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The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.0.5

Berlin, August 22, 2013 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 4.0.5 for Windows, OS X and Linux, the fifth minor release of the stable LibreOffice 4.0 family. Users of the now-end-of-life LibreOffice 3.6 series are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

LibreOffice 4.0.5 fixes more than 90 bugs, many of them in the area of interoperability with proprietary document formats and operating systems. Thanks to the work of our QA volunteers, LibreOffice 4.0.5 also solves a number of regressions from earlier releases. Just recently, the QA community has concluded their first triage contest, thereby cutting down the number of untriaged and unreviewed bugs significantly. That has contributed greatly to an even more confident assessment of the LibreOffice quality.

The new release is available for immediate download from the following link:
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/

Change logs are available at the following links:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.0.5/RC1 (fixed in 4.0.5.1) and
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.0.5/RC2 (fixed in 4.0.5.2).

LibreOffice 4.1: a landmark for interoperability

The office suite features a large number of improvements which bring compatibility with proprietary and legacy file formats to the next level

Berlin, July 25, 2013 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 4.1, not only the best but also the most interoperable free office suite ever. LibreOffice 4.1 features a large number of improvements in the area of document compatibility, which increases the opportunities of sharing knowledge with users of proprietary software while retaining the original layout and contents.

Interoperability is a key asset for LibreOffice, which is the de facto standard for migrations to free office suites since early 2012. Numerous improvements have been made to Microsoft OOXML import and export filters, as well as to legacy Microsoft Office and RTF file filters. Most of these improvements derive from the fundamental activity of certified developers backing migration projects, based on a professional support agreement.

Instrumental for interoperability are also new features such as font embedding in Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw – which helps in retaining the visual aspect when fonts used to produce the document are not installed on the target PC – and import and export functions new in Excel 2013 for ODF OpenFormula compatibility.

In addition to interoperability, LibreOffice 4.1 offers a very large number of new features and improvements also in other areas of the suite, which are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/4-1-new-features-and-fixes.

LibreOffice 4.1 is also importing some AOO features, including the Symphony sidebar, which is considered experimental. LibreOffice developers are working at the integration with the widget layout technique (which will make it dynamically resizeable and consistent with the behaviour of LibreOffice dialog windows).

LibreOffice 4.1 arrives at the end of a significant development process, which has just been outlined on the foundation blog: http://wp.me/p1byPE-q0. Feature wise, the summary is here: https://www.libreoffice.org/features/why-libreoffice/.

In just two months, on September 25, 2013, the LibreOffice community will gather in Italy at the Third LibreOffice Conference, hosted by the Department of Computer Science of Milan State University. More information on the conference web site at the following address: http://conference.libreoffice.org/2013/en. The Call for Paper is open until Sunday, August 4.

Downloading LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.1 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions for LibreOffice are available from the following link: http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center.

Changelogs are available at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.0/RC1 (changed in 4.1.0.1), https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.0/RC2 (changed in 4.1.0.2) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.0/RC3 (changed in 4.1.0.3) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/4.1.0/RC4 (changed in 4.1.0.4).

Support The Document Foundation

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to grow the infrastructure, and support marketing activities to increase the awareness of the project, both at global and local level.

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 3.6.7

Berlin, July 18, 2013 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 3.6.7 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, which will be the last maintenance release of the leading free office suite’s 3.6 series. All users, from enterprises to individual end users, are encouraged to update to the current and stable 4.0 series, or have a look at the upcoming 4.1 version.

LibreOffice 3.6.7 is available for immediate download from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
The change log is published at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.6.7/RC1 (fixed in 3.6.7.1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/3.6.7/RC2 (fixed in 3.6.7.2).

A sneak preview of the new functionality introduced with the upcoming LibreOffice 4.1 release can be seen at http://www.libreoffice.org/download/4-1-new-features-and-fixes/

The LibreOffice community celebrates its annual conference in Milan, Italy this September, and invites all LibreOffice users and enthusiasts to send in their paper proposals until August 4th. All details on the event are available at http://conference.libreoffice.org

LibreOffice Conference 2013 Call for Papers Announced

Berlin, July 5, 2013 – LibreOffice Conference will be held in Milan, Italy, on September 25-27, 2013, at the Department of Computer Science of Milan State University. The Document Foundation invites members and volunteers to submit proposals for papers. Whether you are a seasoned presenter, or have never stood up in public before, if you have something interesting to share about LibreOffice we want to hear from you.

The Call for Paper page is available at the following address: http://conference.libreoffice.org/2013/en/call-for-papers.
Proposals should be filed by August 4, 2013, in order to guarantee that they will be considered for inclusion in the conference program. Detailed instructions on how to file proposals are available at the following address (and should be followed carefully): http://conference.libreoffice.org/2012/archive/support-information.

The conference program will be based on the following tracks:
a) Open Document Format (ODF) Track
b) Interoperability
c) LibreOffice – Development and the future: Technology, API, Extensions
d) Community-Track: Localization, Documentation, etc.
e) Best Practice and Migration: Certification and Support
f) Migrating to LibreOffice in governments and enterprises
g) Building a successful business around LibreOffice

Presentations, case studies and technical talks will discuss a subject in depth, and will last either 45 or 30 minutes (including Q&A). Lightning talks will cover a specific topic and will last 20 minutes (including Q&A). Workshops and panels will last longer (but they should not exceed 90 minutes), and will discuss a topic or an issue. Session will be streamed live and recorded for download.

AMD joins The Document Foundation Advisory Board to accelerate LibreOffice

Berlin, July 3rd, 2013 – The Document Foundation (TDF) announces that AMD is now a member of its Advisory Board. AMD is a leading designer and integrator of pioneering technologies that are at the heart of the digital devices people use and experience daily, pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

“It is great to work on LibreOffice with The Document Foundation to expose the raw power of AMD GPUs and APUs, initially to spreadsheet users,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Heterogeneous Solutions at AMD. “Bringing the parallelism and performance of our technology to traditional, mainstream business software users will be a welcome innovation for heavy duty spreadsheet users, particularly when combined with the compute capabilities of the upcoming generation of AMD Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) based products.”

“It is exciting to work together with AMD and their ecosystem to take advantage of AMD’s cutting edge innovation right inside LibreOffice,” said Michael Meeks, SUSE Distinguished Engineer and TDF Board Member, “The growth in performance and parallelism available in the GPUs of today, and particularly with AMD’s revolutionary APUs of tomorrow, is something we’re eager to expose to LibreOffice users.”

HSA is an innovative computing architecture that enables CPU, GPU and other processors to work together in harmony on a single piece of silicon by seamlessly moving the right tasks to the best suited processing element. This makes it possible for larger, more complex applications to take advantage of the power that has traditionally been reserved for more focused tasks. While the biggest impact will be for AMD APU users, supporting benefits of the work will improve the LibreOffice core data structures enabling larger spreadsheets to calculate faster for all users. This is only the start of exposing the power of the HSA enabled APU to business users providing better analytics and decision making across the board from finance to science.

With the addition of AMD, the Advisory Board of The Document Foundation now has eleven members: AMD, Google, RedHat, SUSE, Intel, Lanedo, the King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST), the Inter-Ministry Mutalisation for an Open Productivity Suite (MIMO), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Software in the Public Interest, and Freies Office Deutschland e.V.

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) is a semiconductor design innovator leading the next era of vivid digital experiences with its groundbreaking AMD Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) that power a wide range of computing devices. AMD’s server computing products are focused on driving industry-leading cloud computing and virtualization environments. AMD’s superior graphics technologies are found in a variety of solutions ranging from game consoles, PCs to supercomputers. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

About The Document Foundation (TDF)

The Document Foundation is the entity behind the popular LibreOffice Office Suite. It is an open, independent, self-governing, meritocratic organization, which builds on ten years of dedicated work by the OpenOffice.org Community. TDF was created in the belief that the culture born of an independent foundation brings out the best in corporate and volunteer contributors, and will deliver the best free office suite. TDF is open to any individual who agrees with its core values and contributes to its activities, and warmly welcomes corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring individuals to work as equals alongside other contributors in the community. As of April 30, 2013, TDF has over 150 members and over 2,000 volunteers and contributors worldwide.

Media Contacts TDF

Florian Effenberger (based near Munich, Germany, UTC+1)
Phone: +49 8341 99660880 – Mobile: +49 151 14424108
E-mail: floeff@documentfoundation.org

Charles H. Schulz (based in Paris, France, UTC+1)
Mobile: +33 6 98655424 – E-mail: charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org

Eliane Domingos de Sousa (based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, UTC-3)
E-mail: elianedomingos@documentfoundation.org – Skype: elianedomingos

Italo Vignoli (based in Milan, Italy, UTC+1)
Mobile: +39 348 5653829 – E-mail: italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org
Skype: italovignoli – GTalk: italo.vignoli@gmail.com

Media Contact AMD

Kristen Lisa
Phone: +1 (512) 602 6020
E-Mail: kristen.lisa@amd.com

The Document Foundation welcomes a new member of the Advisory Board: King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) of Saudi Arabia

KACSTBerlin, June 25, 2013 – The Document Foundation announces that King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) of Saudi Arabia is now an effective member of its Advisory Board. KACST sponsors the National Program for Free and Open Source Software Technologies (Motah: http://www.motah.org.sa/), which has been contributing to LibreOffice for almost one year, to enhance the Arabic language and the RTL (right-to-left) support, and to develop new features.

Motah LibreOffice Project (http://motah.org.sa/en/?q=node/94) is only one of the activities of Motah at KACST, where several software products are studied to explore the extent of Arabic support and their suitability for Arab users. LibreOffice was selected to be the first localization project because most Arab users need a full feature office suite.

liberoffice_image.png“Motah software engineers have been regularly contributing to LibreOffice since 2012, and are now one of the largest groups of full time developers hacking LibreOffice code, together with SUSE and Red Hat”, states Michael Meeks of SUSE, a Member of TDF Board of Directors. “Thanks to the injection of these new groups of hackers, during the last months we have been able to increase the number of contributors, which is now around 100 on a monthly basis and over 330 on a yearly basis”.

“It is fascinating to see The Document Foundation combining people from different cultures, languages and geographical locations around the development of LibreOffice, the best free office suite ever”, says Dr.Turki Alsaud, KACST VP for research institutes. “Having KACST inside TDF Advisory Board reflects our support to the development of LibreOffice, extending our reach from the improvement of the Arabic language version to the development of new features and the improvement of the user interface”.

With the addition of KACST, the Advisory Board of The Document Foundation has now ten members: FSF, Google, Intel, KACST, MIMO, Red Hat, SPI, Lanedo, Freies Office Deutschland e.V. and SUSE (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Advisory_Board).

About KACST

King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is an independent scientific organization administratively reporting to the Prime Minister’s Office. KACST is both the Saudi Arabian national science agency and its national laboratories. The science agency function involves science and technology policy making, building national scientific database, funding of external research, and conducting applied scientific research in varius disciplines through its own research institutes and providing services such as the patent office, scientific information, and scientific consultations to public and private sector etc. KACST has currently over 2500 employees.

Media Contact KACST

Mohamed Alkanhal – Director of Computer Research Institute
Phone: + 966 11 4813765 – Email: cri@kacst.edu.sa (website: http://www.kacst.edu.sa)

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