Author: Olivier Hallot

Dione Maddern and The Documentation Team are proud to announce the immediate availability of the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8, an update of the existing Calc Guide 24.2 with enhancements taken from the current LibreOffice 24.8 Calc module.

The book was reviewed for clarity, readability and content additions, notably the Calc database table referencing in formulas, removal of deprecated JavaScript debugger and refactoring of the Calc’s chart topic – in which the chapter on charts was split in two, one for the chart basics and the second for the chart types. Dione Maddern, Calc editor says:

I took on the challenge of compiling the Calc Guide because I wanted to learn about advanced editing and working with master documents. While I’ve previously worked on large documents in the engineering and insurance industries, documents were often compiled with clunky cut-and-paste techniques which created a lot of errors and labor-intensive rework. Working on the Calc Guide 24.8 was a great opportunity to expand my skills in LibreOffice and document production generally. It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with the LibreOffice Documentation Team. I had a great time working with such a fun and supportive team.

Special thanks to Ed Olson, Lisa Samy and Claire Wood for their review of the contents of the guide. And to B. Antonio F. for his throughout review of formatting the guide and by writing a set of macros, bundled in an LibreOffice extension that allows automatic and assisted fixing of images, tables , styles and more.

It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with the LibreOffice Documentation Team. I had a great time working with such a fun and supportive team. (Dione Maddern)

It has been an honor to share my wordsmithing skills with the LibreOffice documentation team. Replacing verbose paragraphs in the Calc guides with simplified, minimalist text has been both challenging and rewarding. I look forward to continuing my work on other applications in the suite as new releases become available. (Ed Olson)

Joining the Calc Guide team marked my first time contributing to an open-source platform. My time working with other team members was both enriching, yet eye-opening to all the facets of document editing. As such, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the LibreOffice Community as a whole. (Lisa Samy)

I accepted the challenge of creating mechanisms to harmonize he appearance of chapter text according to the chapter template established by the documentation team. It was an opportunity to delve deeper into macro programming and get to know the LibreOffice API better. SanityCheck macros allow you to correct formatting errors (based on styles), correctly adjust images, tables, and automatically apply descriptions for accessibility. With SanityCheck you can check documentation chapters in English, Spanish and Portuguese. (B. Antonio F.)

I enjoyed working on the Calc Guide as it gave me the opportunity to work with a truly global team. The content also challenged my knowledge about spreadsheets. I was happy to develop my knowledge, getting new information and develop my strengths in LibreOffice. (Claire Wood)

You can download the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8 from the LibreOffice Bookshelf and the LibreOffice Documentation website.

Jean H. Weber (photo) and the Documentation Team are happy to announce the immediate availability of the Writer Guide 24.8, the latest update based on the recently released LibreOffice 24.8.

Writer is the word-processing application. It is compatible with a wide range of document formats including Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), and you can export your work in several formats including PDF. Anyone who wants to get up to speed quickly with Writer will find this book valuable. You may be new to word processing software, or you may be familiar with another office suite.

What’s new in LibreOffice Writer 24.8 Community?

This book has been updated from LibreOffice 24.2 Writer Guide. It covers some of the changes that are visible in the LibreOffice Writer user interface, including:

• Width of Comment pane can now be adjusted.
• Bullets used in the document can be selected in the Unordered List dropdown.
• New features in the Navigator.
• New hyphenation features.
• Hyperlink tab was removed from character properties; use the Hyperlink dialog instead.
• Formatting aid: to enclose selected text with parentheses, square brackets, curly braces
  or quotation marks, press the opening character.
• Table Alignment and Left/Right spacing can be changed via the Sidebar.
• New Find deck in Sidebar lists results of a quick search along with their context.
• Improved support for multi-page floating tables.
• Organizer page in style dialogs now named General page.
• And more; see the Release Notes.
  LibreOffice 24.8 Community also includes many other changes, including:
• Improved support for multi-page floating tables.
• Accessibility improvements.
• Improvements in interoperability with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats.
• “Legal” ordered list numbering: DOC and RTF support.

Release Notes are here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/24.8

The Writer Guide 24.8 is available in the Documentation Website as well as in the LibreOffice Bookshelf website and it includes the guides in HTML format for web navigation, as well as the traditional PDF, ODT and the printed version from LuLu Inc.