Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in September – click the links to learn more…
- We started September with a record-breaking response to the release of LibreOffice 26.8: in its first week, the new version passed one million downloads, with more than 50,000 views, shares and likes on social media, and over 20,000 views of the new features video.
- And responding to questions about whether LibreOffice includes AI, we said: “No AI is now a feature”. LibreOffice does stop you using AI extensions if you want, but nothing is forced or built-in.
- Then the design team shared results from a survey about LibreOffice Base, with feedback from 455 participants on how they use the database, what works well and what they would like to see improved.
- We also released LibreOffice 26.2.6, the sixth maintenance update to the 26.2 branch, with bug fixes and stability improvements.
- There was news about upcoming events: TDF will give two talks at the Open Source Conference Luxembourg in October, on digital sovereignty and the Cyber Resilience Act.
- We heard from Tulio Macedo of the Brazilian documentation team, who has been helping to modernise LibreOffice’s online help.
- TDF has partnered with TUXEDO to offer foundation members a 3% discount on Linux-powered laptops.
- The LibreOffice Conference in Pordenone took place, and after the event, we thanked the organisers and speakers and started work on video recordings.
- LibreOffice 26.8 brings improvements for right-to-left writing systems, including better paragraph direction handling in Writer and support for N’Ko and Adlam in Math. We explained why this work matters even when no commercial market is driving it.
- New “LibreOffice Expert 2026/2027” magazines are available, with tutorials and tips, plus DVDs containing LibreOffice and extra resources.
- The QA/Dev Report for August covered testing, bug fixes and other work by the quality assurance and development communities.
- In another post about 26.8, we described how LibreOffice preserves unsupported chart data when importing and exporting certain Microsoft Office files, helping users avoid losing content even when a chart type cannot yet be displayed or edited.
- For Software Freedom Day, we highlighted the freedoms LibreOffice offers: control over your documents and data, no licence fees or subscriptions, and the ability to choose how to participate and get support.
- We put the first batch of LibreOffice Conference videos online.
- Then, the LibreOffice community was present at FrOSCon 2026 near Bonn.
- An announcement: the VII Latin American Congress of LibreOffice will take place in San Salvador on 27–28 November.
- FLOSS/fund, the initiative from Zerodha, made a generous $100,000 contribution to LibreOffice. The support helps The Document Foundation improve infrastructure, fund development, and organise community events.
- A second batch of conference videos added 15 more talks to the playlist.
- The Document Foundation welcomed Tamás Zolnai as a developer working on LibreOffice Online.
- Also, Bogdan Buzea joined TDF as a Quality Assurance Analyst, bringing eight years of volunteer QA experience with LibreOffice.
- On 28 September, we celebrated sixteen years of LibreOffice and The Document Foundation, and thanked the many contributors who have helped the project grow and remain independent.
