The Document Foundation has announced the release today of LibreOffice 5.1, a full featured open source office suite with superior interoperability features, for all major platforms – Linux, Mac OSX and Windows.

Compared with previous releases, LibreOffice 5.1 offers a completely overhauled user interface and several improved features targeted at enterprise deployments, e.g. better support for ODF 1.2, interoperability with proprietary document formats and file management on remote servers.

LibreOffice has been downloaded 120 million times since its launch in January 2011 and is now being deployed by large organisations around the world, the latest addition being for Italian defence staff with over 100,000 desktops (posts passim).

LibreOffice 5.1 Highlights

User Interface: LibreOffice 5.1’s user interface has been completely reorganised to provide faster, more convenient access to its most used features. A new menu has been added to each of the applications: Style (Writer), Sheet (Calc) and Slide (Impress and Draw). In addition, several icons and menu commands have been repositioned based on user preferences.

Interoperability: Compatibility with proprietary document formats – principally MS Office formats – has been improved as a part of continuing efforts for better interoperability with other office packages. The latest interoperability changes include the addition of filters for Apple Keynote 6, Microsoft Write and Gnumeric files.

Spreadsheet Functions: Calc’s formula engine has been improved with features addressing restrictions in table structured references and sticky column/row anchors, interoperability with OOXML spreadsheets and compatibility with ODF 1.2

File Access on Remote Servers: Files stored in the cloud on remote servers such as Sharepoint, Google Drive and Alfresco can now be accessed from the File menu, with read and write options and without the need of a dialog window.

The LibreOffice website has a complete list of the most significant new features of LibreOffice 5.1.

LibreOffice 5.1 has also been improved “under the hood,” thanks to the work of hundreds of volunteers. Their work has produced an open source office suite that’s easier to develop, maintain and debug. Although this is not visible to users, it is extremely important for enterprise deployments.

“LibreOffice 5.1 is another step forward to fulfilling our vision of an office suite tailored on user needs and preferences”, says Bjoern Michaelsen, a Director at The Document Foundation (TDF) and a leading LibreOffice developer. “Since 2010, we have gone through different development cycles to clean up the code and make it more responsive. We are now at a stage where we are close to providing a better user interface.”

Availability and enterprise deployments

LibreOffice 5.1 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites and is targeted at technology enthusiasts, early adopters and power users.

For enterprise class deployments, TDF maintains the more mature 5.0.x branch (soon at 5.0.5). In any case, TDF suggests deploying or migrating to LibreOffice with the backing of certified professionals providing Level 3 support, migration consultancy or trainings according to recognized best practices (http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/).

LibreOffice 5.1 is available for immediate download. LibreOffice users, free software advocates and all community members can also support The Document Foundation with a donation.

Miklos Vajna of open source consultants Collabora has produced a short video showing the recent changes in mail merge in LibreOffice.

If you ever used the mail merge wizard with a Calc data source, then you know how it worked in the past: you’ve got 3 files: the .odt mail template, the .ods data source and a .odb data source definition that defines how to access the .ods.

The procedure has now been changed. As of LibreOffice 5.1, the .odb data source has been eliminated and the .ods data source is now embedded directly the .odt mail template.

Collabora, the architects of LibreOffice Online, have announced a the formation of a partnership and the release of CODE (Collabora Online Development Edition), a distribution of LibreOffice Online and ownCloud Server. The purpose of CODE is to give interested developers from any field an easy way to get early access to the very latest untested feature additions and updates to LibreOffice Online, in order to enable them to develop, test and contribute. ownCloud is the company behind ownCloud Server, the world’s most popular open source enterprise file synchronisation and share (EFSS) software. The partnership will deliver a combined commercial solution during 2016, based on an integration of Collabora CloudSuite – a trio of Online, Mobile and Desktop office productivity – with ownCloud Server.

“We’re delighted to partner with ownCloud to strengthen our go-to-market posture as we look forward to fulfilling the considerable market demand for an Open Source cloud document suite,” said Michael Meeks, Collabora Productivity’s General Manager. “This initial release of CODE is our first step in this exciting journey. By design, Collabora Online does not include essential cloud functionality such as identity management or storage. CODE gives a showcase of how filling this gap with a complementary integration with ownCloud gives a taste of the final deployment experience.”

“Collabora is a great open source contributor and a great partner for ownCloud to deliver a full LibreOffice Online experience integrated with ownCloud to the ownCloud Community. Developers and Users will be able to easily view and edit documents while storing them in ownCloud,” said Frank Karlitschek, ownCloud founder and project leader. “This integration proves the power of integration between leading Projects and allows full support for all major document, spreadsheet and presentation file formats.”

CODE (Collabora Online Development Edition) allows prototype editing of richly formatted documents from a web browser. It has good support for key file formats , including text documents (docx, doc, odt, pdf, etc.), spreadsheets (xlsx, xls, ods, etc.) and presentations (pptx, ppt, odp, etc.). All files are processed in the cloud and rendered locally. This initial version allows basic editing. Collaborative and rich editing are planned. Interested developers can download CODE as an easily deployable virtual machine base image, bundled with ownCloud Server, and start contributing to both projects right away.

Yesterday The Document Foundation announced the release of LibreOffice 4.4.7, the seventh and final minor release of the LibreOffice 4.4 family. LibreOffice 4.4.7 is the “still” version, which is aimed at more conservative users and enterprise deployments.

The Document Foundation recommends the deployment of LibreOffice in enterprises and large organisations with the backing of certified professional support.

LibreOffice 4.4.7 is available for download from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-still/.

The next release of the more cutting edge LibreOffice 5.x series will take place early in 2016.

PortalProgramas.com has announced that LibreOffice, the leading open source office productivity suite, has won 2 prizes in its 2015 awards for free software applications.

The 2 categories in which LibreOffice won were:

1. Esencial para empresas (essential for companies), because it covers all enterprise office automation needs without adding licensing costs;
2. Mayor potencial de crecimiento (best growth potential); this was awarded because LibreOffice is regularly updated and is open to new features and applications.

Other winners included GNU Health (most revolutionary), WordPress (essential for communication) and CyanogenMod (best for mobile).

Congratulations to LibreOffice, The Document Foundation and all the other winners.

Away from the world of alpha versions and bug hunting sessions (posts passim), The Document Foundation yesterday announced the arrival of LibreOffice 5.0.3 “fresh”, the 4th release of the LibreOffice 5.0 family, and LibreOffice 4.4.6, the 7th release of the LibreOffice 4.4 family. Based on feedback from both users and the media, the LibreOffice 5.0 family is the most popular version of this free and open source office suite to date.

LibreOffice 5.0.3 is more feature-rich and as such is aimed at power users and tech enthusiasts, whilst LibreOffice 4.4.6 is targeted to more conservative users and enterprise deployments as it has been in widespread use for a longer time and as such offers a better experience for document production.

For security reasons it is recommended that all LibreOffice users update their software at least to LibreOffice 4.4.6.

Both software packages include many fixes introduced since the previous versions which can be viewed here for 5.0.3 RC1 and 5.0.3 RC2 respectively and here for 4.4.6 RC1 and 4.4.6 RC3.

Download LibreOffice

Both new versions can be downloaded via the following links:

• LibreOffice 5.0.3;
• LibreOffice 4.4.6.

Support

When deploying LibreOffice in large organisations and for enterprise use, The Document Foundation strongly recommends the use of professional support by certified individuals.

LibreOffice 5.1, the next release of the popular open source office suite, has officially entered the final stage of development with the release of the Alpha version, which has been released in time for the first Bug Hunting Session due to take place from Friday, 30th October to Sunday, 1st November (posts passim).

LibreOffice 5.1 starts twice as fast as the previous version and, as well as the usual incremental interoperability improvements with MS Office file formats (including MS Office 2016), incorporates some useful new features, such as the Chart Sidebar to change settings in a more intuitive way, easier workflow with Google Drive, OneDrive and SharePoint, plus a Style Menu in Writer.

The first LibreOffice 5.1 release candidate (RC) will be available in mid December, followed by second and third RCs in January 2016, with the release version becoming available in early February, just after FOSDEM 2016 (where LibreOffice developers will provide all the technical details about the new and improved software features).

Over the last 12 months, around 300 developers have hacked the LibreOffice source code, providing over 19,000 commits, representing a weekly average of 375 commits.

Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice is available in 2 versions codenamed “fresh” and “still” for production use*.

LibreOffice 5.0.2, the current “fresh” version, is available for download, whilst LibreOffice 4.4.5, the current “still” version, is likewise available for download.

* Alpha and pre-release versions should only be used by technology experts or enthusiasts who don’t mind getting their fingers cut by bleeding edge software! Ed. 🙂