (Booth 36), where the community is proudly showing the latest version of the best free office suite ever.

LibreOffice 4.2.4 “Fresh” – the most feature rich version of the software – is the fourth minor release of the LibreOffice 4.2 family, and is suited for early adopters willing to leverage a larger number of innovations. For enterprise deployments and for more conservative users, The Document Foundation suggests the more mature LibreOffice 4.1.6 “Stable”.

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change logs here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.4/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.4/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2.4 and LibreOffice 4.1.6 are both available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions and templates to complement the installation of the software and add specific features are available here: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to grow the project both at global and local level.

2014/04/29

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.1.6

Filed under: Announcements, LibreOffice — italovignoli @ 12:01

Berlin, April 29, 2014 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 4.1.6 “Stable”, for Windows, MacOS X and Linux, the sixth minor release of the LibreOffice 4.1 family targeted to large deployments of the best free office suite ever.

“LibreOffice 4.1.6 is the last release of the LibreOffice 4.1 family, targeted to large deployments in enterprises and public administrations, which should always be supported by TDF certified developers”, says Florian Effenberger, TDF Executive Director. “Today, we users can choose between LibreOffice 4.2.3 Fresh, targeted to early adopters and technology enthusiasts, and LibreOffice 4.1.6 Stable targeted to enterprise deployments and conservative users”.

Support The Document Foundation

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to expand the infrastructure, and support marketing activities to increase the awareness of the project, both at global and local level.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.1.6 is available for immediate download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions for LibreOffice can be obtained from the following link: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center.

Over 80 bugs and regressions have been addressed. Change logs are available here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.6/RC1 (fixed in 4.1.6.1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.6/RC2 (fixed in 4.1.6.2).

2014/04/24

Get ready for LibreOffice 4.3 bug hunting session

Filed under: Development, QA, Technology — italovignoli @ 11:20

The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the schedule of the first LibreOffice 4.3 bug hunting session, which will start with the availability of the first beta of the new major release in calendar week 21 (May 23 to May 25).

Participating will be easy. Details of the bug hunting session are on TDF wiki (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugHunting_Session_4.3.0), where there is also a growing list of LibreOffice 4.3 new features and improvements to check for bugs and regressions (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/4.3).

To participate, it will be necessary to have a PC with Windows, MacOS or Linux, and LibreOffice 4.3 Beta 1 (available at http://www.libreoffice.org/pre-releases), plus a lot of enthusiasm.

Filing bugs will be extremely easy, thanks to the help of experienced volunteers who will be around on the QA mailing list (libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org) and IRC channel (irc://irc.freenode.net/#libreoffice-qa).

A second LibreOffice 4.3 bug hunting session will be organized – with the same pattern – immediately after the release of LibreOffice 4.3 Release Candidate 1, in mid June.

2014/04/17

LibreOffice Conference 2015 Call for Locations will open soon

Filed under: Community, Conference, Foundation, LibreOffice — italovignoli @ 10:48

Berlin, April 16, 2014 – The Document Foundation (TDF) will open the Call for Locations for the LibreOffice Conference 2015 on May 1st, 2014. Candidate cities will be able to submit proposals during May and June 2014. Details of the Call for Locations are available on the TDF Wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Events/2015/LibreOffice_Annual_Conference/Call_for_Location.

The location of the 2015 LibreOffice Conference will be announced at the end of July, so that the winning team may attend the 2014 LibreOffice Conference in Bern, Switzerland (September 2nd to September 5th).

“The LibreOffice Conference is a large event, which spans over four days and is a unique gathering opportunity for our growing community. Starting from 2014, we intend to present next year location at the previous conference”, says Thorsten Behrens, Chairman of The Document Foundation. “This also offers a chance to involve next year’s team during the last phase of the organization, in order to ensure that they are acquainted with the process”.

For additional information: conference@libreoffice.org.

2014/04/10

LibreOffice 4.2.3 is now available for download

Filed under: Announcements, LibreOffice — italovignoli @ 11:01

Berlin, April 10, 2014 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.2.3, the third minor release of the LibreOffice 4.2 family. LibreOffice 4.2.3 “Fresh” is the most feature rich version of the software, and is suited for early adopters willing to leverage a larger number of innovations. For enterprise deployments and for more conservative users, The Document Foundation suggests the more mature LibreOffice 4.1.5 “Stable”.

People interested in technical details about this release can access change logs here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.3/RC1 (fixed in RC1), here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.3/RC2 (fixed in RC2) and here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.2.3/RC3 (fixed in RC3).

In addition, the released version of LibreOffice 4.2.3 adds a security fix for the Heartbleed Bug (CVE-2014-0160).

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2.3 and LibreOffice 4.1.5 are both available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions and templates to complement the installation of the software and add specific features are available here: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to grow the project both at global and local level.

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