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Announcing the ODF Toolkit 0.12.0 release

Open Document Format logo

ODF is the Open Document Format, the native format used by LibreOffice (and supported by many other apps too). It has various sub-formats such as .odt for text files, .ods for spreadsheets, and .odp for presentations.

Meanwhile, the ODF Toolkit is a set of Java modules that allow programmatic creation, scanning and manipulation of ODF files. And at the end of last month, the developers announced a new version: 0.12.0!

Big changes include a new ODF 1.3 mimetype “Text master template”, while the API for Text Selection was completely refactored. In addition, there were many fixes to improve reliability and security.

Check out the full announcement and link to the release notes here

More info about LibreOffice Viewer app for Android in the Google Play Store

LibreOffice Viewer for AndroidWith the release of LibreOffice 7.6.3, the LibreOffice Viewer app for Android has been made available in the Google Play Store.

LibreOffice Viewer is a lightweight version of LibreOffice for Android smartphones and tablets for viewing Open Document Format (.odt, .ods, .odp) and Microsoft Office (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) documents. It is built on the same LibreOffice technology as the LibreOffice desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, so it displays documents in exactly the same way.

LibreOffice Viewer also has experimental editing features that can be enabled in the application’s settings, but are not considered ready for production use. As we’re a volunteer-driven, community open source project, we’d appreciate help to improve the editing support.

LibreOffice Viewer has been available on Google Play in the past, but due to lack of maintenance it was withdrawn in 2020. Since then, more than two hundred changes have been made to improve the app, increase its stability and usability, support current Android versions and better integrate with the system.

Since the beginning of this year, LibreOffice Viewer has been updated to the latest versions in F-Droid. With the re-release of the app on the Google Play Store, LibreOffice Viewer is now widely available to Android users.

Feedback and bug reports are welcome to help the community improve the quality of the app. You can report bugs and attach files here: bugs.documentfoundation.org

Developers interested in helping improve the app can find more information about LibreOffice development in general and the Android version in particular on the wiki.

Tap here to get LibreOffice Viewer on Google Play

Video: Meet LibreOffice’s Engineering Steering Committee

How are technical decisions made in the LibreOffice project? And who makes them? Watch this video with our Engineering Steering Committee from the recent recent LibreOffice Conference 2023 in Bucharest, to find out. (PeerTube version here.)

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LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2023: The results

Google Summer of Code logo

This year, LibreOffice was once again a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC), a global program focused on bringing more developers into free and open source software development. Five projects were finished successfully. Contributors and mentors enjoyed the time, and here we present some of the achievements, which should make their way into LibreOffice 24.2 in early February 2024!

You can experiment with the new features by using daily builds and report any problems in our bug tracker.

Improving OpenPGP encryption experience in LibreOffice by Ahmed Gamal Eltokhy

Mentors: Thorsten Behrens (allotropia), Heiko Tietze (TDF), Hossein Nourikhah (TDF)

LibreOffice can encrypt documents using OpenPGP public key cryptography by making use of external applications such as gpg4win, GPGTools and gnupg. Thanks to Ahmed’s work, it is now easier to manage and search keys and faster to navigate large keyrings.

Learn more about the encryption experience improvements in the final report.

Selecting tests to run on gerrit patches based on machine learning by Baole Fang

Mentors: Thorsten Behrens (allotropia), Stéphane Guillou (TDF), Christian Lohmaier (TDF)

This project was inspired by Mozilla’s work on Firefox’s continuous integration. There is now a system in place that makes predictions on the test failure possibility of submitted code changes and decides the most efficient way to build the changes. As this kind of machinery is very new to everyone, we expect many tweaks to follow.

Learn more about the machine learning project in the final report.

Search Field in Options by Bayram Çiçek

Mentors: Andreas Heinisch, Heiko Tietze (TDF)

Screenshot of search in options

Searching through options is pretty standard in applications these days, so it is about time LibreOffice learned how to do it!

Learn more about the search feature in the final report.

Convert Writer’s Java UNO API Tests to C++ by Dipam Turkar

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora), Xisco Faulí (TDF)

The idea here was to reduce the dependency on Java during the LibreOffice build process. Half of the tests for Writer were converted.

Learn more about the test conversion project in the final report.

Add APNG import/export support by Paris Oplopoios

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora)

APNG is short for Animated Portable Network Graphics. It is not an official extension to PNG, but nevertheless has broad support in web browsers these days. Thanks to Paris’s work, LibreOffice now fully supports this format.

Learn more about the APNG feature in the final report.

Wrapping up

Many thanks to all contributors who spent their summer time improving LibreOffice. You are awesome! And special thanks also to the mentors who always put so much love and energy into these tasks. That’s what makes LibreOffice rock.

Now we are looking forward to next year’s GSoC. If you are interested, why not prepare early? Learn more at out wiki page where some ideas are listed.

Participating in GSoC is a great way to build your skills, and show future employers what you’re capable of!

Projects selected for LibreOffice in the Google Summer of Code 2023

GSoC logo

The LibreOffice Google Summer of Code projects have been selected for 2023.

  • Ahmed Gamal Eltokhy – Improve PGP/GPG encryption support: the project aims to enhance the experimental PGP/GPG encryption support in LibreOffice by addressing several shortcomings, such as the need to select recipients anew for every save and the difficulty in finding the right keys. The project will also focus on developing smart searching, traversing, and filtering capabilities for large keyrings, as well as adding asynchronous querying for improved performance.
  • Dipam Turkar – Convert Writer’s Java UNO API tests to C++: The unit tests for Writer’s UNO API which were forked from OpenOffice.org are still implemented in Java, which in the end test C++ code making it hard to debug them. LibreOffice has had a long term plan to move them to C++. The project will also focus on fixing the unit tests for errors, if any.
  • Baole Fang – Select tests to run on Gerrit patches based on machine learning: the goal is to implement a machine learning based test selection method to select tests to run in the continuous integration chain to reduce testing load.
  • Bayram Çiçek – Search field in Options: LibreOffice has a large and growing number of options and sometimes it is not easy to find the right one by searching them one by one. The goal is to implement a search field/functionality to the “Tools > Options…” dialog, so that we can find the right options easily.
  • Paris Oplopoios – Add APNG import/export support: APNG (Animated PNG) is an animated format backwards compatible with PNG. It is supported by all the major browsers and has benefits over GIF such as partial transparency and support for more colors. The goal of this project is to integrate APNG support in LibreOffice, which had been requested for quite some time.

Good luck to the contributors – we appreciate their work on these important features and improvements! And thanks to our mentors for assisting them: Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora); Thorsten Behrens (allotropia); Andreas Heinisch; Heiko Tietze, Xisco Faulí, Stéphane Guillou, Hossein Nourikhah and Christian Lohmaier (The Document Foundation).

Between August 28 and September 4, contributors will submit their code, project summaries, and final evaluations of their mentors. Find out more about the timeline here, and check out more details about the projects on this page.

Open source continues to grow

 

Open source continues to grow, as shown by data provided by reports of analysts (top left & right) and by declarations of users (bottom left & right).

Top Left: In two years, proprietary software is expected to shrink from 45% to 37% while enterprise open source is expected to grow from 29% to 34%. Community based OSS is also expected to grow from 21% to 24%. In total, in two years open source software will reach an estimated enterprise market share of 58%.

Top Right: The same chart, split between geographical areas: APAC (Asia and Pacific), EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), LATAM (Latin America) e US (United States). The difference in percentages between the different areas is really negligible, confirming a global trend.

Bottom Left: Over 76% of IT managers has increased the use of open source software during 2022, while almost 22% has not changed the amount of OSS and less than 2% has reduced the amount of open source software.

Bottom Right: The same chart, split between geographical areas. In this case, the differences between regions is visible, with Middle East, Africa, Asia, North America and Latin America leading in term of global increase with a percentage higher than 75%, followed by UK and Europe with 70% and Asia Pacific with 60%.

Press Releases

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