Meet the Brazilian LibreOffice 5.3 team

We can assure readers of this blog that LibreOffice 5.3 in Brazilian Portuguese did not simply sprout from the last tropical rainfall. It is the product of a team of volunteers working to make the best free office suite in Portuguese a reality.

Following the experience gained by translating the Getting Started with LibreOffice 5.0 guide, the team began to translate the Help Contents of LibreOffice 5.3 in December 2016. This task involved translating 18,000 words on our Pootle server in two months, due to all the improvements, updates and corrections that went in the software since version 5.2. The work was split into smaller tasks under the supervision of Olivier Hallot, translator leader since 2007 (during the OpenOffice.org days). The LibreOffice 5.3 user interface translation was handled by Olivier in that period.

So, the Brazilian community and the Brazilian users say thanks to Chrystina Pelizer, Túlio Macedo, Raul Pacheco da Silva and Douglas Vigliazi for the new LibreOffice 5.3 and Help system in Brazilian Portuguese.

Chrystina Pelizer “It was like a challenge for me: to actively take part in a collaborative, international software project. Learning and using the tools and techniques that volunteers use to translate the software made me feel more important and met my expectations, because they greatly reduce the effort and we get results very quickly. Also, I am very happy to be part of a project team.” Chrystina Pelizer (Florianópolis – SC)
Raul Pacheco da Silva “I always liked to be part of the LibreOffice community when my professional activities let me do so. Specifically, I like to be part of the translation projects of the software and the documentation. I use all the resources I can to fulfil my duties within the team and I don’t like to miss our weekly team call.” – Raul Pacheco da Silva (Suzano – SP)
Douglas Vigliazi “I took advantage of the fact that my professional duties are related to LibreOffice, and for me, taking part in the LibreOffice project is an opportunity to develop my professional skills, including at an international level. The translation project is one of the opportunities to contribute to the community.” – Douglas Vigliazi (Santos – SP)
Túlio Macedo “I already had translation experience with the Fedora project in Brazilian Portuguese, and that helped me a lot with using the LibreOffice toolset. The translation helped me to get to know LibreOffice in depth, in order to understand the context of the translation I was doing. I also liked very much being part of a team.” – Túlio Macedo (Brasília – DF)
Olivier Hallot “After years of personal commitment to keeping the Brazilian LibreOffice fully translated and with quality, it was a great satisfaction to assemble a team that will be able to keep the project alive by themselves, ensuring part of the translation effort of this wonderful software.” – Olivier Hallot (Rio de Janeiro – RJ)

A big hooray for the team! Click here to discover Native Language Projects in your area

LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2017 – get involved!

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a yearly programme in which Google funds university students to work on free and open source software projects. LibreOffice has benefited from this – last year 11 students were accepted into GSoC to do various programming jobs, helping to improve the software.

GSoC students are assisted by experienced “mentors” in the LibreOffice community, as 2016 student Jaskaran Veer Singh explains:

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For 2017, LibreOffice is once again an organisation in the GSoC programme, so if you’re a university student and want to get experience working on a well-known free software project, while also being paid for your efforts, get involved! But don’t delay: the application period runs from March 20 to April 3, so it’s not far off.

To get started, check out some ideas for projects you can work on. Each project describes what’s involved, the skills required, and the mentor you can contact to get help. If you see something you’d like to work on, contact the mentor as soon as possible! Then you can discuss how to proceed.

After that, read the general GSoC 2017 page on our wiki, which provides more information on the GSoC programme and tells you how to apply. You will have to complete an Easy Hack (simple programming challenge) to be accepted, which demonstrates that you’re comfortable modifying the LibreOffice source code, building it, and submitting a patch.

So, check out the ideas, talk to the mentors, and good luck with your projects!

International Women’s Day: #BeBoldForChange

March 8 is the International Women’s Day. The theme for 2017 is #BeBoldForChange.

Amongst the members of The Document Foundation there are only 19 women (10% of the total number): Belinda Dibra (Albania), Christina Roßmanith (Germany), Chrystina Pelizer (Brasil), Eliane Domingos de Sousa (Brasil), Ellen Pape (Germany), Emma Pietrafesa (Italy), Gülşah Köse (Turkey), Irmhild Rogalla (Germany), Jean Hollis Weber (Australia), Jona Azizaj (Albania), Katarina Behrens (Czech Republic,), Marina Latini (Italy), Priyanka Gaikwad (India), Regina Henschel (Germany), Rosemary Sebastian (India), Sigrid Carrera (Germany), Sonia Montegiove (Italy), Sophie Gautier (France) and Vinaya Mandke (India).

Marina Latini is the current ChairWoman of the Board of Directors, while Katharina Behrens is a member of the Membership Committee.

Women active in the LibreOffice and Document Liberation communities are definitely more than 19. They should apply for membership, not only to be recognized for their contributions but also to elect and be elected to the Board of Directors and the Membership Committee. They can find the application form on the website: http://www.documentfoundation.org/governance/members/application/.

Announcing the Getting Started with LibreOffice 5.2 Guide for Immediate Download

Berlin, March 6, 2017 – The Document Foundation’s Documentation Team announces the immediate availability of the new Getting Started with LibreOffice guide version 5.2. The guide was updated to include the developments of LibreOffice 5.2 and previous releases.

The Getting Started guide is an introductory text for end users on using the LibreOffice office suite. It is written for individuals as well as organizations that deploy LibreOffice as their preferred office suite tool. The text allows users to get familiar with the features and resources of LibreOffice and shorten the time to become productive in office document edition.

The guide is written in LibreOffice Writer in Open Document Format (ODF). The team worked to not only update the contents but also to clean the formatting used in the text with a double objective: One is to make the text suitable for computer aided translation (CAT) tools and the other is to generate an online version (XHTML) of the guide.

The documents composing the Guide were formatted using styles only, avoiding direct formatting that has impact on CAT tools and on HTML export. For HTML export, the underneath template of the documents was adapted to handle the unmatched formatting properties between ODT and XHTML. At the end, a unique content source was able to produce the guide in ODT, PDF and XHTML formats.

The Getting Started with LibreOffice guide, its PDF and ODT version can be downloaded or read online by navigating to the page http://documentation.libreoffice.org. The online version of the guide can be accessed through http://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/getting-started-guide/read-online-5-2/

About the Documentation team

The Documentation team is in charge to develop, modernize, update and enhance all form of documentation related to LibreOffice in all languages supported by LibreOffice. It includes the authoring of LibreOffice guides for all modules, the Help system modernization and contents update, and to offer ways and means for the community to contribute to the LibreOffice project. Communities interested in contributing or translating contents can get it touch with the team by sending an e-mail to documentation at libreoffice dot org

February 2017: a record month for donations

February 2017 has been a record month for donations to The Document Foundation, with 8,556 people supporting the project from every geography. The record has been sparked by the announcement of LibreOffice 5.3 at the very end of January 2017. The new release has been covered in online and print media with an unprecedented number of articles, which have focused on the exciting new features.

57 video presentations from LibreOffice Conference 2016

It has taken a while, but we’ve finally edited and uploaded the last batch of presentations (for which we have video) from last year’s LibreOffice Conference in Brno, Czech Republic. You can see all of the videos in the embedded playlist below – click the list button in the top-left corner to navigate through the videos.

Alternatively, scroll on for a full list of presentations. You can do a search in your browser for topics of interest (eg “ODF” or “LibreOffice Online”), or for presenters. Happy viewing, and we look forward to seeing you at this year’s conference in Rome!

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Full list of presentations: