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Author: Italo Vignoli

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 6.4.7

Berlin, October 22, 2020 – The Document Foundation announces the availability of LibreOffice 6.4.7, the 7th and last minor release of the LibreOffice 6.4 family, targeted at users relying on the application for desktop productivity. LibreOffice 6.4.7 includes bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility and interoperability with software from other vendors.

Enterprises are strongly recommended to source LibreOffice from an ecosystem partner, to get long-term supported (LTS) releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and other benefits, including SLAs (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Developments done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, and this represents an advantage for everyone.

LibreOffice individual users are supported by a global community of volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.

Availability of LibreOffice 6.4.7

LibreOffice 6.4.7 is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements are specified on the download page. TDF builds of the latest LibreOffice Online source code are available as Docker images: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice 6.4.7’s change log pages are available on TDF’s wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.4.7/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.4.7/RC2 (changed in RC2).

All versions of LibreOffice are built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

Support LibreOffice

LibreOffice users are invited to join the community at https://ask.libreoffice.org, where they can get and provide user-to-user support. People willing to contribute their time and professional skills to the project can visit the dedicated website at https://whatcanidoforlibreoffice.org.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can provide financial support to The Document Foundation with a donation via PayPal, credit card or other tools at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

Announcement of LibreOffice 7.0.2

Berlin, October 8, 2020 – LibreOffice 7.0.2, the second minor release of the LibreOffice 7.0 family, targeted at technology enthusiasts and power users, is now available for download from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. LibreOffice 7.0.2 includes over 130 bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility.

The most significant new features of the LibreOffice 7.0 family are: support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.3; Skia graphics engine and Vulkan GPU-based acceleration for better performance; and carefully improved compatibility with DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files.

LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite arena, starting from native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) – with better security and interoperability features – to wide support for proprietary formats.

LibreOffice 7.0.2 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites. Users wanting the robustness of a more mature version optimized for enterprise class deployments can still download LibreOffice 6.4.6.

For enterprise class deployments, TDF strongly recommends sourcing LibreOffice from one of the ecosystem partners, to get long-term supported releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and other benefits, including SLAs (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Support for migrations and training should be sourced from certified professionals who provide value-added services which extend the reach of the community to the corporate world. Also, the work done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, and this represents an advantage for everyone.

LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, support for open standards, excellent compatibility and long-term support options – represents the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain or keep control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

LibreOffice individual users are supported by a global community of volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.

LibreOffice users are invited to join the community at https://ask.libreoffice.org, where they can get and provide user-to-user support. People willing to contribute their time and professional skills to the project can visit the dedicated website at https://whatcanidoforlibreoffice.org.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can provide financial support to The Document Foundation with a donation via PayPal, credit card or other tools at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

Availability of LibreOffice

LibreOffice 7.0.2 and 6.4.6 are immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements are specified on the download page. LibreOffice Online source code is available as Docker image: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice 7.0.2’s change log pages are available on TDF’s wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.0.2/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.0.2/RC2 (changed in RC2).

All versions of LibreOffice are built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

International Translation Day

International Translation Day is an international day celebrated every year on September 30 on the feast of Saint Jerome, the Bible translator who is considered the patron saint of translators. The celebrations have been promoted by International Federation of Translators (FIT) ever since it was set up in 1953. In 1991 FIT launched the idea of an officially recognized International Translation Day to show solidarity of the worldwide translation community in an effort to promote the translation profession in different countries. This is an opportunity to display pride in a profession that is becoming increasingly essential in the era of progressing globalization. In line with the celebration of 2019 as International Year of Indigenous Languages, the theme for 2020 is “Finding the words for a world in crisis”.

We celebrate our community of translators, which is providing LibreOffice in 119 different languages (with other 26 hopefully becoming available in the future), more than any other software, fulfilling one of the most important objectives of The Document Foundation: “to support the preservation of mother tongues by encouraging all peoples to translate, document, support, and promote our office productivity tools in their native language”. Today, there are over 4 billion people in the world who can use LibreOffice in their native language, and this is an achievement which deserves a recognition.

 

openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference 2020 Diamond Sponsors

Collabora, SUSE and The Document Foundation are Diamond Sponsors for openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference 2020. The joint openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference 2020 will run from October 15 – 17, and will be fully virtual. LibreOffice and openSUSE advocates, supporters and contributors are invited to register now and take part! Although different from past conferences, the event will be rich in contents and will also provide the opportunity of open discussions in specific virtual spaces.

Collabora is one of the major contributors to the LibreOffice project: 37% of commits to the LibreOffice source code in the last two years were made by the company, which provides different products based on the LibreOffice Technology and targeted to enterprises such as a desktop and an online version with Long Term Support, plus mobile applications for Android and iOS.

Other conference sponsors are .riessapplications, datto, fedora and Tuxedo Computers, plus Admin and Linux Magazine as media partners.

Do not forget to register. We look forward to meeting you at the openSUSE + LibreOffice Conference 2020.

LibreOffice 10th Anniversary

Today is LibreOffice 10th Anniversary: it is a significant achievement for the project, and a date to remember for all community members.

We have created a video based on pictures of community members and a few events, in two versions: a long one, for blogs and websites, and a short version for social media.

Video LibreOffice Community 10th Anniversary (7 minutes): YouTube – PeerTube

Video LibreOffice 10th Anniversary Social Media (2 minutes): YouTube – PeerTube

For Twitter, there is a MP4 version of the short video available on Nextcloud: Video x Twitter.

LibreOffice Tips & Tricks: Replacing Microsoft Fonts

Fonts are one of the main culprits of LibreOffice interoperability problems with Microsoft Office documents, when viewed from the end user’s point of view. In fact, Microsoft Office document are often using one of the default fonts – either the old “Core Fonts for the Web” (deprecated in 2002, but still in use) or the new “ClearType Fonts” (launched in 2000, and now adopted by Windows and Office) – which are not always available in LibreOffice, as they are proprietary and cannot be distributed with open source software. Also, in the case of ClearType fonts, the license is strictly connected to the Windows and/or Office license, so to legitimately use them with LibreOffice you need a Windows license where they are included.

When LibreOffice opens a Microsoft Office document, it will replace the fonts which are not available with one of the default Liberation fonts, which are metrically compatible with Arial (Liberation Sans), Courier New (Liberation Mono) and Times New Roman (Liberation Serif), but will have an impact on the visual appearance of the document if they replace a different font (in this case, the user will usually start to complain loudly about LibreOffice, without even checking if the contents are still there…).

To reduce the impact of this problem, which cannot be eliminated, at least until users stop using fonts creatively, LibreOffice offers a specific feature, a font replacement table that can be configured according to the user’s needs, and is among the program’s options. If the table is configured correctly, LibreOffice replaces the fonts with those metrically compatible – or simply more similar – defined by the user, and this in most cases will prevent the document from looking different. Luckily, there is a large number of free open source fonts available, with some specifically developed to replace Microsoft fonts as in the case of Croscore Fonts, from several online repositories. I suggest Google Fonts, as the website provides not only the font files but also all the associated legal resources, including the license.

My LibreOffice font replacement table, which has been developed over the years, includes the following font pairs (the first is replaced by the second, which is installed on my Linux PCs): Arial -> Arimo, Calibri-> Carlito, Cambria -> Caladea, Consolas -> Inconsolata, Courier New -> Cousine, Franklin Gothic -> Libre Franklin, Georgia -> Neuton, Gill Sans -> Cabin, Impact -> Oswald, Palatino -> Crimson Text, Perpetua -> Lustria, Times New Roman -> Tinos, Twentieth Century -> Spartan, and Verdana -> PT Sans. This is how it looks in LibreOffice:

Installing fonts is rather easy, but for those who are not familiar with the procedure there are a couple of articles which provide a quick tutorial: Windows & macOS, and Linux.

Press Releases

LibreOffice 25.8.5 has arrived

Berlin, 19 February 2026 – LibreOffice 25.8.5, the fifth update to the FOSS office suite [1] developed by volunteers for…

Open Document Format

Why ODF and not OOXML

Many interpreted the last article in this series as an attack on Microsoft for using the OOXML format against users'…