Coming up: LibreOffice Technology Budapest 2024 Hackfest
Calling all developers! The LibreOffice Technology Hackfest will take place in the City of Budapest on June 4th and 5th, 2024.
Half-way point in the Month of LibreOffice, May 2024!
Love LibreOffice? Help the community that makes it, learn new things, and get a sticker pack for your contributions! (Plus the chance to win some bonus extra merchandise, including mugs, T-shirts and hoodies…)
We’re two weeks into the Month of LibreOffice, May 2024. And so far, 178 people have already taken part and can claim their sticker packs at the end of the month. If you don’t see your name/username on that page yet, and haven’t taken part, here are some ways to join in:
How to take part – be a…
- Handy Helper, answering questions from users on Ask LibreOffice. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim your shiny stickers.
- First Responder, helping to confirm new bug reports: Go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 11 and LibreOffice 24.2.3”.
- Drum Beater, spreading the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Mastodon or Twitter! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim your stickers.
- Globetrotter, translating the user interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.
- Code Cruncher, contributing source code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started.
- Docs Doctor, writing documentation: Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
Keep an eye on this blog and our Mastodon, Bluesky and X (Twitter) accounts during the rest of May for more updates! 😊
LibreOffice Conference 2024
LibreOffice Conference 2024 will take place in Luxembourg, at the Digital Learning Hub and the local campus of 42 Luxembourg in Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, from 10 to 12 October 2024. As usual, the conference will be preceded by an open day for community member meetings on 9 October 2024.
The photo clearly shows the Terres Rouges building, the large red building in the centre of the Belval University campus, which used to be the largest steelworks in Luxembourg and is home to the Digital Learning Hub, an initiative of the Ministry of National Education, Childhood and Youth of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
The Call for Papers is already open, and can be accessed at the following address: https://events.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-conference-2024/cfp. The deadline for proposals is 15 August 2024. Approved speakers will be notified by 20 August 2024, while the conference schedule will be published during the first week of September.
The conference website will be ready soon, with additional logistic details for people attending the conference. A big thanks to Paolo Vecchi, who is organizing the conference with the help of local government bodies and volunteers.
LibreOffice 7.6.7 for productivity environments
Berlin, May 10, 2024 – LibreOffice 7.6.7 Community, the last minor release of the 7.6 line, is available from https://www.libreoffice.org/download for Windows, macOS, and Linux. This is the most thoroughly tested version, for deployments by individuals, small and medium businesses, and other organizations in productivity environments. This new minor release fixes bugs and regressions which can be looked up in the changelog [1].
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with many dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLA (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/
Users can download LibreOffice 7.6.7 Community from the office suite website: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.14. LibreOffice Technology-based products for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/
The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can be helped by volunteers on user mailing lists and on the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation with a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate
[1] Change log pages: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.6.7/RC1 and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/7.6.7/RC2
Projects selected for LibreOffice in the Google Summer of Code 2024
The LibreOffice Google Summer of Code projects have been selected for 2024.
- Adam Seskunas – More and better tests: the project aims to add automated tests for fixes related to document export as well as converting tests written in Java to C++.
- Ahmed Hamed – Improvement to the Functions Deck in LibreOffice Calc: the functions deck in the Sidebar will get a better search, an editor area with syntax highlighting and debugging capabilities among other enhancements.
- Aung Khant – Improving user experience around windows: remembering the size and position of windows will be made consistent and Start Center will be enhanced.
- Devansh Varshney – Adding native support for histogram chart and its variations: this project will bring support for multiple chart types introduced in Microsoft Office 2016.
- Mohit Marathe – Comments in Sidebar: after this project is completed, comments can be viewed and edited in the Sidebar in addition to the document margin.
- Printf Debugging – LibreOffice Theme: the goal of this project is to increase flexibility in colouring the LibreOffice interface.
- Ritobroto Mukherjee – Cross platform .NET bindings for UNO API: LibreOffice will get support for .NET 8 and an additional API that will feel more natural to .NET developers.
- Venetia Furtado – LUA UNO Language Binding in Libreoffice: after this project is completed, you will be able to control LibreOffice using the LUA programming language.
- Bonus project under Linux Foundation: Biswadeep Purkayastha – Desktop integration: CPDB support for the LibreOffice print dialog: Common Print Dialog Backends allow the separation of the user interface from printing technologies. The idea in this project is to bring CPDB support up to date.
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, Stephan Bergmann and Sarper Akdemir (allotropia); Rafael Lima; Andreas Heinisch; Heiko Tietze, Xisco Faulí, Michael Weghorn and Hossein Nourikhah (TDF).
Between August 19 and 26, 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.
Announcement of LibreOffice 24.2.3 Community
Berlin, 2 May 2024 – LibreOffice 24.2.3 Community, the third minor release of the free, volunteer-supported office suite for personal productivity in office environments, is now available at https://www.libreoffice.org/download for Windows, macOS and Linux.
The release includes around 80 bug and regression fixes over LibreOffice 24.2.2 [1] to improve the stability and robustness of the software. LibreOffice 24.2.3 Community is the most advanced version of the office suite, offering the best features and interoperability with Microsoft Office proprietary formats.
LibreOffice is the only office suite with a feature set comparable to the market leader. It also offers a range of interface options to suit all user habits, from traditional to modern, and makes the most of different screen form factors by optimising the space available on the desktop to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away.
The most significant advantage of LibreOffice over other office suites is the LibreOffice Technology engine, a single software platform for all environments: desktop, cloud and mobile. This allows LibreOffice to provide a better user experience and produce identical, and interoperable, documents based on both ISO standards: Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP) for users concerned about compatibility, resilience and digital sovereignty, and the proprietary Microsoft format(DOCX, XLSX and PPTX).
A full description of all the new features of the LibreOffice 24.2 major release line can be found in the release notes [2].
LibreOffice for Enterprises
For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners – for desktop, mobile and cloud – with a wide range of dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLAs: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/
Every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for enterprise customers is shared with the community on the master code repository and contributes to the improvement of the LibreOffice Technology platform.
Availability of LibreOffice 24.2.3 Community
LibreOffice 24.2.3 Community is available at https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 and Apple macOS 10.15. Products based on LibreOffice Technology for Android and iOS are listed here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/
For users who don’t need the latest features and prefer a version that has undergone more testing and bug fixing, The Document Foundation maintains the LibreOffice 7.6 family, which includes several months of back-ported fixes. The current release is LibreOffice 7.6.6 Community.
The Document Foundation does not provide technical support for users, although they can get it from volunteers on user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support the Document Foundation by making a donation at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate
[1] Fixes in RC1: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/24.2.3/RC1. Fixes in RC2: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/24.2.3/RC2.
[2] Release Notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/24.2