September 2025 - TDF Community Blog

Austria’s military switches from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice

2025-09-30

Like we’re seeing in Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and many other government bodies and organisations, the Austrian military (Bundesheer) has migrated 16,000 PCs from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.

As Heise reports, the main reasons behind the switch are to:

strengthen digital sovereignty
maintain independence of IT infrastructure
ensure that data is processed in-house

The initial plan to move to LibreOffice was formed in 2020, and detailed planning and training of internal developers for improvements began in 2022.…

LibreOffice turns 15: a celebration of freedom, collaboration and open technologies and standards

2025-09-28

Fifteen years ago, we announced our ambitious plan to provide the world with a fully free and open office suite created by and for the community. Today, we are celebrating 15 years of LibreOffice — a milestone not only for the software itself, but also for the global movement that it represents.

LibreOffice was born on 28 September 2010 when it was launched as a fork of OpenOffice.…

The artificial complexity of OOXML files (the XLSX case)

2025-09-27

The post, published on 18 July 2025, which explained why an artificially complex XML schema, such as that used by Microsoft 365 (formerly Microsoft Office) files, is in fact a subtle tool for locking in users because it is invisible and impossible to detect without in-depth study, was picked up by various IT media outlets. This was probably because it explained a problem that everyone faces without having the tools to solve it in a way that was accessible to everyone.…

LibreOffice and Software Freedom Day 2025 in Nepal

2025-09-23

Updates from the Nepalese LibreOffice community:

Recent protests and stress in Nepal have disrupted regular activities. Almost everything was affected, including in-person events being canceled rapidly. For open source software users, Software Freedom Day 2025 was a big celebration. But many felt disillusioned about the event.

Despite all this, our community members in Nepal tuned in to an online call and turned Software Freedom Day 2025 into a success.…

Community Member Monday: Devansh Varshney

2025-09-222025-09-22

Today we’re talking to Devansh Varshney, who added histogram chart support to LibreOffice and is working on improvements to the Basic IDE…

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I am from Mathura in India, one of the historical cities where the first image of Buddha was carved during the Kushan Empire, Jain Tirthankar Neminatha’s birthplace and the more famous Bhagwan Krishna birthplace.…

LibreOffice-focused talks at the Open Source Conference 2025 Luxembourg

2025-09-222025-09-22

The Open Source Conference 2025 will take place the 1st of October 2025 in Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg, following a very successful first edition in 2024 in combination with the LibreOffice Conference. Open Source software, together with data sovereignty, form the basis to achieve Digital Sovereignty as an inclusive effort where all the participants cooperate to create the tools we need to protect our data, while sharing the technologies that improve everyone’s digital lives.…