21 Jan 2015

LibreOffice Viewer (Beta) now available for Android

Posted in Announcements, Press Releases, Technology By Italo Vignoli On January 21, 2015

Berlin, January 21, 2015 – The Document Foundation (TDF) is happy to see the LibreOffice Viewer (Beta) for Android released in the Google Play Store, allowing mobile users to access Open Document Format (ODF) files from devices such as tablets and smartphones.

The application, created by Collabora, is available from the following link: .

The first release of LibreOffice Viewer handles text documents and basic presentations. Support for spreadsheets have been included in an early form, while support for more complex presentations is planned for a future release. Users are invited to download and test the application, although care is advised for production environments.

“Support for Android is the result of cooperation between organizations as well as individual contributors,” said Michael Meeks, VP of Productivity at Collabora, “LibreOffice’s open ecosystem has again proved its ability to bring diverse groups together to produce great software without restrictions”.

The mobile app fulfils the wishes of many users who access ODF files on the go, and is also able to read proprietary document formats from other suites including Microsoft Office.

“This release is the first of a new series of mobile applications,” said Björn Michaelsen, a Director of The Document Foundation. “Individuals, companies and organizations are encouraged to participate in the open development process by joining the LibreOffice community.”

The LibreOffice Viewer (Beta) has been created by Collabora with the support of SMOOSE. It is built on foundational work by the LibreOffice community, SUSE, and the Mozilla Corporation, with additional development by Jacobo Aragunde of Igalia, and Andrzej Hunt and Ian Billet as part of Google Summer of Code.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

Comments

  1. By sam

    Is it possible to download without using Google Play (which requires a google login). Can the apk file be made available or have the viewer added to f-droid. Thanks

    • By bmichaelsen

      The app seems to be on the way to f-droid already:

  2. By David Baron

    Thanks for this, BUT … this is a viewer. It needs to be a compressed 47 meg. Give me a break!
    Additionally, I have an older armv6 dinosaur and this not compatible.
    On Play, find an opendocumentviewer of reasonable size that runs just fine, thank you.

    • By Jason V.

      This is not *just* a viewer. This is running the actual core of LibreOffice, which renders documents accurately (unlike those small viewers that just run a quick conversion from odf to html and dump it in a web browser). The only reason it can only view right now is because the user interface for editing has not yet been written. One step at a time. This is a building block towards the FULL LibreOffice suite on Android. Don’t expect much love for your old armv6, which is certainly lacking in far too many ways to actually be able to run the full LibreOffice. RAM is the first thing that comes to mind….

  3. By Peter W

    Please bring it to F-Droid

  4. By Brian

    Great to see this but can’t see how to view items saved on an external sd card. Can anyone help?