10 great LibreOffice-only features
LibreOffice is the successor project to OpenOffice, which had its last major release (4.1) back in 2014, as you can see in this timeline – click to enlarge. And, of course, it’s still free and open source:
We release a new major version every six months – so let’s check out some of the great features our community and certified developers have added in recent years!
1. Improved compatibility – .docx export
LibreOffice Writer, the word processor, can export documents in .docx format (OOXML), as used by Microsoft Office. Many other compatibility improvements have been added too.
2. NotebookBar user interface
Since LibreOffice 6.2, we have an alternative user interface option called the NotebookBar. To activate it, go to View > User Interface > Tabbed.
3. EPUB export
Want to create e-books from your documents? With LibreOffice, you can! Click File > Export and choose EPUB, which can be read on many e-book devices.
4. Document signing
For improved security, you can use OpenPGP keys to sign and encrypt ODF, OOXML and PDF documents. (ODF is the OpenDocument Format, the native format of LibreOffice.)
5. Pivot charts
Calc, LibreOffice’s spreadsheet, lets you create charts from pivot tables. This helps you to summarise data sets in complex spreadsheets.
6. Document watermarks
LibreOffice 5.4 introduced custom watermarks, which can be added to page backgrounds.
7. Major spreadsheet performance boosts
Calc has benefited from multi-threading support, dramatically boosting performance on computers with multi-core CPUs.
8. Attractive presentation templates
Impress, LibreOffice’s presentation tool, includes a selection of hand-crafted templates, so you can focus on content rather than design.
9. Documentation improvements
LibreOffice’s help system has been improved to be more user-friendly, while many guidebooks have been updated too.
10. Safe Mode
To improve reliability, LibreOffice 5.3 introduced a Safe Mode, which temporarily disables your user configuration and extensions. This helps you to pinpoint any issues which may affect your setup.
Like what you see? Download LibreOffice and try it out – it’s free!
Those are just some of the features – but of course, our community has grown, we’ve started the Document Liberation Project and we have professional support options for using LibreOffice in businesses. And there’s much more still to come – join us!
These are all wonderful new features. Kudos to all who contributed to the final product.
Anyone have any idea if LibreOffice Base will get a new, or updated manual, or User Guide? LO replaced Base with Firebird last year, but the most current version of the manual was written in 2016.
Hi BR, the short answer is: they’ll be updated when someone volunteers to work on them! Our community is nearly ready with a Base 6.2 (and soon 6.4) guide, but please remember that we’re a volunteer-driven, community open source project with limited resources. We do what we can, but we appreciate help to keep guides up-to-date – you can contribute back and give us a hand! Start here: https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/join-the-documentation-team/
The Base Guide 6.2 is going to be published soon. It will be released in late march or early April. All the chapters has been written and 7 of them has reached the published stage i.e the final stage. Out of Remaining 6 Chapters, 4 has gone through one review. If you are proficient in Base then Join the documentation team and help us. You can download the 7 published chapters from here:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/sHBs86963coYWcS
I am going to upgrade my Mac Mimi to the 64-bit OS. Do you have a version of the suite that will work in the 64-bit environment
Hi Lloyd, yes, LibreOffice works on 64-bit Macs: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/system-requirements/
Great idea to collect some LibreOffice-only features, but e.g. pivot charts are not a LibreOffice-only feature. I suggest to add redaction (since 6.3) and the QR code (since 6.4) features in this list.
Hi Frank, this is about features added to LibreOffice since it split off from OpenOffice, and pivot charts definitely belongs to them! Indeed, we plan to make more blog posts with additional features, including the ones you mention… Cheers!
When will we see a new database???
Hi Ron, the answer is: when you help us to make it happen! We’re a volunteer-driven, community open source project with limited resources. We do what we can, but we can’t make things appear by magic! If you really want more improvements to Base, help our volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/ – Or consider funding a certified developer: https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ – That way, everyone benefits!
Why not have table styles like there is in Microsoft office and have thumbnails as well and also read aloud and dictate as well, and also a second side pane to the left
Hi Iain, thanks for the ideas – please note that LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven, community open source project, with limited resources. We do what we can, but if you want those extra features, help our volunteers to make them happen: https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/ – Or fund a developer to work on them: https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ – That way, everyone benefits!
hi.
i wish to use libreoffice, but unfortunately it does not support diacritic in persian and arabic and also, its not very accessible and user friendly for blinds and screen reader users.
i have version 5.3 on windows xp, and in general, love opensource products.
but i cant use it for the reasons that mentioned above!
can you please help me?
for me, if it was librewriter with screen reader perfect support and supporting diacritics, it its better than whole office suite that i really cant use!
i really need only writer for perfect support for my needs.
God bless you and thanks for your blog!
Hi Zahra, I’m afraid we can’t provide technical support here in blog comments (we’re a small non-profit with limited resources, and we can’t provide help to millions of users this way). But we’ve set up a community assistance website, so ask here and someone should be able to help: https://ask.libreoffice.org
It’s sad that LibreOffice still doesn’t support Markdown.
Don’t be sad – do something about it! We’re a volunteer-driven, community open source project with limited resources. If you really want a feature, you can contribute back and make it happen: http://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/ – Or fund a certified developer to implement it: https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/developers/ – That way, you get the features you want, and everyone benefits!
Nice with new features – but on macOS there are long-standing bugs – high CPU usage bugs – terrible performance (lag whilst typing), blurry fonts on retina screens. And this is using 2018 Macbook Pro etc – i.e. modern equipment. Please concentrate on baseline performance – rather than new bells and whistles.
You should also mention the much better web scrapping capabilities of Calc. Every time I copy/paste a table from a web page it pastes perfectly and then Ctrl-M removes the extra formatting giving me pure data. Not so easy (if at all) with Excel. Sorry, Excel funs.
Oh! I love the new tabbed option on my macOS – thank you LibreOffice! I’m working from home during this COVID-19 lock down, and this makes it so much easier.