Community Member Monday: Ndidi Folasade Ogboi

Tell us a bit about yourself! I live in Lagos, Nigeria, and I spend my time dabbling into user experience design with research, although these days, I’m diving deeper into research. I’m a big fan of books, especially well-written fiction. Music is also a huge part of my life. Let’s just say I love anything that sounds good and sing-alongs during work. What are you working on in the LibreOffice project right now? I am an Outreachy intern working on improving the LibreOffice Writer templates with guidance from my mentor, Heiko Tietze. I have spent the last month understanding the community’s pain points by carrying out a survey, analysing their responses and working to create functional templates that they need. Currently, I am iterating on priority templates like DIN 5008 Business Letter, resume and academic writing templates. I am also doing some more research on template standards and reflecting on how to create templates that would help users. My top priority is to understand styling and implement it in the templates I am creating and also curate template contents that fits into prospective user preferences. Why did you choose to join the project, and how was the experience? During my

LibreOffice 25.2, the office suite that meets today’s user needs

The new major release provides many user interface and accessibility improvements, plus the usual interoperability features Berlin, 6 February 2025 – LibreOffice 25.2, the new major release of the free, volunteer-supported office suite for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux is available on our download page. 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. LibreOffice is the only office suite designed to meet the actual needs of the user – not just their eyes. It offers a range of interface options to suit different user habits, from traditional to modern, and makes the most of different screen sizes, optimising the space available to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away. It is also the only software for creating documents (that may contain personal or confidential information) that respects the user’s privacy, ensuring that the user can decide if and with whom to share the content they create, thanks to the standard and open format that is not used as a

LibreOffice project and community recap: January 2025

LibreOffice 25.2 – our next major release – is due to arrive next week! But while you’re waiting, 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 2025 by highlighting Hazard: A LibreOffice Impress template to play Jeopardy-like games. Marcial Machado recently posted on Reddit about his “fully-featured LibreOffice Impress template for creating Jeopardy-style games. Just add your questions and categories, and you’re good to go!” So we talked to him to find out more! Next, our Documentation team announced the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8. This has been updated to reflect the changes in the latest stable branch of the suite. Great work, everyone! Our guidebooks are being translated too, thanks to our industrious localisation communities. In January, the Czech community released its translation of the Getting Started Guide 24.8. Then we put the spotlight on another extension: localwriter, an optional LibreOffice Writer extension for local generative AI. LibreOffice is very privacy-oriented and includes no AI features out-of-the-box – but we know that many users are interested in AI technology, so the (again, purely optional!) extension using locally installed tools is worth a

Announcing the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8

Dione Maddern and The Documentation Team are proud to announce the immediate availability of the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8, an update of the existing Calc Guide 24.2 with enhancements taken from the current LibreOffice 24.8 Calc module. The book was reviewed for clarity, readability and content additions, notably the Calc database table referencing in formulas, removal of deprecated JavaScript debugger and refactoring of the Calc’s chart topic – in which the chapter on charts was split in two, one for the chart basics and the second for the chart types. Dione Maddern, Calc editor says: I took on the challenge of compiling the Calc Guide because I wanted to learn about advanced editing and working with master documents. While I’ve previously worked on large documents in the engineering and insurance industries, documents were often compiled with clunky cut-and-paste techniques which created a lot of errors and labor-intensive rework. Working on the Calc Guide 24.8 was a great opportunity to expand my skills in LibreOffice and document production generally. It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with the LibreOffice Documentation Team. I had a great time working with such a fun and supportive team. Special thanks to Ed Olson, Lisa

Announcement of LibreOffice 24.8.3, the office suite optimised for the privacy-conscious office suite user who wants full control over the information they share

Berlin, 14 November 2024 – LibreOffice 24.8.3, the third minor release of the LibreOffice 24.8 family of the free open source, volunteer-supported office suite for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), MacOS (Apple and Intel) and Linux, is available at www.libreoffice.org/download. The release includes over 80 bug and regression fixes over LibreOffice 24.8.2 [1] to improve the stability and robustness of the software, as well as interoperability with legacy and proprietary document formats. In addition, support for Visio template format VSTX has been added. LibreOffice is the only office suite that respects the privacy of the user, ensuring that the user is able to decide if and with whom to share the content they create. It even allows deleting user related info from documents. As such, LibreOffice is the best option for the privacy-conscious office suite user, while offering a feature set comparable to the leading product on the market. Also, LibreOffice offers a range of interface options to suit different user habits, from traditional to modern, and makes the most of different screen sizes by using all the space available on the desktop to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away. The biggest advantage over

Interview with Newly Certified LibreOffice Developer Rafael Lima

The LibreOffice Engineering Steering Committee (ESC) has appointed Prof. Rafael Henrique Palma Lima, from Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPr) as the newest certified LibreOffice developer. Prof. Lima has been contributing new code to LibreOffice since 2020, and the committee has attested to the quality and value of his contributions to LibreOffice for this certification. We interviewed Prof. Lima, who tells us about the process and what areas of the code he works on.