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LibreOffice community members: Have your say in our survey!

At The Document Foundation, we try to grow and strengthen our community in many ways. We’d like to improve our support for existing community members who’re working on LibreOffice, but also increase the number of contributors (and TDF members).

To achieve this, we’ve created a survey for active members inside the LibreOffice community, to identify areas where focused activity is needed, and address the needs of local projects around the world.

There are 17 questions in the survey, and it runs from today until September 8. So, if you’re active in the LibreOffice or Document Liberation projects, let us know what you think! We appreciate all feedback:

» Click here to take part in the survey

The Guia do Writer 7.1 is finally here.

Translation courtesy of Timothy Brennan Jr.

Brazilian computer users in general, the community of Brazilian free software users and supporters, and of LibreOffice in particular, have received quite the gift today: the Brazilian LibreOffice documentation team proudly announces the publication of the Guia do Writer 7.1, the most complete Writer word processor guide for the best free software office suite, the LibreOffice Community.

The Guia do Writer 7.1 is an extensive 570-page volume covering the most advanced text-editing techniques, from simple typing of a page to assembling multi-volume documents, including electronic forms, illustrations, tables, indexes and summaries, automation and export to numerous file formats.

The guide is the LibreOffice Brazilian documentation team’s contribution to the public. The team has used automatic translation followed by a thorough manual review correcting terms, drafting and stylistics of the Portuguese language, as well as proofreading. While rereading the content, the team is able to check the accuracy of the techniques described in the documentation and review the terminology used in the software, signaling to the LibreOffice translation team the inconsistencies found in the interface suggesting improvements in terms, changes in the vocabulary of the commands and correction of the software Help Pages. This feedback has served to make the LibreOffice interface even more robust, consistent and has helped consolidate its command terminology.

The Guia do Writer 7.1 is available in three formats: The traditional PDF with adjusted pagination for those who want to print the guide and bind it, the source file in Open Document Format (ODF) for free editing, and the installed online version on The Document Foundation’s servers for reading on tablets, your desktop browser and — of course — on mobile phones.

“The importance of the  Guia do Writer is enormous. I suggest reading it for all who need to produce professional documents, as well as using the guide for creating courses, video classes, and even material for public tenders” says Olivier Hallot, coordinator of LibreOffice’s global documentation. “We are working on the LibreOffice Community ‘s manual library to provide the most advanced user guides for all LibreOffice modules, and, other volumes are on the way.” added Olivier.

The Brazilian  LibreOffice Community documentation team is made up of volunteers from all over Brazil (and one person in Ireland) and has been dedicated to producing the reference material in Brazilian Portuguese. The team includes (name and state or country) Vera Cavalcante (São Paulo), Luciana Mota (Distrito Federal), Márcia Buffon Machado (Ireland), Jackson Cavalcanti Jr. (Pernambuco), Raul Pacheco da Silva (São Paulo), Timothy Brennan Jr (Rio Grande do Sul), Túlio Macedo (Distrito Federal), Diego Peres Marques (Rio de Janeiro), Rafael Lima (Santa Catarina) and Olivier Hallot (Rio de Janeiro).

The Brazilian Guia do Writer 7.1 can be downloaded at https://documentation.libreoffice.org/pt-br/portugues   along with other volumes for Impress, Calc, Math and the Beginner’s Guide.

The original Writer Guide 7.1 can be downloaded at https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/

Open Badges for awesome Czech documentation contributors!

LibreOffice’s documentation team is driven by volunteers around the world. Today, we want to say a special thanks to members of the Czech LibreOffice community, who’ve worked hard to translate and proof-read the software’s documentation.

So we’re sending out Open Badges – special, customised badges with embedded metadata, describing their achievements. The badges can be verified using an external service, and are a great way to show off contributions and use as proof of participation.

So, here are the badge recipients – we’re sending them out personally:

  • Translators: Petr Kuběj, Radomír Strnad and Zdenek Crhonek
  • Proof-readers: Petr Valach and Marcela Tomešová
  • Czech screenshots: Roman Toman
  • Git and OmegaT maintenance, machine translations, chapters cleaning and tools support: Miloš Šrámek

Huge thanks to all recipients – check your inbox for your badges!

Meanwhile, here’s a quick history of recent Czech guide translations:

Community Member Monday: Jessé Moreira

Love LibreOffice too? Want to help us spread the word about it, and other free and open source software (FOSS) projects? Then we appreciate your help! Everyone can raise awareness about the importance of FOSS and open standards, like the OpenDocument Format, LibreOffice’s native format.

For instance, Jessé Moreira from the Brazilian Portuguese LibreOffice community has created a set of tutorial videos. Here’s what he has to say:

Hello! I am a high school math teacher. I love LibreOffice and make videos demonstrating educational software applications. I have a channel that talks about libreoffice in Portuguese on Odysee and YouTube.
I intend to continue promoting LibreOffice by recording videos and contributing to the incredible project. Greetings from Brazil!

Thanks, Jessé! We have more videos created by other community members too. Recently, we talked to Harald Berger from the German community about how he makes his tutorials. To anyone reading this who also wants to contribute videos in their language, drop us a line and let’s work together!

And one more thing: Jessé recently became a Member of The Document Foundation, the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. This means that he can help to steer the project and vote for the Board of Directors, amongst other things. All LibreOffice contributors are welcome to become Members and help us to keep doing awesome things:

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The importance of LinkedIn Pages for the LibreOffice Project

LinkedIn has reached the number of 750 million subscribers worldwide, and is now the best social media to support products, as it is used by almost 100% of enterprises (click on the above thumbnails to see the full image). The Document Foundation has launched the foundation and the LibreOffice LinkedIn pages a while ago, followed in late 2020 by the LibreOffice Enterprise LinkedIn page. These pages have grown organically during the years to reach respectively 1,169, 1.055 and 197 followers. It is now time to leverage the effective potential of these content resources for the growth of the project, especially in areas which are not directly related to the FOSS ecosystem.

We need the help of TDF and community members to grow the number of people subscribed to these pages, and to add contents about community activities, product development, migrations, large enterprise deployments, and the open document format. In general, community activities should be published on The Document Foundation page, product development and open document format news on the LibreOffice page, migrations and large enterprise deployments on the LibreOffice Enterprise page. We are happy to receive your content suggestions, and to put them online.

In addition, if you are not yet a LinkedIn member, you should create your own profile and link it to The Document Foundation and LibreOffice, as this will increase the relevance of the pages, and this will attract subscribers from other FOSS projects and also from outside FOSS projects.

The Document Foundation LinkedIn page
To go to the page and subscribe, click on the image
LibreOffice LinkedIn page
To go to the page and subscribe, click on the image
LibreOffice Enterprise LinkedIn page
To go to the page and subscribe, click on the image

LibreOffice project recap: July 2021

Check out our summary of what happened in the LibreOffice community last month…

  • We started July by welcoming allotropia to The Document Foundation’s Advisory Board. Founded in late 2020 with five long-time LibreOffice developers, allotropia’s stated mission is to bring LibreOffice to shine – in as many different shapes and forms as necessary, to serve the modern needs of office productivity software. allotropia was spun off from CIB, another long-time provider of LibreOffice-based products and services (and also a member of the Advisory Board).

  • On the very same day, our documentation team announced the LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.1. Covering all LibreOffice modules, from the Calc spreadsheet to the Base database and including chapters on the suite settings as well as macro coding, the Getting Started Guide 7.1 is a valuable companion for organizations that want to deploy documentation on LibreOffice together with the software suite on their offices and also at user’s homes.

  • Meanwhile, we chatted with Tim Brennan Jr. from the Brazilian LibreOffice community. He’s on the Brazilian Portuguese translation and editing team, and recently decided to become a Member of The Document Foundation. Welcome, Tim!

  • Then the Spanish-speaking community held an online meeting with video talks streamed live. The activity was attended by several members, who are recognized for their participation and collaboration in the project.

  • Looking for LibreOffice tutorial videos? We have playlists in English, German and French – but the videos don’t just happen by magic. They’re created by volunteers, so we asked Harald Berger how he makes the German videos. Check it out, and help us to make more!

  • LibreOffice 7.2 is tantalisingly close; it’s due to be released in the middle of this month. We held a Bug Hunting Session for the first release candidate, to identify and squash any last bugs before it goes live.

  • Our LibreOffice New Generation project aims to bring new – and especially younger – contributors into the LibreOffice community. Earlier in the year, we created a flyer for schools and universities, and we’ve sent out printed versions to many people around the world. Now, here’s an alternative design, thanks to Rizal Muttaqin and the Indonesian community!

  • LibreOffice’s documentation team is driven by volunteers around the world. We wanted, we want to say a special thanks to members of the Brazilian Portuguese community, who’ve worked hard to translate and update user guides. So we sent out Open Badges – special, customised badges with embedded metadata, describing their achievements.

  • Our second community interview in the month was with Jackson Cavalcanti Junior, who told us about his work in the documentation project.

  • Release-wise, we had one update in July: LibreOffice 7.1.5 with 55 bugfixes and compatibility improvements.

  • The LibreOffice Conference 2021 is coming up: check out the sponsorship package. The event will run online again this year, due to the ongoing pandemic situation, from September 23 – 25.

  • Just before the end of the month, the documentation team announced another guide: the Draw Guide 7.1. This covers all aspects of the image-editing component of the suite. Great work, everyone!

Keep in touch – follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Mastodon. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join us and help to make LibreOffice even better for everyone!

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