The LibreOffice Conference is the annual gathering of the community, our end-users, developers, and everyone interested in free office software. In 2024, it took place in Luxembourg (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.) This was our third in-person conference after the COVID pandemic, following on from the Milan conference in 2022 and Bucharest conference in 2023, but we also lived-streamed sessions so that participants could watch remotely (and ask questions in our chat channels too). The conference took place from 10 – 12 October 2024 in Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, which is around a 20 minute train ride from Luxembourg City. As public transport is free in the whole country, attendees staying in the city didn’t need to buy tickets to attend the event in Belval. Conference Tracks and extra sessions Opening sessions were given by Eliane Domingos (chairperson of the Board of Directors at TDF), Serge Linkels (Managing Director of the Digital Learning Hub and 42 Luxembourg), and Stéphanie Obertin (Luxembourg’s Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Research and Higher Education). Then there were presentations and talks were given across various “tracks”, or categories: LibreOffice Development; ODF and
In 2024, LibreOffice celebrated its fourteenth birthday. Two new major versions of the suite introduced a variety of new features, while minor releases helped to improve stability as well (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.) LibreOffice 24.2 On January 31, LibreOffice 24.2 was officially released after six months of work. Developers at The Document Foundation, Collabora, allotropia, CIB, Red Hat, NISZ and other companies and organisations – along with volunteers – worked on many new features. For instance, there were many improvements to the tabbed “NotebookBar” user interface, while styles support was added for comments. A new search field was added to the Functions sidebar deck in Calc, while in terms of accessibility, several significant improvements to the handling of mouse positions and the presentation of dialogue boxes via the Accessibility APIs were made, allowing screen readers to present them correctly. And regarding security, the “Sace with Password” dialogue box now has a password strength meter, which uses zxcvbn-c to determine the password strength. TDF’s marketing and localisation community produced and translated a video (below) which demonstrated many of the new features in LibreOffice 24.2. This was
The Document Foundation is the non-profit entity that coordinates the LibreOffice project and community. In 2024 we had with elections for the foundation’s Membership Committee, along with regular Advisory Board calls, and support for other projects and activities (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.) Election of new Membership Committee (MC) The mission of the Membership Committee is to administer membership applications and renewals following the criteria defined in the Foundation’s Statutes. Members of the MC are directly elected by community members every two years, and serve for a two-year term. The Board of Directors consists of five members and three deputies. On July 15, Eliane Domingos – chairperson in the Board of Directors at TDF – announced the election for the next MC, and asked for nominations and self-nominations. On August 27, she then announced that the nomination phase had ended, and that voting would run from 3 – 9 September. Around this time there were also three live “town-hall” Q+A meetings with the candidates, so that community members could ask questions and discuss the responses. We made video recordings from the second and third meetings, and
(Translated from the Spanish original.) Juan C. Sanz writes: The Firebird database is distinguished by its unique features within the LibreOffice Base compatible database ecosystem. Why do I consider Firebird to be special? Because it is the only database engine that supports all possible forms of connection in Base and also allows the creation of both embedded, external and server databases directly from LibreOffice, without having to use specific tools. LibreOffice offers the following Firebird connection options: Embedded database Standalone database file (no server required) Database server via internal driver Additionally, like other database servers, it is possible to establish a connection via JDBC or ODBC connectors. These connectors are available free of charge and as open source software on the official Firebird website. Advantages of multiple connection options. Firebird offers several ways of connection that represent important advantages: Embedded database: The embedded or internal database consists of a *.odb file containing all the database facilities (table view, query designer, forms, reports, macros) together with the data. This option is especially easy and accessible for users with little database experience. Simply enable the experimental features of LibreOffice to start using it. It is ideal for learning basic database concepts and
Berlin, 27 March 2025 – The Document Foundation announces the availability of LibreOffice 25.2.2, the second minor release of the recently announced LibreOffice 25.2 family [1], and LibreOffice 24.8.6, the sixth minor release of the LibreOffice 24.8 family [2], for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux. LibreOffice is the best office suite for users who want to retain control over their individual software and documents, thereby protecting their privacy and digital life from the commercial interference and the lock-in strategies of Big Tech. All LibreOffice releases can be downloaded from www.libreoffice.org/download/. What makes LibreOffice unique is the LibreOffice Technology Platform, the only one on the market that allows the consistent development of desktop, mobile and cloud versions – including those provided by companies in the ecosystem – capable of producing identical and fully interoperable documents based on the two available ISO standards: the open ODF or Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP) and the proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX). The latter hides a huge number of artificial (and unnecessary) lock-in complexities that create problems for users convinced they are using a standard format. Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for
Nearly a year ago, we posted about the German state of Schleswig-Holstein’s plan to move 30,000 PCs from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice. Now, Stephane Fermigier from EuroStack – which promotes European technological sovereignty and open source – has posted an update, citing an article in the German c’t Magazin. It discusses various reasons for the migration to LibreOffice and Linux, including: Digital Sovereignty – Schleswig-Holstein is actively reducing its dependence on a single, non-European tech giant Public Money, Public Code – Improvements made to open source software, like accessibility enhancements to LibreOffice, are available to the public Public Procurement as a Lever – Schleswig-Holstein is not only improving its own IT infrastructure but also sending a strong signal to the market, potentially encouraging other public administrations to follow suit In Fermigier’s post he also points to a recent talk from the LibreOffice Conference 2024 in Luxembourg (see below – video also available on PeerTube). Meanwhile, Dirk Schrödter, Head of the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein, posted some thoughts on LinkedIn, including: This is not just about technological independence but also about economic aspects. At present, our administrations and businesses are trapped in a system characterized by monopolistic structures and high licensing
