Second edition of Designing with LibreOffice available for free download

Designing with LibreOffice coverBruce Byfield and Jean Hollis Weber announce the second edition of Designing with LibreOffice. The book is available as an .ODT or .PDF file under the Creative Commons Attribution/Sharealike License version 4.0 or later from https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/

The first edition was published in 2016, and was downloaded over thirty-five thousand times. Michael Meeks, one of the co-founders of LibreOffice, described the first edition as “an outstanding contribution to help people bring the full power of LibreOffice into their document.” Similarly, free software author and journalist Carla Schroder wrote, “Designing With LibreOffice teaches everything you need to know about document production…. suitable for beginners to wizened old pros, who will probably discover things about LibreOffice that they didn’t know.”

The second edition updates the original, removing outdated information and adding updated screenshots and new information about topics such as Harfbuzz font shaping codes, export to EPUB formats for ereaders, the Zotero extension for bibliographies, and Angry Reviewer, a Grammarly-like extension for editing diction. In the future, the writers plan to release other editions as necessary to keep Designing with LibreOffice current.

For more information or interviews, contact Bruce Byfield at bbyfield@axion.net.

LibreOffice on the Microsoft Store

LibreOffice is now available for download from the Microsoft Store, for those users who choose or are required to get their desktop software from that channel. A small fee is charged. Here is the link.

This follows the recent release of LibreOffice through Apple’s App Store.

LibreOffice for Windows, macOS, and Linux continues to be free of charge from the LibreOffice website.

Blog post is here.

LibreOffice Community on Mac app store

On September 19, The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the release of LibreOffice on Apple’s Mac App Store, to support end users who want to get all of their desktop software from Apple’s sales channel. TDF will continue to provide LibreOffice for macOS free from the LibreOffice website, which is the recommended source for all users.

LibreOffice packaged for the Mac App Store is based on the same source code, but does not include Java – because external dependencies are not allowed on the store – and therefore limits the functionalities of LibreOffice Base.

The full TDF blog post is here.

LibreOffice 7.4 Calc Guide published

Cover of Calc Guide 7.4The LibreOffice documentation team published a new user guide in August: LibreOffice 7.4 Calc Guide, available in free PDF and ODT. Low-cost printed copies are available from Lulu.com.

Visit the Documentation page on the LibreOffice website for links.

LibreOffice 7.4 Community Release

LibreOffice 7.4 Community was released on 18 August 2022. Here is the official blog post about it, with much more information about the release and about LibreOffice.

You can get LibreOffice 7.4 from the download page for Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel processors), and Linux.

A video summarizing the top new features in LibreOffice 7.4 Community is available on YouTube.

Most Significant New Features

GENERAL
Support for WebP images and EMZ/WMZ files
Help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library
Search field for the Extension Manager
Performance and compatibility improvements

WRITER
Better change tracking in the footnote area
Edited lists show original numbers in change tracking
New typographic settings for hyphenation

CALC
Support for 16,384 columns in spreadsheets
Extra functions in drop-down AutoSum widget
New menu item to search for sheet names

IMPRESS
New support for document themes

LibreOffice 7.3 Base Guide published

Cover of Base 7.3 GuideThe LibreOffice documentation team published one new user guide in June: LibreOffice 7.3 Base Guide, available in free PDF and ODT. Low-cost printed copies are available from Lulu.com.

Visit the Documentation page on the LibreOffice website for links.

Draw and Impress Guides 7.3 published

Cover of Impress Guide 7.3Cover of Draw Guide 7.3New user guides from the LibreOffice documentation team published in May are LibreOffice 7.3 Draw Guide and LibreOffice 7.3 Impress Guide, available in free PDF, ODT, or to read in a browser. Low-cost printed copies are available from Lulu.com.

Visit the Documentation page on the LibreOffice website for links.

Two new user guides for v7.3: Getting Started and Writer

Cover of LibreOffice 7.3 Getting Started GuideCover of LibreOffice 7.3 Writer GuideThe latest user guides from the LibreOffice documentation team are LibreOffice 7.3 Getting Started Guide and LibreOffice 7.3 Writer Guide, available in free PDF, ODT, or to read in a browser. Low-cost printed copies are available from Lulu.com.

Visit the Documentation page on the LibreOffice website for links.

LibreOffice 7.3 Community release

LibreOffice 7.3 was released on 2 February 2022. Here is the official blog post about it. In addition to interoperability improvements with Microsoft’s proprietary file formats, it includes new features targeted at users migrating from Microsoft Office, to simplify the transition. Help has been improved, and change tracking includes new features.

LibreOffice 7.3 is available natively for new Apple computers using Apple Silicon, in addition to those using Intel processors. The minimum operating system requirement for Apple computers is macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and for Microsoft Windows 7 SP1.

I am liking using this new release, but I encountered a bug that caused my MacBook Pro (2017, running macOS 12.2 Monterey) to crash frequently. The problem is easily solved by disabling Skia graphics rendering. Go to LibreOffice > Preferences > LibreOffice > View and uncheck “Use Skia for all rendering” (as shown in the illustration below). This bug does not affect computers running Windows or Linux, and it will be fixed in version 7.3.1.
LibreOffice View Options dialog

Writer Guide for Mac users

Cover of Writer Guide macOS editionI revised the Writer Guide 7.2 to make a macOS-specific edition, and the LibreOffice Documentation Team accepted it as one of the official books.

You can download the PDF free here.

You can buy a printed version here.