Here’s a LibreOffice feature you may not know about: when exporting a PDF, the “Hybrid PDF” option embeds the original file. Then anyone with a PDF reader can view the file – and LibreOffice users can edit it too.
Author: Mike Saunders
Insights from the InstallFest 2024 conference in Prague
Our Czech community reports back from a recent event…
For the third time, the LibreOffice project had its own booth at InstallFest 2024, and here we present our experiences from the event.
On the weekend of 16th and 17th March 2024, the InstallFest 2024 conference took place at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. The conference was held after a two‑year break and under the direction of a new team led by Jan Langmaier. This year, according to the organisers’ estimates, about 300 visitors attended, making InstallFest a successful follow‑up to previous editions. Unfortunately, higher participation is limited by the space capacity of the chosen venue.
The lack of space also affected the LibreOffice booth, which had to be a bit aside from the main event. On the other hand, anyone heading to one of the main lecture halls could not miss us – our exclusive position made us unmissable. Even so, there were far fewer visitors at our booth than in previous years.
Feedback gained at InstallFest
Conferences of this type appeal mainly to the younger generation, who must not be absent. It is therefore not surprising that young people from primary or secondary school are well represented among the visitors at the LibreOffice stand. This year, however, this was significantly more disproportionate than at other times – it can even be said that young people dominated. We always interviewed them, asking what they use LibreOffice for, how long they have been using it, whether it is used at school, where they go, and whether their classmates know about the suite.
The answers were generally similar. LibreOffice tends to be used by young people for basic tasks such as writing texts, creating presentations for school and so on. Those who create presentations in Impress for school assignments have to convert their presentations to PPTX format. Surprisingly, we’ve had good feedback on compatibility with this format, although it is of course problematic.
Very few visitors know about the cloud or mobile versions of LibreOffice, but there are some. We were surprised that one high school student reported using the cloud‑based, non‑paid version of OnlyOffice; after learning about the circumstances (ie that this software is in Russian hands and thus subject to EU sanctions), he understood why the institute he was working with (apparently a non‑profit of some sort) did not want to purchase the paid version of OnlyOffice. It simply cannot.
Many visitors would welcome some changes in LibreOffice’s user interface. While some prefer the traditional toolbar layout, others prefer a Microsoft Office‑like look and feel – either for personal taste or for ease of transition from Microsoft Office. LibreOffice allows you to use different interfaces, but this option is hidden in the menus. Visitors would appreciate if, when LibreOffice is first launched, a wizard were displayed to guide the newcomer through the various setup and customisation options, including user interface selection.
We received a request from one tutor to allow multiplication of a combinational number by a combinational number in LibreOffice Calc, and also to simplify the notation of simple arithmetic operations such as multiplication and division. Currently this has to be done using verbally defined functions, so he would welcome the ability to use simple symbols typed from the keyboard.
Although it would seem that office software cannot attract the attention of youngsters, one ninth-grader stayed with us for perhaps an hour. Obviously he was the record holder.
Zdenek Crhonek has a huge part in translating the LibreOffice manuals into Czech. These manuals are translated by a whole bunch of volunteers, and we displayed their covers here.
Traditionally, Collabora Online, the cloud version of LibreOffice, which is now very stable and usable and with a really extensive arsenal of features, attracted a lot of interest.
There were many interesting meetings of people who often only know each other from the virtual world; that’s what these conferences are for. A regular visitor to our booth is Ladislav Sieger, PhD., from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering CTU. He always has a problem to solve, an observation, or a comment.
After party
A very interesting opportunity (and meeting) was a visit to the basement of Strahov’s dormitories, where the SH Bastlíři (translated “DYI makers”) created their own facilities, a workshop that is available to (almost) everyone. Here you can come across a server rack on the ceiling of the toilet, a circular machine, a 3D printer and other interesting things. The visit to these premises was followed by a dinner at a nearby restaurant, where the participants from among the organizers (including speakers, technical staff, exhibitors) were taken by a chartered bus (!).
Conclusion
The new organising team has done its task well. If there were problems, we are not aware of them; that is, they were of a completely minor nature. For us, the biggest problem was with the location of the stand; perhaps this played a role in the rather low attendance of interested people. Although we probably had the most space of all in the end and did not have to make any space constraints, we may not have reached as many visitors as we could have.
However, the other perspective should also be taken into account. Although LibreOffice plays a primary role in the world of open‑source software, it is considered a utility that does not attract as much visitor interest. Therefore, we have tentatively agreed with the organisers to change that next time on our side, and they have promised to help us.
Anyway, those who visited our booth hopefully took something away with them (besides stickers and leaflets), especially thanks to Zdeněk, who maintains a lively communication with LibreOffice’s front‑line staff and has information literally first‑hand. He can thus provide far more insider insight than one Czech community member alone on the stand could in previous years.
All of the talks were filmed and the recordings are available on YouTube.
Community Member Monday: Adam Seskunas
Tell us a bit about yourself!
My name is Adam Seskunas and I currently live in San Diego, California. In my free time I enjoy outdoor activities, hiking, backpacking in the Sierra, rock climbing and surfing with my daughter Sofia. I have a degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland Global Campus, and I’m an open source software enthusiast.
What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?
Currently I’m working on my first “Difficulty Interesting” Easy Hack, a nice description of which can be found on this page.
The Easy Hack involves the ASCII filter for LibreOffice Writer and the way it handles the output of tables. True to its name, the Easy Hack has been interesting! It’s been challenging and rewarding at the same time. I’d like to thank Hossein Nourikhah for providing the code pointers and background information, and Michael Weghorn for help in code review.
Why did you choose to join the project, and how was the experience?
I’ve been using LibreOffice ever since I became interested in using Linux, when I was studying for my Computer Science degree, but I never had considered contributing. It’s such a large project, and I had no experience with C++. I just happened to see an advert on VolunteerMatch for bug testing, and answering the ad got me in contact with Ilmari Lauhakangas.
Ilmari would meet with me bi-weekly and he taught me how to verify bugs in Bugzilla and eventually got me into developing. Overall, joining the project been a fantastic experience, from Ilmari’s mentorship to all the people involved – everyone’s been great. I’d highly recommend it to anyone.
Anything else you plan to do in the future?
My plan is to apply and hopefully get accepted to do Google Summer of Code for LibreOffice. I’ve been talking to Hossein about ideas and I’m excited to get my application written and submitted.
What does LibreOffice really need now?
I’d say more contributors. There’s a robust community of contributors, but any project could use more. It’s a great way to meet people and gain some experience. I’d encourage anyone reading this and thinking about contributing to check out the wiki. There’s great information there and you can help in many different ways, not just development.
Many thanks to Adam for all his contributions! Every LibreOffice user is welcome to get involved and find out what they can do in our community 👍
German state moving 30,000 PCs to LibreOffice
Following a successful pilot project, the northern German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to move from Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office to Linux and LibreOffice (and other free and open source software) on the 30,000 PCs used in the local government. As reported on the homepage of the Minister-President:
Independent, sustainable, secure: Schleswig-Holstein will be a digital pioneer region and the first German state to introduce a digitally sovereign IT workplace in its state administration. With a cabinet decision to introduce the open-source software LibreOffice as the standard office solution across the board, the government has given the go-ahead for the first step towards complete digital sovereignty in the state, with further steps to follow.
The term digital sovereignty is very important here. If a public administration uses proprietary, closed software that can’t be studied or modified, it is very difficult to know what happens to users’ data:
We have no influence on the operating processes of such [proprietary] solutions and the handling of data, including a possible outflow of data to third countries. As a state, we have a great responsibility towards our citizens and companies to ensure that their data is kept safe with us and we must ensure that we are always in control of the IT solutions we use and that we can act independently as a state.
This follows on from the finding by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) that the European Commission’s use of Microsoft 365 breaches data protection law.
In addition, there is this question: Why should local governments use taxpayers’ money to buy proprietary, closed software from a single vendor? With LibreOffice and free software, administrations have much more choice where to get the software and support, and can fund local developers to make improvements. In addition, local governments can maintain full control of the software, study its source code, make changes they require and deploy it entirely on their own infrastructure. Learn more about “Public Money, Public Code”.
So we welcome the decision in Schleswig-Holstein to move its IT administration to free and open source software, for all the benefits it brings, both for the local government and the almost three million citizens of the state.
Full statement from the State Chancellery here (in German)
LibreOffice project and community recap: March 2024
Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…
- We started March by announcing the new Board of Directors at The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice.
- Then we reported back from our presence at FOSDEM, the biggest meetup of free and open source software (FOSS) developers in Europe.
- Our Nepalese LibreOffice community celebrated the LibreOffice 24.2 release with a party with CS50x Nepal students 😊
- Meanwhile, our documentation team was busy, releasing updates for the LibreOffice Writer and Calc Guides to match the latest version of the suite.
- Also in docs news: in the middle of the month, we talked to Dione Maddern about her experiences joining the LibreOffice project. Thanks to Dione for all her contributions!
- Our Czech community announced their translation of the LibreOffice Writer Guide 24.2.
- Later in the month, we celebrated Document Freedom Day, which raises awareness of how open standards and open document formats provide us with the freedom to read and write as we wish.
- March saw two updates to LibreOffice: 24.2.2 and 7.6.6. All users of these branches are recommended to get the latest versions.
- Finally, we posted the results from our survey of LibreOffice localisation tooling and workflows. Thanks to everyone who took part – we’ll do our best to make the requested improvements!
Keep in touch – follow us on Mastodon, X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, Reddit and Facebook. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join our community and help to make LibreOffice even better!
Results from our survey of LibreOffice localisation tooling and workflows
LibreOffice’s localisation community translates the software’s user interface, along with its documentation and websites.
Julia Spitters, Heiko Tietze and Sophie Gautier ran a survey among members of the localisation teams to learn what tools are used, how they engage in workflows, and what future developments they might expect.
Demographics
The survey had a total of 29 participants and 18 complete entries of quantitative data. When asked to rate their experience on a scale from (1) Beginner to (5) Expert, most of our participants had intermediate to advanced translation experience (M = 3.75, Min = 1.00, Max = 5.00), and worked on an average of 5.56 localisation projects besides LibreOffice (SD = 7.31, Min = 0, Max = 30). Our results may capture more experienced members of the localisation community who are working on quite a few projects at once, so we want to thank everyone for their work!
Tooling
We were particularly interested in what tools participants use besides Weblate, which is likely the most common translation tool used among LibreOffice translators. We allowed participants to rate their satisfaction with additional tools they use on a scale from (1) Very Dissatisfied to (5) Very Satisfied, and rate the importance of potential changes. Participants who did not leave any response were excluded.
Among the different Localization tools available, most participants felt neutral towards the most commonly used tools, which include POEditor, TextEditor, Transifex, Crowdin, and OmegaT. However, the few participants who use OmegaT seemed to be relatively satisfied with the tool.
Q: Do you download strings and translate locally?
When asked if they download strings and translate locally, most participants reported that they either partially did so, or not at all.
Q: Do you want to receive notifications on updates related to translation tasks?
The majority of participants were interested in receiving notifications for translation task updates.
Q: How satisfied are you with the translation memory?
When asked about their satisfaction with translation memory from (1) Very Dissatisfied to (5) Very Satisfied, there were very mixed reviews, which did not allow us to capture where the majority opinion lies.
Q: If Weblate were able to auto-accept string matches, how important would this function be for you?
When asked to rate the importance of auto-accepting string matches on a scale from (1) Not at all important to (5) Extremely important, 10 out of 16 total participants rated this as at least (3) Moderately important. This might suggest that this could be a useful feature to add, but our qualitative responses will also show some potential issues that might arise if it is enabled for all translators.
Is the dashboard too complex?
Although most participants who responded did not seem to have a problem with the Weblate dashboard, more than half of our responses were empty, making it difficult for us to understand the team’s opinion.
Q: What parts of the dashboard contribute to your satisfaction or dissatisfaction?
The few participants who assessed their satisfaction with the dashboard in the open-ended format touched on a number of topics, suggesting that the Weblate dashboard might be too complex or chaotic. They mentioned that they would like it if less projects were displayed, or if they were able to view only what they were working on.
However, another participant was interested in being able to view more projects on the dashboard so that they could more easily receive recommendations for a new project to start. Despite this valued feedback, only four participants left complete open-ended responses, making it a challenge to generalise these results across the whole team.
Q: Would you like to have machine translation such as LibreTranslate available in Weblate?
When asked to rate the importance of access to machine translation in Weblate on a scale from (1) Not at all important to (5) Extremely important, the reviews for this question were rather mixed. Though out of our 16 responses, slightly more than half (10/16) of our participants rated this as at least (3) Moderately important. Nonetheless, there may be need for a follow-up or additional data collected before a decision should be made, but this preliminary data suggests some support for the LibreTranslate project.
Q: How do you feel about the current separation between Weblate, the wiki, and user guides for translation memory?
- Support for centralisation: Those who hoped for centralisation of these tools believe it would help to save work and maintain consistency, and help projects if there is more overlap in all instances, while another participant specifically mentioned that they would appreciate having LibreOffice user guides available on Weblate.
- Thoughts on the current separation: A few participants reported that this centralisation would be inconvenient, while a few others who primarily used Weblate anyway felt neutral about the topic or liked the current separation as it is.
Are there any other problems that need attention?
- Add Machine Translation: Feedback from one participant included support for a good machine translation service, but that it is not a priority. However, our close-ended data indicate that more than half of participants find having machine translation at least moderately important.
- Increase access to translator publishing status: One participant reported that in the French section, there is limited mobility for translators to publish as there are only two authorised publishers. This prevents contributors from receiving credit for their work.
- Satisfaction and difficulties translating in Weblate: One participant particularly liked Weblate, especially compared to competing products, while another reported an issue relating to not finding which words are used in which functions in Weblate. Two participants found difficulties in adding existing translations to re-occurring words and that some single words require approval before they do not have to be translated over and over again.
- Individual translation issues: One participant wrote that auto-accepting string matches is not helpful in languages such as Japanese, where one word can have multiple meanings across contexts. One participant also reported difficulties in accessing information for specific releases (ie how many new strings to translate, who did translations, and how good translation has been for certain languages)
- Individual issues – needing updates: One participant also had trouble with publishing updates to translations after previously uploading an entire glossary. They found difficulty with making changes to whole glossary entries, and currently can only make changes one by one, thus slowing down the pace of updates.
Looking to the future
Although Weblate is a very popular and effective translation tool, a number of pain points were shared. These issues generally related to auto-accepting string matches, status hierarchies in publishing translations, and needing updates on translations and translation information.
One participant focused on the need for future changes and felt limited by the current pace of progress in the development of Weblate under the support of The Document Foundation and the community. There seems to be quite some room for improvement, but we thank you for your participation in helping us refine our vision in supporting the localisation community.