Home » LibreOffice » Page 191

Category: LibreOffice

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 5.1

Immediately available for Linux, MacOS X and Windows

wall51smallBerlin, February 10, 2016 – The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 5.1, a full featured open source office suite which compares head-to-head with every product in the same category, while standing out with superior interoperability features.

LibreOffice 5.1 offers a completely reorganized user interface, and several improved features targeted at enterprise deployments: better support for ODF 1.2, interoperability with proprietary document formats and file management on remote servers.

LibreOffice has been downloaded 120 million times since the launch in January 2011. The office suite is deployed by large organizations in every continent, with the latest addition being the Italian Defense Staff with over 100,000 desktops.

LibreOffice 5.1 Highlights

lo51-starsmallUser Interface: LibreOffice 5.1’s user interface has been completely reorganized, to provide faster and more convenient access to its most used features. A new menu has been added to each of the applications: Style (Writer), Sheet (Calc) and Slide (Impress and Draw). In addition, several icons and menu commands have been repositioned based on user preferences.

Interoperability: Compatibility with proprietary document formats has been improved, as a part of the ongoing effort for a better interoperability with other productivity software. In addition, filters have been added for Apple Keynote 6, Microsoft Write and Gnumeric files.

Spreadsheet Functions: Calc’s formula engine has been improved with features addressing restrictions in table structured references and sticky column/row anchors, interoperability with OOXML spreadsheets and compatibility with ODF 1.2

File Access on Remote Servers: Files on remote file servers such as Sharepoint, Google Drive and Alfresco can now be accessed from the File menu, with read and write options, without the need of a dialog window.

A complete list of the most significant new features is available in the accompanying press release (LibreOffice 5.1 New Features), and has also been published on the website at http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/new-features/. Short videos presenting the most significant new features for Writer, Calc and Impress are available at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0pdzjvYW9RHSwdRnZfaxAWICrkBrQl7k.

LibreOffice 5.1 has also been improved “under the hood,” thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteers. This translates into an open source office suite which is easier to develop, maintain and debug. Although this is not visible to users, it is extremely important for enterprise deployments.

“LibreOffice 5.1 is another step forward to fulfilling our vision of an office suite tailored on user needs and preferences”, says Bjoern Michaelsen, a Director at The Document Foundation (TDF) and a leading LibreOffice developer. “Since 2010, we have gone through different development cycles to clean up the code and make it more responsive. We are now at a stage where we are close to providing a better user interface.”

“LibreOffice’s third development cycle is leading us to a new user interface concept, where the user will be able to choose the best layout of the elements on the screen for his own needs, to leverage desktop space in the best way” adds Jan Holesovsky, a Director at TDF, and a member of the design team.

Availability and enterprise deployments

LibreOffice 5.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites, and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users.

For enterprise class deployments, TDF maintains the more mature 5.0.x branch (soon at 5.0.5). In any case, TDF suggests deploying or migrating to LibreOffice with the backing of certified professionals providing Level 3 support, migration consultancy or trainings according to recognized best practices (http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

LibreOffice 5.1 is immediately available from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. LibreOffice users, free software advocates and all community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

Launch Pack and Screenshots

The entire launch pack, with background documents and the high resolution images, can be downloaded from: http://tdf.io/lo51launchpack. Some Windows 10 screenshots can be downloaded from: http://tdf.io/lo51screenshots.

Third bug hunting session for LibreOffice 5.1

noun_83830_ccBerlin, January 7, 2016 – The LibreOffice community is working hard on the next major release of LibreOffice 5.1 – planned for early February – with a bug hunting session focused on new features and fixes for bugs and regressions, to test the second release candidate.

The session will last 3 days, from January 15 to January 17, 2016. On those dates, mentors will be available from 08AM UTC to 10PM UTC to help volunteers to triage bugs, on the QA IRC channel and via email on the QA mailing list.

In addition, there will be two dedicated sessions for Writer between 3PM UTC and 5PM UTC on Friday, January 15, and for Calc between 3PM UTC and 5PM UTC on Saturday, January 16. During the dedicated sessions, mentors and volunteers will concentrate all the efforts on a single module with the objective of confirming, reproducing and documenting bugs and regressions in a better way.

Those who cannot join during the bug hunting session are always welcome to help chasing bugs and regressions when they have time. The second release candidate of LibreOffice 5.1 will be available until late January.

Builds of LibreOffice 5.1 RC 2 will be available from the pre-releases directory before the bug hunting session: http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/pre-releases/. On the wiki of The Document Foundation there is a page for the bug hunting session: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugHunting_Session_5.1.0_RC2.

LibreOffice getting ready for the next 1,000 hackers

janiversensmallBerlin, November 23, 2015 – The Document Foundation announces a renewed effort to grow the developers community beyond the threshold of 1,000 hackers reached in October 2015 (source: OpenHub), with the addition of Jan Iversen – a senior developer with a passion for mentoring, and a long experience at Apache Software Foundation – to the team.

The extraordinary growth of LibreOffice developer’s community, with a monthly average of over 16 new hackers contributing to the code since September 2010, is the result of a global mentoring effort by some of the project founders. After five years and 1,000 new developers, though, the complexity has changed, and the project needs to invest on mentoring a new generation of coders.

LibreOffice has always been available on multiple operating systems – Windows, MacOS and Linux – and is on the verge of being available on multiple platforms: desktop, mobile and cloud. Because of this evolution, the project needs a wider range of developing skills, which can be achieved only with a renewed effort targeted to attract new code contributors.

“When LibreOffice started, the code-base we inherited was known for being extremely hard to contribute to, for both technical reasons and a lack of mentors reaching out to new hackers,” says Bjoern Michaelsen, a member of LibreOffice engineering steering committee and a director of the Document Foundation. “Today, the LibreOffice project is known for its welcoming atmosphere, and for the fun. We strive to continue on this path for the next 1,000 code contributors.”

Jan Iversen has added: “I am excited and proud to be part of the LibreOffice project. Helping to grow a project of this size, with an extremely high activity in term of development for the last five years, and at least three new contributors per month since September 2010, is a challenge I look forward to being part of.”

1000devssmall

 

LibreOffice 5.0.1 released, to keep the momentum going

libreofficsplashBerlin, August 27, 2015 – The Document Foundation (TDF) releases LibreOffice 5.0.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 5.0 family, with a number of fixes over the major release announced on August 5. So far, LibreOffice 5.0 is the most popular LibreOffice ever, based on the feedback from the marketplace.

LibreOffice 5.0.1 is targeted to technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users. For more conservative users, and for enterprise deployments, TDF suggests the “still” version: LibreOffice 4.4.5. For enterprise deployments, The Document Foundation suggests the backing of professional support by certified people (a list is available at: http://www.documentfoundation.org/certification/).

People interested in technical details about the release can access the change log here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.0.1/RC1 (fixed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/5.0.1/RC2 (fixed in RC2).

Register for the LibreOffice Conference

Registration for LibreOffice Conference 2015, which will be hosted by the Danish city of Aarhus from September 23 to September 25, is open at the following page: http://conference.libreoffice.org/2015/registration/.

The LibreOffice community is growing, and the conference is the best opportunity to join the fun by meeting a large group of the people that have contributed to the project: developers, and volunteers who have localized the suite, chased the bugs, written the manuals, spoken at conferences, and advocated LibreOffice at global and local levels.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 5.0.1 is immediately available for download from the following link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at http://donate.libreoffice.org.

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice in Guarani, to offer the free office suite in yet another native language

Berlin, August 19, 2015 – Following the announcement of LibreOffice 5.0, The Document Foundation (TDF) announces the availability of LibreOffice in Guarani, the language spoken by 80% of the population in Paraguay, and the official second language of the country.

Map-Most_Widely_Spoken_Native_Languages_in_Latin_America
Guarani is spoken in the area in yellow

Guarani is spoken in parts of northeastern Argentina (Corrientes, Formosa,Misiones, eastern parts of the Province of Chaco, and at isolated points of Entre Rios), is the second official language of the Argentine province of Corrientes since 2004, is the co-official language of Bolivia, and is spoken in several cities of the eastern state of Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil. Guarani is also one of the official languages of Mercosur (source: Wikipedia).

LibreOffice in Guarani has been be presented on August 13 at OEI (Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos) facilities in Asunción, Paraguay, to a selected audience. TDF and LibreOffice have also been presented in the Centro Nacional de Computación of UNA (Universidad Nacional de Asunción) in San Lorenzo Campus.

The localization to Guarani was carried by a single volunteer: Giovanni Caligaris. LibreOffice in Guarani is immediately available for download from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/.

“Back in 2011, I started discussing with the CIO of a Paraguayan corporation at the LibreOffice Conference in Paris, and we envisioned how to get the office suite in Guarani”, said Olivier Hallot, a founding member of TDF, and a LibreOffice advocate. “Unfortunately, the project stalled, until Giovanni Caligaris picked up the task, and managed to localize LibreOffice in Guarani in a rather short timeframe”.

“With the availability of LibreOffice in Guarani, Paraguay positions itself at the same level of more developed countries, and represents an incentive for countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia to conduct a localization project for their native languages”, said Giovanni Caligaris. “The next task is to increase the LibreOffice awareness in Paraguay, with the help of the LibreOffice community”.

With the addition of Guarani, LibreOffice gets closer to the vision of the founding members of the project, to bring the free office suite in their native language to 100% of the world population, to reduce the digital divide based on the familiarity with one of the languages spoken in the richest countries. Today, close to 90% of the world population can use LibreOffice in their native language.

LibreOffice 5.0, one week later

LibreOffice 5.0 has been announced on August 5. So far, results have been astounding!

150,000 donations, and counting

Following the announcement, donations have doubled in comparison to the previous weeks. As a consequence, we have reached the threshold of 150,000 donations since May 2013, when we started keeping track of the numbers. A huge thanks to all donors! With their money, they make LibreOffice sustainable, supporting the costs of the entire organization.

35,000 unique IPs visited the blog

blog-fromaug4toaug11In one week, the blog has got 46,068 pageviews from 34,935 unique IPs, four times as many as the previous week (clicking on the thumbnail, you can view a higher resolution image).

Over 1,000 articles

LibreOffice 5.0 has been covered by all major IT publications worldwide (only PC Magazine has ignored the announcement so far). Over 1,000 articles have mentioned LibreOffice 5.0, with over 500 covering the subject in depth based on the press kit, a conference call or an interview. If you are interested in the list of in depth articles, you can download a PDF file with all the relevant links.

Press Releases

The Document Foundation Releases LibreOffice 26.2.4

Berlin, 5 June 2026 – The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice 26.2.4, the fourth maintenance update to…

Open Document Format

How proprietary formats have become Microsoft’s main tool for lock-in

In the previous article, we explored the importance of standards: how the unspoken agreements governing electrical sockets, paper sizes and…