The Document Foundation opens LibreOffice Certification for Migrations and Trainings to all project volunteers, to members of not-for-profit bodies, and to individuals of proven competence

LibreOffice Certification represents a business opportunity for value added resellers, based on the proposition of consultancy and training services

Berlin, December 27, 2016 – Effective from January 1st, 2017, access to LibreOffice Certification will be extended to volunteers active at global and local levels, members of not-for-profit bodies sitting in the Advisory Board (namely, FSF, FSFE, Gnome Foundation and KDE), and for individuals whose competence and commitment are demonstrated by facts (successful migrations and trainings). In addition, Members of the Certification Committee can invite people to apply for certification, even if they do not belong to the approved categories, based on their direct relation, and to the competence and commitment of these individuals.

So far, LibreOffice Certification was limited to TDF Members who were active on a regular basis, in order to test the process with candidates already acquainted with the project.

In any case, every individual who applies will have to go through the same certification process, based on a first analysis of pre-requisites and documents, a second optional written questionnaire, and a third face-to-face discussion with the Certification Committee. The second optional written questionnaire is at the sole discretion of the Certification Committee.

“LibreOffice Certification for Migrations and Trainings has been received in a different way in different geographies. In Italy, where it has been more successful, the availability of certified professionals has triggered a number of migrations in public administrations and enterprises”, says Italo Vignoli, Chairman of the Certification Committee.

Lothar Becker, Eliane Domingos de Sousa, Sophie Gautier, Olivier Hallot, Thomas Krumbein, Marina Latini, Gustavo Pacheco and Italo Vignoli have been renewed as members of the Certification Committee. In addition, Franklin Weng – a certified professional from Taiwan – has been added to the Certification Committee, with the objective of helping to increase the number of LibreOffice certified professionals in Asia.

The LibreOffice Certification website is available at the following link: http://www.documentfoundation.org/certification/program/.

Advent Resource #22: PDF Forms Guide

The Leading English Education and Resource Network (LEARN) is a non-profit organization that primarily serves the public and private Anglophone, and Aboriginal, Youth and Adult Education sectors of Québec.

LEARN has developed a short guide for creating a PDF Form using LibreOffice, which has been originally published for version 4.0.5.2 [download PDF], and has been updated a first time for version 4.2.8.2 [download PDF] and a second time for version 5.0.5.2 [download PDF].

Let’s celebrate with LibreOffice 5.2.4

Berlin, December 22, 2016 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the availability of LibreOffice 5.2.4still, the fourth minor release of the LibreOffice 5.2 family. Based on the upcoming announcement of LibreOffice 5.3, all users can start to update to LibreOffice 5.2.4 from LibreOffice 5.1.6 or previous versions.

TDF suggests deploying LibreOffice in large organizations, public administrations and enterprises with the backing of professional support by certified people (a list is available at: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

Road to LibreOffice 5.3

With the availability of LibreOffice 5.3 RC1, the project has entered the last stage of the road to LibreOffice 5.3, which will be announced on February 1st, 2017. In the meantime, we have announced the UI concept: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/12/21/the-document-foundation-announces-the-muffin-a-new-tasty-user-interface-concept-for-libreoffice/.

Users can start learning about the new exciting features on LibreOffice 5.3 Release Notes page (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/5.3). The page will be updated until the very last minute.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.2.4 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

Several companies sitting on TDF Advisory Board (http://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/advisory-board/) are providing either value added Long Term Supported versions of LibreOffice or consultancy services for migrations and trainings, based on best practices distilled by The Document Foundation.

Advent Resource #21: Solver Tutorial

Solver Tool has the capability to solve linear (and often nonlinear) programming problems, and is available in Microsoft Excel as well as LibreOffice.

edX, an online learning destination and MOOC provider founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012 and offering high-quality courses from the world’s best universities and institutions to learners everywhere, has developed a tutorial which shows the user how to (1) load the solver into the spreadsheet, (2) define the problem and write out formulas for the objective and constraints, and (3) solve the problem.

edX tutorial is focused on Microsoft Excel (Mac and PC) and LibreOffice. At the end of the document there is a quick guide on how to debug the Solver.

The Document Foundation announces the MUFFIN, a new tasty user interface concept for LibreOffice

muffinBerlin, December 21, 2016 – The Document Foundation announces the MUFFIN, a new tasty user interface concept for LibreOffice, based on the joint efforts of the development and the design teams, supported by the marketing team. MUFFIN is an acronym for My User Friendly & Flexible INterface, and focuses on the three areas suggested by LibreOffice users during the development of the concept:

  1. My: LibreOffice users want a “personal” UI, with different options capable of adapting to the user’s personal habits, and not a single UI without options.

  2. User Friendly: of course, any UI should be as user friendly as possible, but LibreOffice users have clearly asked for a “modular” UI, where they can set their own level of user friendliness, and not a single UI without options.

  3. Flexible: the increasing number of LibreOffice users deploying the software on different hardware platforms (for instance, a desktop and a laptop), each one with different characteristics and screen size and resolution, have asked for a UI that can be tweaked to leverage the screen real estate, and not a single UI without options.

INterface: The MUFFIN concept is the combination of different UI elements, which are going to be available starting from LibreOffice 5.3 either as a standard or experimental feature: the Default UI (with toolbars), a Single Toolbar UI, the Sidebar with a Single Toolbar, and the new Notebookbar (experimental, and not recommended for production use). Each UI layout has been thought to serve a different cluster of LibreOffice users.

LibreOffice Writer with Standard Toolbar
LibreOffice Writer with Single Toolbar
LibreOffice Writer with Sidebar
LibreOffice Writer with Notebookbar

The rationale behind the MUFFIN is further explained in a marketing backgrounder [PDF] and in a specific blog post on TDF Design Blog.