TDF Community Blog

LibreOffice and Google Summer of Code 2020: The results

2020-09-152021-10-01

This year, LibreOffice was once again a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) a global programme focused on bringing more student developers into free and open source software development. We ran six projects – and all were finished successfully. Students and mentors enjoyed the time, and here we present some of the achievements, which should make their way into LibreOffice 7.1 in early February 2021!

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

Styles Inspector for Writer by Shivam Kumar Singh

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl, Mikhail Kaganskiy (Collabora)

Dealing with styles and formatting in complex documents can become tedious, especially when you are working on something you did not create yourself. The Styles Inspector implemented by Shivam conveniently displays all the properties of the elements making up a document. It will surely become an essential tool for Writer experts.

Learn more about the Styles Inspector in the final report.

Additions – Tight integration of extensions by Yusuf Keten

Mentor: Muhammet Kara (Collabora)

Thanks to the work of Yusuf, users are now able to fetch extensions, templates and other resources as well as discover guide books without ever leaving LibreOffice.

Learn more about Additions in the final report.

Extending the UI testing framework by Ahmed ElShreif

Mentor: Markus Mohrhard

A domain-specific language (DSL) for LibreOffice’s Python-based UI testing framework was originally implemented by Saurav Chirania in 2018. Ahmed ElShreif continued the work in 2019 and now tackled further improvements in the DSL and in the testing framework itself. This means that the automated quality assurance system is better at preventing bugs from slipping into LibreOffice.

Learn more about the UI testing project in the final report.

Impress shape animations with a real physics engine by Sarper Akdemir

Mentor: Thorsten Behrens (CIB)

Sarper added the ability to enrich presentations with animations powered by the physics simulator engine Box2D.

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Learn more about the physics engine project in the final report.

Moving the gallery code to a friendly format by Aditya Sahu

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl, Michael Meeks (Collabora)

It was not simple to work on galleries due to them being stored in a custom binary format. Now Aditya got us out of this unfortunate situation and designers will have a much easier time.

Learn more about the gallery project in the final report.

Blurry shadows by Ahmad Ganzouri

Mentors: Tomaž Vajngerl, Miklos Vajna (Collabora)

Shapes and objects in LibreOffice used to only support hard shadows. Now Ahmad implemented proper blurriness for the shadows, supporting both ODF and OOXML formats.

Learn more about blurry shadows in the final report.

Wrapping up

Many thanks to all students 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!

Community Member Monday: Pranam Lashkari (Collabora/GSoC)

2020-09-142020-09-14

Today we’re talking to Pranam Lashkari from our Indian community, who is working in the LibreOffice ecosystem at Collabora, improving the web-based version of the suite…

First off, tell us a bit about yourself!

Pranam! (It means namaste, and yes, that’s my name too 😂). I live in Rajkot, a city in the middle of the state of Gujarat in India. I am a computer engineer who started working on open source projects as a student, to expand my knowledge, which later got me into Google Summer of Code – twice as a student, and this year I became a mentor and a maintainer of one of the Boost C++ Libraries called GIL (Generic Image Library).

The eagerness for always working in open source led me to work with Collabora Productivity, where I’m privileged to work full-time to take LibreOffice development further. So far, all the code I have written in my life is open source.

When I am not programming, I like to spend my time playing cricket (or any sport), doing some observational astronomy, or reading things related to science.

You can find me on LinkedIn and GitHub.

What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now?

Most of my work is focused on LibreOffice Online, which also happens to be the project behind the mobile version of Collabora Office. I started by removing the Poco framework, and then adding major features like smooth scrolling in mobile.

Currently, I am working on desktop browser version of LibreOffice Online, where I try to align features with the core version. On the other hand, in the mobile version, I solve different bugs in mobile wizards and enable new features which are not yet available in mobile. While working on the mobile wizard, I also try to optimize the performance wherever possible by avoiding and reducing unnecessary communication with the server – and making things look more snappy on mobile.

Why did you decide to become a member of The Document Foundation?

I love it when my code is used by people. Having a large number of users of LibreOffice attracted me to be a developer in TDF projects, and I am very thankful to Jan Holesovsky and Michael Meeks for giving me this wonderful opportunity and helping me get started and grow.

At first, I wasn’t aware of the existence of such programmes where one can become a member, until I received an email inviting me to apply to become a member of TDF because of my continuous involvement in TDF projects the last six months. I decided to apply for the membership because it would help me align the development with the goals set by the organisation, and get a clear picture of further required development.

The best way to move forward is by collaborating and becoming a part of the project. By becoming a member, I also wish to give my feedback on decisions and strategies.

Anything else you plan to do in the future? What does LibreOffice really need?

In my work for Collabora, we focus on what our customers and partners most want to be done next – always something interesting.

Finally, one thing I would like to add: working on these projects which are involved in changing the user experience forever is one of the best experiences I have had as a developer. I would like to thank Collabora and TDF for this.

TDF says: we’d like to thank you, Pranam, for all your work! A strong and healthy ecosystem is essential for the future of LibreOffice, so we’re glad you’re enjoying working for Collabora and improving LibreOffice Online. Cheers!

“Discover LibreOffice” magazines for schools and communities

2020-09-102020-09-10

Do you work in a school, college or university? Perhaps you’re involved in local community events, and want to help spread the word about LibreOffice? Or maybe you work at a local library or non-profit that could benefit from learning about free and open source software. Well, we have some of these magazines to give away:

Discover LibreOffice is a complete guide to the suite, with extra articles about OpenDocument, migrations, the community and more. Much of the content was written by members of the LibreOffice community. There’s also an accompanying DVD with LibreOffice 6.1 – which is a slightly older version, but the disc may be useful in some places without regular internet access.

We’d like to get these into the hands of students and local communities as mentioned, so if you could help to distribute them, please drop us a line! Let us know:

Where you are
Who you plan to give them to
How many copies you need

And we’ll get back in touch. Note: this is not a giveaway of free copies for personal use. If you want a copy for yourself, check out the publisher’s shop for the latest version.

LibreOffice Tips & Tricks: Replacing Microsoft Fonts

2020-09-08

Fonts are one of the main culprits of LibreOffice interoperability problems with Microsoft Office documents, when viewed from the end user’s point of view. In fact, Microsoft Office document are often using one of the default fonts – either the old “Core Fonts for the Web” (deprecated in 2002, but still in use) or the new “ClearType Fonts” (launched in 2000, and now adopted by Windows and Office) – which are not always available in LibreOffice, as they are proprietary and cannot be distributed with open source software. Also, in the case of ClearType fonts, the license is strictly connected to the Windows and/or Office license, so to legitimately use them with LibreOffice you need a Windows license where they are included.

When LibreOffice opens a Microsoft Office document, it will replace the fonts which are not available with one of the default Liberation fonts, which are metrically compatible with Arial (Liberation Sans), Courier New (Liberation Mono) and Times New Roman (Liberation Serif), but will have an impact on the visual appearance of the document if they replace a different font (in this case, the user will usually start to complain loudly about LibreOffice, without even checking if the contents are still there…).

To reduce the impact of this problem, which cannot be eliminated, at least until users stop using fonts creatively, LibreOffice offers a specific feature, a font replacement table that can be configured according to the user’s needs, and is among the program’s options. If the table is configured correctly, LibreOffice replaces the fonts with those metrically compatible – or simply more similar – defined by the user, and this in most cases will prevent the document from looking different. Luckily, there is a large number of free open source fonts available, with some specifically developed to replace Microsoft fonts as in the case of Croscore Fonts, from several online repositories. I suggest Google Fonts, as the website provides not only the font files but also all the associated legal resources, including the license.

My LibreOffice font replacement table, which has been developed over the years, includes the following font pairs (the first is replaced by the second, which is installed on my Linux PCs): Arial -> Arimo, Calibri-> Carlito, Cambria -> Caladea, Consolas -> Inconsolata, Courier New -> Cousine, Franklin Gothic -> Libre Franklin, Georgia -> Neuton, Gill Sans -> Cabin, Impact -> Oswald, Palatino -> Crimson Text, Perpetua -> Lustria, Times New Roman -> Tinos, Twentieth Century -> Spartan, and Verdana -> PT Sans. This is how it looks in LibreOffice:

Installing fonts is rather easy, but for those who are not familiar with the procedure there are a couple of articles which provide a quick tutorial: Windows & macOS, and Linux.

LibreOffice 7.0.1 available for download

2020-09-03

Berlin, September 3, 2020 – LibreOffice 7.0.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 7.0 family, targeted at technology enthusiasts and power users, is now available for download from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. LibreOffice 7.0.1 includes around 80 bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility.

The most significant new features of the LibreOffice 7.0 family are: support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.3; Skia graphics engine and Vulkan GPU-based acceleration for better performance; and carefully improved compatibility with DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files.

LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite arena, starting from native support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) – with better security and interoperability features – to wide support for proprietary formats.

LibreOffice 7.0.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites. Users wanting the robustness of a more mature version optimized for enterprise class deployments can still download LibreOffice 6.4.6.

For enterprise class deployments, TDF strongly recommends sourcing LibreOffice from one of the ecosystem partners, to get long-term supported releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and other benefits, including SLAs (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Support for migrations and training should be sourced from certified professionals who provide value-added services which extend the reach of the community to the corporate world. Also, the work done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, and this represents an advantage for everyone.

LibreOffice – thanks to its mature codebase, rich feature set, support for open standards, excellent compatibility and long-term support options – represents the ideal solution for businesses that want to regain or keep control of their data and free themselves from vendor lock-in.

LibreOffice individual users are supported by a global community of volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.

LibreOffice users are invited to join the community at https://ask.libreoffice.org, where they can get and provide user-to-user support. People willing to contribute their time and professional skills to the project can visit the dedicated website at https://whatcanidoforlibreoffice.org.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can provide financial support to The Document Foundation with a donation via PayPal, credit card or other tools at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

Availability of LibreOffice

LibreOffice 7.0.1 and 6.4.6 are immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements are specified on the download page. LibreOffice Online source code is available as Docker image: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.

LibreOffice 7.0.1’s change log pages are available on TDF’s wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.0.1/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.0.1/RC2 (changed in RC2).

All versions of LibreOffice are built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.

Build your skills – join our online hackfest during the LibreOffice conference!

2020-09-022020-09-17

Who makes LibreOffice? How can you – as a user – get involved in the community? And what can you contribute to the project? Well, we’ll answer all of these questions, and more, in an upcoming online “hackfest” during the LibreOffice conference. This is a virtual event where the world’s foremost LibreOffice experts will be at hand, to answer your questions about contributing to the project. You can see how they work and “how the sausage is made”, as they say!

There are many ways to help out:

Designing the user interface
Improving the features and functionality with C++ programming
Updating the documentation
Translating the app and website
Starting cool marketing campaigns
Confirming bug reports from other users

And much more. By joining a well-known and well-established FOSS project like LibreOffice, you can build up your skillset for future career options. And also meet new people and have fun!

So, do you have a question about contributing? If so, please send your questions to ilmari.lauhakangas@libreoffice.org by 27 September 2020.

A panel of experts will convene to present on your questions and topics. Everyone is welcome to join and ask further questions. In the case that your spontaneous questions render the experts speechless, answers will be provided after the event. The duration of the event is one hour.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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