2021: The Year the LibreOffice Documentation Team Shined

2021 is ending, so let’s recap our achievements and look forward for 2022. It has been a very tough year for all of us in our professional or personal matters, and for sure worsened by the persisting pandemic, even with the release of the COVID vaccines. But this year was a great documentation year after all. We closed the gap between the LibreOffice major releases, and the update of the corresponding User Guides. By the year end, we will have all of our version 7 guides updated to the LibreOffice release 7.2, and ready to continue for the forthcoming release – 7.3 – due in early February 2022. The goal of tracking the software release closely was achieved, and now we are in a steady state of small updates between releases. The updates and enhancements of the guides was an effort of all the team, coordinated by Jean Weber (Writer and Getting Started Guide), Steve Fanning (Calc and Base guides), Peter Schofield (Impress and Draw guides), Rafael Lima (Math guide). A number of volunteers also worked in each guide by writing and reviewing contents and suggesting improvements. A special thank to Jean Weber for making the guides available for sale

LibreOffice has been awarded the Editor’s Pick badge by Software Informer

This is Software Informer’s editor rating. Work with document files either imported from programs like MS Word, Excel and other office tools or created natively in formats like ODF or PDF compatible with modern and open standards. Editing, copying and incorporating data in databases is possible. LibreOffice is an open-source free alternative to heavy commercial office suites like MS Office. While having generally the same functionality, LibreOffice is more open to modification and updates, making it a more attractive suite if you want a comfortable and adjustable tool for working with documentation. LibreOffice consists of several tools capable of working with documents of any type, from standard Word files and Excel tables to presentations and Publisher files. There’s a word processing and desktop publishing tool called Writer; spreadsheet program Calc; tool for creating effective multimedia presentations called Impress; a sketching tool named Draw; database manager Base; formula editor Math; advanced chart and diagram creator Charts. Every tool has all the features of an advanced editor for the kind of files you could work with. The tools work stable and fast, they are easy to use even if you’re not an experienced user of office tools. LibreOffice adds several unique features

The Calc Guide 7.2 is at the Station!

Just days after the release of the Impress Guide 7.2, the LibreOffice Documentation Team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the Calc Guide 7.2, that includes the latest developments of the LibreOffice Community 7.2 Calc module. This 548 pages guide is for beginner to advanced users of Calc, the spreadsheet component of LibreOffice. You may be new to spreadsheet software, or you may be familiar with another program, this book covers the main features of Calc. The new Calc guide has been updated from Calc Guide 7.1. It covers changes that are visible in the user interface, including the new Search Commands tool, the global toolbar lock, details of the properties dialog, improvements in the Status and Sidebar, new menu entries, standard filter dialog and new cross-shaped cursor.

Announcing the Impress Guide 7.2

Thanks to the LibreOffice Documentation Team, the Impress Guide 7.2 has just arrived with the latest LibreOffice Impress 7.2 developments. This 374 pages book covers the main features of Impress, the presentations (slide show) component of LibreOffice. You can create slides that contain text, bulleted and numbered lists, tables, charts, clip art, and other objects. Impress comes with prepackaged text styles, slide backgrounds, and Help. It can open and save to Microsoft PowerPoint formats and can export to PDF, HTML, and numerous graphic formats. The full set of published LibreOffice guides is available in the LibreOffice Documentation Website. Here is the Table of Contents published in the LibreOffice Bookshelf Project: Preface Chapter 1 Introducing Impress Chapter 2 Master Slides, Styles, and Templates Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Images Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects Chapter 7 OLE, Spreadsheets, Charts, and Other Objects Chapter 8 Adding and Formatting Slides, Notes, Comments, and Handouts Chapter 9 Slide Shows and Photo Albums Chapter 10 Saving Slide Shows, Printing, Emailing, and Exporting Chapter 11 Setting Up and Customizing Impress Chapter 12 User Interface Variants Appendix A Keyboard Shortcuts Appendix B Toolbars The Guide update

Ten more videos from the LibreOffice Conference 2021

Here are some more videos from the LibreOffice Conference 2021! Check out the playlist, using the button in the top-right – or scroll down for links to individual videos: 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 Individual links Note: many of these are also available on PeerTube, and more will be added… Introduction to TDF Membership The state of CJK issues in LibreOffice, 2021 edition How to write your first test Enhancing a spellcheck dictionary by Wikidata lexemes PPTX footer export and import interoperability ODF Status Update 2021 Edition PDF annotations support Creating professional templates with LibreOffice Writer Let’s fix the personal data problem Calc Survey: User Characteristics, Usability, and Future Enhancements Stay tuned for more videos from rooms 2 and 3 of the conference!

LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.2

The LibreOffice Documentation Team is happy to announce the LibreOffice Getting Started Guide 7.2, covering the latest innovations of the best open source office suite. The new guide is an effort of many volunteers and among them, Jean Hollis Weber, Kees Kriek, Peter Schofield, Vasudev Narayanan, Rafael Lima and Mitchell Camfield. A big THANK YOU ALL ! YOU ROCK!