Video: New features in LibreOffice 25.8

Get a quick overview of some of the new features in LibreOffice 25.8, released on Wednesday. (This video is also available on PeerTube).

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LibreOffice 25.8: smarter, faster and more reliable

The best open source office suite continues to evolve, while maintaining its focus on privacy and digital sovereignty

Berlin, 20 August 2025 – The Document Foundation announces the release of LibreOffice 25.8. This latest version of the market-leading free open source office suite maintains its focus on digital sovereignty and privacy protection. It offers individuals, organisations, and governments total control over their data and the most comprehensive productivity tools.

In a global context of growing concern about data privacy, cloud lock-in, and surveillance capitalism, LibreOffice 25.8 provides concrete solutions.

Open Source: The source code is available for inspection and is completely free from proprietary technology constraints.

Privacy and Control: LibreOffice does not collect personal data, usage metrics or diagnostic information, and complies with the data protection regulations required by public administration implementations (GDPR).

Local Execution: all features are executed locally on the user’s computer, without the need for an internet or cloud connection.

Self-Hosted Collaboration: Integration with on-premises cloud solutions, such as Nextcloud, enables teams to collaborate without sharing information with Big Tech.

LibreOffice 25.8: new performance and features

User Interface: the Welcome/What’s New dialog now offers access to the user interface picker and appearance options, allowing new users to leverage LibreOffice’s flexible UI and personalise the look and feel according to their preferences.

Performance: everything is faster, from startup to scrolling through large documents – with significant speed improvements on less powerful machines.

  • In benchmark tests, Writer and Calc open files up to 30% faster.
  • Optimised memory management allows for smoother operation on virtual desktops and thin clients.

Better Interoperability with Microsoft Office files, with more accurate handling of DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files and fewer formatting issues, thanks to changes such as:

  • a complete overhaul of word hyphenation and spacing
  • font management in Impress that is compatible with PowerPoint files
  • the addition of new functions in Calc: CHOOSECOLS, CHOOSEROWS, DROP, EXPAND, HSTACK, TAKE, TEXTAFTER, TEXTBEFORE, TEXTSPLIT, TOCOL, TOROW, VSTACK, WRAPCOLS and WRAPROWS.

There are, of course, other important new features, such as the ability to export to the PDF 2.0 format, and several new ScriptForge library services. The complete list is available here: wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/25.8.

In terms of operating system support changes, LibreOffice 25.8 will no longer run on Windows 7 or 8/8.1 versions. It is also the last version to run on macOS 10.15. Support for x86 (32-bit) Windows versions is deprecated.

LibreOffice 25.8 for Businesses

The Document Foundation collaborates with a global network of certified partners who offer enterprise-grade support and maintenance, customised features and integrations, and assistance with user migration and training. A full list of partners can be found here: www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/.

Positioning of LibreOffice 25.8

LibreOffice 25.8 is completely free and offers a viable alternative to proprietary office suites for individual users, schools, businesses, and public institutions. It contains no advertising, data tracking, or subscriptions.

It is ideal for students and teachers who need reliable tools for documents, presentations and data analysis, as well as for home users and freelancers looking for a solid, free alternative to Microsoft Office/365 or Google Docs. It is also ideal for public administrations and companies that value data sovereignty and the long-term accessibility of documents.

LibreOffice 25.8 reaffirms our dedication to safeguarding the freedom and privacy of end users in the digital age. With this new release, we ensure that personal information stays where it belongs – with the individual. LibreOffice gives end users full control over their documents, helping them to avoid reliance on third-party platforms that might compromise their data or privacy. It’s about empowering users to work securely, independently and confidently, said Eliane Domingos, chairwoman of The Document Foundation.

LibreOffice 25.8 is available for Windows, macOS and Linux, with versions for Intel and ARM/Apple processors, at www.libreoffice.org/download/.

About The Document Foundation

The Document Foundation is a non-profit organisation that promotes open document formats and develops LibreOffice, the market-leading free open-source office suite. Its mission is to empower individuals and organisations to maintain control over their data and tools in an increasingly digital world dominated by closed platforms.

Press Kit: nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/doGTtfJSkNAtrNi
Video YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dIRR37PF7M
Video PeerTube: peertube.opencloud.lu/w/1J49cZ9NvZy1sLmx8dJKDi

AI extension: Stable Diffusion image generator for LibreOffice

Screenshot of Stable Diffusion extension for LibreOffice

LibreOffice does not include artificial intelligence (AI) out-of-the-box. But many users want AI features in the suite – so we encourage developers to make them available as optional extensions. And that’s what Igor Támara did, creating the “Stable Diffusion for LibreOffice” extension for AI-generated images powered by AI Horde (a volunteer crowd-sourced distributed cluster of image generation workers).

We talked to Igor about the extension – here’s what he had to say:

What does the extension do?

You write some text describing an image, and get an AI image generated from the given text. You can tweak parameters, choose a model and use the best result on written documents, presentations or the place you prefer. The images are generated on volunteer GPUs through AI Horde.

When did you start working on it?

Two weeks ago, starting from a Gimp plugin as a base. I’m brand new to the LibreOffice project, and started it as a macro to get this functionality in the software. One week later I put it on GitHub.

Later on I got help from friendly people on the forum to turn it into an extension. I also joined the the chat and filled some requests in the bug tracker.

What are the current limitations, and what’s coming next?

Be aware that the text you provide is sent to AI Horde and seen by the machines that create the image, so do not send sensitive data. Also, you can get better results if you send the description of the desired image in English. You are encouraged to try different languages to see the results.

You need internet connection to use it. If you wanted to create images locally on your machine, it would take time to configure your environment with local AI models, with gigabytes of memory dedicated to this purpose, and maybe processing for hours to get something useful.

Sometimes the text can be marked as NSFW (“not safe for work”) – in which case you end up with black and white text saying so.

For now, the extension works in Writer and Impress; when invoked from other LibreOffice components, it opens a new text document and inserts the image along with the provided text.

The roadmap includes:

  • Translating the plugin to other languages
  • An option to pre-translate the text to English
  • Better integration with LibreOffice Calc and Draw
  • Earn kudos, rating the images to have more priority when requesting an image

Screenshot of Stable Diffusion extension for LibreOffice

How can others help to improve it?

Report any problems you find, and help to translate into your language. Please do so by filling an issue with your intention saying which language.

If you have a GPU (and good graphics hardware in general), you can volunteer as a worker joining the horde, to add to the computing power – and you can earn kudos to have higher priority when you need it.

If you work with a friendly company that wants to make use of the existing hardware, you can join the horde too.

One of the purposes of AI Horde is to aid education, having a special program for that.

This plugin and AI Horde are all open source, so everyone can learn and be as transparent as possible in this changing and revolutionary world of AI times.

There might be concerns about the use of products and the ownership of work. As I see it, we are always learning by example and reusing what others have invented from thousands of years ago, like how to walk, make fire, communicate, explore, recreate and mix. We can continue to learn and make fair use of resources – and contribute too.

Click here to get the extension

Guide to migrating from proprietary formats to ODF

In the digital world, document formats are essential. Proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word’s DOCX or Excel’s XLSX dominate the workplace, but at the same time they lock users into a specific vendor and its business strategies, which tend to exploit users to the maximum in every way. The Open Document Format (ODF) offers an open, standard alternative that protects users and their privacy, promotes interoperability, long-term access and data ownership.

Migrating documents from proprietary formats to ODF is the solution, and although vendors who rely on proprietary formats – not only Microsoft, but also its freeware clones such as OnlyOffice or WPS Office – do everything they can to prevent it, it is very easy and represents a fundamental step forward for users in terms of privacy and digital sovereignty (i.e., ownership of their own content).

This guide breaks down the migration process to make the transition smooth, efficient and sustainable, both at the individual level (where problems are virtually non-existent) and at the enterprise level, where problems exist due to the lock-in strategies of proprietary formats.

Step 1: Understand ODF and its advantages

  • No dependence on a single vendor: freedom to use any compatible software
  • Better long-term accessibility, robustness and stability of storage
  • Transparency and security, thanks to full compliance with open specifications
  • Better interoperability between platforms and tools

Step 2: Document inventory to define conversion priorities and estimate the effort required for migration

  • Identification of file types (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) and their number
  • Analysis of documents to distinguish between active (used periodically) documents, those that can be archived and obsolete documents
  • Analysis of documents with complex formatting or embedded multimedia content

Step 3: plan the migration workflow

  • Convert documents in bulk or gradually as needed?
  • Pilot phase with a small group of users to identify any issues with the documents before the mass conversion
  • User training on the migration and creation of a support service for conversions and backup management

Step 4: Converting documents to ODF format

  • Use the LibreOffice export function (‘Save As’)
  • Use batch conversion tools for large volumes (LibreOffice command line scripts)
  • Validate converted files to ensure formatting and data integrity
  • Back up original files until migration is successfully completed

Step 5: Monitoring the migration

  • Updating internal policies to make ODF the default format for document creation and sharing, and to prevent a return to proprietary formats
  • Monitoring user feedback and trends in document creation, and resolving issues in a timely manner
  • Integrating ODF support into enterprise software platforms, and using automatic conversions where possible

Conclusion

Migrating from proprietary formats to ODF is a strategic move, both individually and for businesses, towards openness, content control and document protection for the future. In a business environment, it requires careful planning and user involvement, but the benefits in terms of flexibility, interoperability and cost savings are well worth the effort.

Last LibreOffice 25.8 release candidates RC3 and RC4 available this week

LibreOffice 25.8 will be released next week, on August 20, 2025 (check the Release Plan). LibreOffice 25.8 RC3 brings us closer to the final version, which will be preceded by a last minute LibreOffice 25.8 RC4 needed for a fix solving an easy to trigger crash. Check the release notes to find the new features included in this version of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice 25.8 RC3 is already available, while LibreOffice 25.8 RC4 will be available from Thursday, August 14. Both can be downloaded for Linux, macOS and Windows, and will replace the standard installation.

In case you find any problem in these pre-releases, please report it in Bugzilla (you just need a legit email account in order to create a new account). For help, you can contact the QA Team directly in the QA IRC channel or via Matrix.

LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven community project, so please help us to test, we appreciate your contribution! Happy testing!!!

LibreOffice project and community recap: July 2025

Dione Maddern with quote saying the LibreOffice documentation team are such a great bunch of people to work with

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…

Danish Ministry switching from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice

  • Then we posted the LibreOffice Podcast, Episode #4 – Documentation in Free and Open Source Software. What exactly makes “good” documentation? And why is it important today? Watch to learn more (also available on PeerTube).

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  • On July 17, we announced LibreOffice 25.2.5. This is the fifth minor update to the 25.2 branch, with bugfixes and compatibility improvements. All users are recommended to upgrade.

LibreOffice 25.2 banner

  • And while that branch is being updated regularly, we’re also preparing for the next major release. LibreOffice 25.8 RC2 is available for testing – thanks in advance to everyone who helps to report issues, so we can make it a rock-solid final version!

Getting Started Guide 25.2 cover

Group photo from LibreOffice Asia Conference 2024

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