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LibreOffice project and community recap: January 2026

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more… We started January with some news about The Document Foundation’s governance: an updated Conflict of Interest Policy for the Board of Directors. Later in the month, the Board also voted on version 1 of TDF Community Bylaws. We continued our series of posts about the Open Document Format (ODF): The philosophy behind ODF: openness, freedom and control; The Future of Open Standards and the Importance of ODF; and Why Open Standards are Extremely Beneficial to End Users. Then there was the LibreOffice Podcast, Episode #6 – discussing language support with Jonathan Clark from TDF. (The episode is also available on PeerTube.) Please confirm that you want to play a YouTube video. By accepting, you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Stats time! Italo Vignoli from the foundation posted a State of the LibreOffice Project, with slides about development, translators, donations and downloads. Finally, we prepared for FOSDEM 2026

Why OOXML is not a standard format for office documents

Unfortunately, I keep reading about open-source software advocates who happily use Microsoft’s proprietary DOCX, XLSX and PPTX formats for their documents and therefore prefer proprietary software such as OnlyOffice to LibreOffice. Others write outrageous things such as: “OOXML is a standard format, and we have to accept it.” I would therefore like to take this opportunity to clarify, once and for all, why OOXML has never been, is not, and will never be a standard format unless Microsoft decides to completely redesign its office applications. I consider this impossible in light of past decisions, such as Excel’s inability to handle elements of the human genome properly. This forced the scientific community to change the names of these elements due to Microsoft’s refusal to fix an obvious Excel bug. In other words, because of Microsoft, all of us citizens of the world have been affected by the change of the names of some elements of our genome, with all that this entails for scientific research and, consequently, for the treatment of genetic diseases. This is an enormously important fact that has not received sufficient publicity in the media, but it illustrates how willing Microsoft is to overlook everything for its own

Why open standards are extremely beneficial to end users

Whenever I talk to other technology users — including CTOs, CSOs and ICT managers, who in theory should have a certain level of expertise — I realise that most of them never consider standards when using applications, devices or websites. Users just want everything to work, but they don’t realise the fundamental role that standards, especially open standards, play in making this happen. Open standards actually offer users a significant advantage over the proprietary solutions they use every day. An open standard is a publicly available set of rules that govern how technology works. Anyone can use, develop or improve them. Examples include HTML for websites, USB for devices and PDF for documents. (And of course, the Open Document Format – ODF – as used by LibreOffice.) These are not owned by any company, and therefore benefit end users. That’s why they’re important to you. 1. You are not tied in Open standards reduce vendor lock-in. This means that users are not forced to use a single product or ecosystem from a single company to have control over their data and tools. For example, documents saved in an open format can be managed with multiple applications. If you change your

LibreOffice project and community recap: December 2025

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last month of last year – click the links to learn more… At the start of December, we announced a new Code of Ethics and Fiduciary Duties for The Document Foundation’s Board of Directors. Also early in the month was an announcement of the approval of the Open Document Format (ODF) v1.4 standard by OASIS Open. ODF is the default format used in LibreOffice, and is supported by many other office suites, including Microsoft Office/365. Dan Williams joined the LibreOffice team as a developer focusing on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) issues. He will initially work on some improvements for LibreOffice on macOS, but then look at broader topics affecting users on all platforms. Next, we announced the locations of the LibreOffice Conferences 2026 and 2027. The former will take place in Pordenone, Italy, and the latter in Gothenburg, Sweden. Then we posted LibreOffice-related videos from the Open Source Conference 2025 in Luxembourg. Great work from the Czech LibreOffice community, announcing their translation of the Draw Guide 25.8. We had one update to LibreOffice in December: 25.8.4. This is a bug and compatibility fix

Announcement of LibreOffice 25.8.4

Berlin, 18 December 2025 – LibreOffice 25.8.4, the fourth minor update to the free office suite developed by volunteers for personal productivity in office environments on Windows, MacOS and Linux, is now available from the download page. With LibreOffice 25.2 reaching the end of life on 30 November, and the announcement of LibreOffice 26.2 scheduled for early February, this release is ready for production environments. It provides over 70 fixes which further improve the suite’s performance, reliability and interoperability. All LibreOffice users are encouraged to update their installations as soon as possible. LibreOffice 25.8.4 is based on the highly robust LibreOffice technology platform, which supports the development of desktop, mobile, and cloud applications from both TDF and ecosystem companies. The platform supports both available document formats for full interoperability: the native, open standard ODF (Open Document Format, ODT, ODS and ODP) and the proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX). Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for all desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and Chrome OS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS), and the cloud. For enterprise-class deployments, versions are available from ecosystem companies with added features and benefits, such as SLAs and security patch backports for three to

Winners in the Month of LibreOffice, November 2025 – Grab your free sticker pack 😊

As November started, we kicked off a new Month of LibreOffice campaign, celebrating community contributions all across the project. We do these every six months – so how many people got sticker packs this time? Check it out… 297 Excellent work! Hundreds of people, all across the globe, have helped out in our projects. And those are just community contributions, not including the hundreds more from our ecosystem and certified developers! We’re hugely thankful for the work – and, of course, everyone who contributed in November and is listed on the wiki page can get a sticker pack, with the stickers shown above. How to claim If you see your name (or username) on this page, get in touch! Email mike.saunders@documentfoundation.org with: your name (or username) from that wiki page – you must include this and your postal address …and we’ll send you a bunch of stickers for your PC, laptop and other kit. (Note: your address will only be used to post the stickers, and will be deleted immediately afterwards.) If you contributed to the LibreOffice project in November but you’re not on the wiki page, please let us know what you did, so that we can add you!

Press Releases

The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice 25.8.7

Berlin, 12 May 2026 - The Document Foundation announces the release of LibreOffice 25.8.7, the final maintenance release of the…

Open Document Format

There is no digital sovereignty without ODF

Any other choice is a choice of dependence on a single vendor Digital sovereignty begins with the document format. Everything…