You can access and download Svante Schubert’s slides about “News from the ODF Toolkit” which was supposed to be features during FOSDEM 2022 but for some reason didn’t work out.
FOSDEM 2022 - News from the ODF Toolkit (with Notes) by Svante Schubert
Download Link: News from the ODF Toolkit (with Notes)
In addition to the majority of code commits being focused on interoperability with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats, there is a wealth of new features targeted at users migrating from Office, to simplify the transition
Berlin, February 2, 2022 – LibreOffice 7.3 Community, the new major release of the volunteer-supported free office suite for desktop productivity, is available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download. Based on the LibreOffice Technology platform for personal productivity on desktop, mobile and cloud, it provides a large number of improvements targeted at users migrating from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, or exchanging documents between the two office suites.
There are three different kinds of interoperability improvements:
In addition, LibreOffice’s Help has also been improved to support all users, with a particular attention for those switching from Microsoft Office: search results – which are now using FlexSearch instead of Fuzzysort for indexing – are focused on the user’s current module, while Help pages for Calc Functions have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and linked to Calc Function wiki pages, while Help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library have been updated.
ScriptForge libraries, which make it easier to develop macros, have also been extended with various features: the addition of a new Chart service, to define charts stored in Calc sheets; a new PopupMenu service, to describe the menu to be displayed after a mouse event; an extensive option for Printer Management, with a list of fonts and printers; and a feature to export documents to PDF with full management of PDF options. The whole set of services is available with identical syntax and behavior for Python and Basic.
LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite market segment, starting with native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) – beating proprietary formats in the areas of security and robustness – to superior support for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files. In addition, LibreOffice provides filters for a large number of legacy document formats, to return ownership and control to users.
Microsoft files are still based on the proprietary format deprecated by ISO in 2008, and not on the ISO approved standard, so they hide a large amount of artificial complexity. This causes handling issues with LibreOffice, which defaults to a true open standard format (the OpenDocument Format).
LibreOffice 7.3 is available natively for Apple Silicon, a series of processors designed by Apple and based on the ARM architecture. The option has been added to the default ones available on the download page.
A video summarizing the top new features in LibreOffice 7.3 Community is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raw0LIxyoRU and PeerTube: https://peertube.opencloud.lu/w/iTavJYSS9YYvnW43anFLeC.
A description of all new features is available in the Release Notes [1]
Contributors to LibreOffice 7.3 Community
LibreOffice 7.3 Community’s new features have been developed by 147 contributors: 69% of code commits are from the 49 developers employed by three companies sitting in TDF’s Advisory Board – Collabora, Red Hat and allotropia – or other organizations (including The Document Foundation), and 31% are from 98 individual volunteers.
In addition, 641 volunteers have provided localizations in 155 languages. LibreOffice 7.3 Community is released in 120 different language versions, more than any other free or proprietary software, and as such can be used in the native language (L1) by over 5.4 billion people worldwide. In addition, over 2.3 billion people speak one of those 120 languages as their second language (L2).
LibreOffice for Enterprises
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with a large number of dedicated value-added features. These include long-term support options, professional assistance, personalized developments and other benefits such as SLA (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.
Despite this recommendation, an increasing number of enterprises are using the version supported by volunteers, instead of the version optimized for their needs and supported by the different ecosystem companies.
Over time, this represents a problem for the sustainability of the LibreOffice project, because it slows down the evolution of the project. In fact, every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for their enterprise customers is shared with the community on the master code repository, and improves the LibreOffice Technology platform.
Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS), for mobile platforms (Android and iOS), and for the cloud. Slowing down the development of the platform is hurting users at every level, and the LibreOffice project may fall short of its expectations and possibilities.
Migrations to LibreOffice
The Document Foundation has developed a Migration Protocol to support enterprises moving from proprietary office suites to LibreOffice, which is based on the deployment of an LTS version from the LibreOffice Enterprise family, plus migration consultancy and training sourced from certified professionals who offer value-added solutions in line with proprietary offerings. Reference: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/.
In fact, LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, strong support for open standards, excellent compatibility and LTS options from certified partners – is the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.
Availability of LibreOffice 7.3 Community
LibreOffice 7.3 Community is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.12.
LibreOffice Technology-based products for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/, while for App Stores and ChromeOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-from-microsoft-and-mac-app-stores/
For users whose main objective is personal productivity, and therefore prefer a release that has undergone more testing and bug fixing over the new features, The Document Foundation maintains the LibreOffice 7.2 family, which includes some months of back-ported fixes. The current version is LibreOffice 7.2.5.
The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can get it from volunteers on user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.
LibreOffice 7.3 is built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org
[1] Release Notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.3
Press Kit
Download link: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/MnZEgpr86TzwBJi
Dear community members, TDF members, Advisory board members, team members, membership committee and board!
Another year marked by the global pandemic is coming to an end these days. In addition to all the depressing news and circumstances that affect us all, there are also pleasing and uplifting developments.
Apart from the painfully missed opportunity to meet in person, be it in the local communities or at our annual conference, we have nevertheless achieved so much together, worked together and brought our foundation forward, so that we can already say that it was one of the most successful years for and with our project.
I would like to thank all of you on behalf of our project. Everyone has contributed to the success story in different ways. All the contributions intertwine, and without these individual parts the whole thing would not be possible and so successful. Especially in these times. Thank you very much again for this.
And it is precisely this commitment, this proof of the resilience of our project during this time, that allows me to look to the future with good cheer. Please continue to support our community in so many ways in the coming year, every contribution is needed.
After two very intensive and busy years, I myself will say goodbye to the board, but after a short phase of rest, I will continue to work with you in the project in one or two different places again. I wish the newly elected board all the best!
I wish you and your beloved ones a few days of recreation at the end of this year and a stable good health for the next one.
Thanks again and hope to see you all with your contributions in the new year again,
yours
Lothar Becker
as chairman of the board
This is Software Informer’s editor rating.
Work with document files either imported from programs like MS Word, Excel and other office tools or created natively in formats like ODF or PDF compatible with modern and open standards. Editing, copying and incorporating data in databases is possible.
LibreOffice is an open-source free alternative to heavy commercial office suites like MS Office. While having generally the same functionality, LibreOffice is more open to modification and updates, making it a more attractive suite if you want a comfortable and adjustable tool for working with documentation.
LibreOffice consists of several tools capable of working with documents of any type, from standard Word files and Excel tables to presentations and Publisher files. There’s a word processing and desktop publishing tool called Writer; spreadsheet program Calc; tool for creating effective multimedia presentations called Impress; a sketching tool named Draw; database manager Base; formula editor Math; advanced chart and diagram creator Charts. Every tool has all the features of an advanced editor for the kind of files you could work with. The tools work stable and fast, they are easy to use even if you’re not an experienced user of office tools.
LibreOffice adds several unique features into its programming, such as the support for ODT documents and the ability to incorporate various plugins and extensions. You can always add new templates for various documents.
Open-source tools sometimes disappoint by being attempts to copy a licensed product. LibreOffice is different in that, it’s a genuinely good product itself.
TDF Membership Committee announces the PRELIMINARY results of the elections for the next Board of Directors at The Document Foundation.
The number of TDF Members who voted is 120, from a total amount of 211 eligible voters. This means that 91 TDF Members did not vote. The Membership Committee would like to thanks all the voters, as the elections are the most significant time of the year for TDF Members, because they can decide about the project’s governance.
Based on the PRELIMINARY results, the following candidates are elected as members of TDF Board of Directors, in order of preference:
Full Members:
Deputies:
Results were calculated using the same tooling and rules of previous elections, based on the single transferable vote (STV) voting system and the Meek algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_single_transferable_votes). The software used is OpenSTV (https://github.com/Conservatory/openstv).
The Membership Committee agreed on the ranking of the first six candidates, but is still discussing about the last four candidates.
Unfortunately, given that there are 10 candidates and 10 seats, OpenSTV 1.7 does not provide more than one round to rank all candidates that have not reached the threshold, and considers all candidates as elected. For more details, see: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/results.php?election_id=14. The Membership Committee will investigate this further, and will update TDF Members and the general public as soon as possible.
Before the results can be considered as final, we have the challenge phase from Wednesday, December 15, to Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1).
TDF Members are invited to check their votes as explained after the voting, by using the anonymous token received at that time (each voter has received a different token, and is the sole owner of that token). Election results to verify are available here: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/votes.php?election_id=14.
If you have any questions or if you think that there were irregularities during the vote, please get in touch with the Membership Committee AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, and in any case no later than Monday, December 20, at midnight CET (UTC+1), using the email address elections@documentfoundation.org.
For reference, details of the whole election process have been outlined in the first announcement: https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/tFJzSYUUGcSjf0c0NtNiEOou.
