An introduction to the Open Document Format

The documents we create today, whether reports, spreadsheets or presentations, are essential for communicating, sharing and storing knowledge. However, the format in which these documents are saved often goes unnoticed. This is where the Open Document Format (ODF) comes in. ODF is a technical standard and a tool that ensures documents remain accessible, editable and usable over time without being tied to a specific vendor or product.

Approved by OASIS as an open standard document format in May 2005 and by ISO/IEC in May 2006, ODF has been around for over 20 years. Despite 20 years having passed, most productivity software users are not familiar with the format and therefore do not use it, as it is not as widespread as its proprietary counterpart, Microsoft OOXML.

This means that a huge number of documents — equivalent to over 100 zettabytes of data in 2025 — are subject to the commercial strategies of a company and completely beyond the control of their authors. These authors may suddenly find themselves unable to manage their own content unless they use specific software.

This also means that the enormous wealth of information contained in these documents does not contribute to the growth of collective intelligence because they are limited in terms of interoperability due to being tied to a single, specific, proprietary software.

Furthermore, Microsoft’s touted backward compatibility feature prevents true innovation in document formats because the presence of proprietary elements from old binary formats, which are not included in the ODF standard, forces documents to remain with technologies that have long been obsolete and incompatible with future developments.

What is ODF?

ODF is an open standard for saving and exchanging office documents. It includes text files (.odt), spreadsheets (.ods), presentations (.odp), and other types of documents, such as drawings (.odg). Developed by OASIS, an organisation that promotes structured information standards, it was approved by ISO/IEC as the international standard ISO/IEC 26300 in 2006.

Put simply, ODF is a universal language for documents, ensuring they can be read and written by any compatible software without locking users into a single ecosystem.

To understand the importance of ODF, it is helpful to know how proprietary formats work. When a document is saved in a Microsoft format, such as .docx, or an Apple format, such as .pages, it is often designed to work best with that company’s software only. Over time, this can cause problems such as limited compatibility, vendor lock-in, and the risk of obsolescence if the proprietary format is abandoned or changed significantly, as older documents may become unreadable.

ODF avoids these problems. It is completely open and free, meaning that anyone can implement it in their software, and users can switch between tools without losing access to their files.

ODF is not limited to text documents, but includes a wide range of office document types, including .odt (OpenDocument Text) for text documents such as reports, letters and books; .ods (OpenDocument Spreadsheet) for data …

So we’re half-way through the Month of LibreOffice, May 2025. And already, 216 contributors have won cool LibreOffice sticker packs! Details on how to claim them will be provided at the end of the month, but if you don’t see your name (or username) on that page, it’s not too late to join…

How to take part

There are many ways you can help out – and you don’t need to be a developer. For instance, you can be a:

• Handy Helper, answering questions from users on Ask LibreOffice. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim your shiny stickers.

• First Responder, helping to confirm new bug reports: Go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 11 and LibreOffice 25.2.3”.

• Drum Beater, spreading the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Mastodon, Bluesky or X (Twitter)! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim your stickers.

• Globetrotter, translating the user interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.

• Code Cruncher, contributing source code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started.

• Docs Doctor, writing documentation: Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.

So, two more weeks to go! We’ll be posting more updates on this blog and our Mastodon, Bluesky and X (Twitter) accounts…

The LibreOffice Google Summer of Code projects have been selected for 2025.

• Adam Seskunas – Implement Report Builder in C++: replacing the current Java-based Report Builder with a new solution will improve maintainability and remove one of the last remaining dependencies on Java.
• Karthik Godha – New dialog to edit Table Styles: Writer and Calc have a feature called AutoFormat styles with the possibility to add custom styles. This project will make it possible to edit existing table styles.
• Devansh Varshney – BASIC IDE code auto-completion: rudimentary auto-completion for BASIC macro authors is already available, but this project will make the feature much more helpful.
• Manish Bera – Python code auto-completion: currently there is no support at all for Python auto-completion when developing scripts for LibreOffice, so this will be quite a welcome addition.
• Mohamed Ali Mohamed – Rust UNO language binding: last year LibreOffice received support for Lua and the latest .NET and now it’s time to make it possible to use the API with Rust.
• Ujjawal Kumar – Import Markdown files into Writer: Markdown is a rather popular markup language for quickly formatting text in blog content, comments, chats and more. Requests to support it have increased recently, so it makes sense to tackle it.
• Shardul Vikram Singh – Rework Impress slideshow to use DrawingLayer primitives: this is one of those projects that are incomprehensible to most users, but really important for the long term maintenance of the code.

Good luck to the contributors – we appreciate their work on these important features and improvements! And thanks to our mentors for assisting them: Thorsten Behrens, Stephan Bergmann and Sarper Akdemir (allotropia); Rafael Lima; Jonathan Clark, Heiko Tietze, Xisco Faulí, Michael Weghorn and Hossein Nourikhah (TDF).

Between August 25 and September 1, contributors will submit their code, project summaries, and final evaluations of their mentors. Find out more about the timeline here, and check out more details about the projects on this page.

Our two main websites are vital sources of information for The Document Foundation and the LibreOffice software. We also use our social media channels to raise awareness about our work, share information and encourage new contributors to join us

(This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.)

TDF website

The Document Foundation website provides general information about the foundation (overview, statutes, code of conduct, financials and reports) and its governance (board of directors, membership committee, members, advisory board, and engineering steering committee), and about LibreOffice certification, including a list of certified developers, and professionals for migrations and trainings.

During 2024, the foundation’s website was visited 98,499 times, with 146,456 page views – a slight reduction in visits but also a slight growth in page views from 2023. Continent-wise, the largest chunk of visits were from Europe (52%), followed by North America (24%) and Asia (16%). And regarding software: the most visits were from PCs using the Windows (65%) operating system, followed by GNU/Linux (10%) and macOS (8%) and devices uses Android (6.2%), while for browsers: Chrome had 39%, followed by Firefox (16%) and Microsoft Edge (15%).

LibreOffice website

The LibreOffice website provides information about the office suite and the document format, the various download options, how to get help, how to contribute to the project, events where users can get to know the LibreOffice community, and how to make a donation to support the project and the community.

In 2024, we continued to make improvements and tweaks to the website, updating the “Discover” and “New Features” sections of the site to reflect new versions of the software.

During 2024, the English-language LibreOffice website was visited 19,298,517 times (a 0.6% gain over 2023), with 46,065,236 page views (a 0.1% gain). Most visits were from Europe (52%), followed by Asia (20%), North America (15%) and South America (9%), from PCs using the Windows operating system (82%), followed by macOS (6%) and Linux (23%). Regarding web browsers, Chrome was the most popular (41%), followed by Microsoft Edge (29%) and Firefox (13%).

Blogs

TDF’s blogs (like this one) are essential for communicating activities inside and around the project, including new releases of LibreOffice, community events and support for other free and open source initiatives. In 2024, we used them to post regular interviews with community members and provide updates from team members about documentation, marketing, QA, design and more.

Blogs were also maintained by various native language communities including Japanese, Spanish, German and others. Thanks to the hard work of community members, we had press releases, tips and other articles translated into many languages, and picked up by local media organisations.

These native language blogs complement the information provided by the main blog in English, and by the two blogs managed by members of the design and the quality assurance projects, which provide updates about activities for the upcoming major releases …

Quality Assurance (QA) is a cornerstone of the LibreOffice project, thanks to the activity of a large number of volunteers and the feedback of many users who help in reporting bugs and regressions

(This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.)

QA team work

In 2024, the QA team triaged thousands of bugs, bisected hundreds of regressions, and answered questions from countless bug reporters. As one of the most visible groups directly responding to end users, the QA team must be nimble and able to adapt to changes. In addition, it must deal with specific requests for help from other teams.

The QA team meets regularly on IRC on the #libreoffice-qa channel, which is the best medium for discussing bugs and regressions. The IRC channel provides an excellent opportunity to remain in close contact with team members, and to tutor new members in the art and skill of LibreOffice QA. This is bridged to the Telegram group.

During 2024, 5351 bugs were reported by 2463 users, which means 103 new bugs were reported every week on average. The QA team prepared monthly reports about their activity and posted on the QA blog.

Top 10 bug reporters

• Eyal Rozenberg (211)
• Gabor Kelemen (193)
• Mike Kaganski (137)
• Telesto (86)
• Regina Henschel (85)
• Xisco Faulí (82)
• Stéphane Guillou (78)
• peter josvai (75)
• Rafael Lima (72)
• Heiko Tietze (54)

Triaging

During 2024, 5086 bugs were triaged by 328 people. The top 10 bug triagers were:

• Stéphane Guillou (stragu) (762)
• Buovjaga (684)
• m_a_riosv (499)
• Heiko Tietze (374)
• V Stuart Foote (241)
• Mike Kaganski (232)
• Julien Nabet (186)
• Xisco Faulí (175)
• ady (144)
• Dieter (144)

Bibisecting

Also, during 2024, the QA team performed 561 bibisects of regressions by 30 people. The top 10 bisecters were:

• raal (121)
• Buovjaga (111)
• Stéphane Guillou (104)
• Xisco Faulí (91)
• Gabor Kelemen (24)
• Aron Budea (23)
• Timur (14)
• zcrhonek (10)
• Mike Kaganski (9)
• Justin L (8)

Like what we do? Support the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation – get involved and help our volunteers, or make a donation. Thank you!

On May 1st, 2005, the Open Document Format (ODF) become an OASIS standard. One year after, it became an ISO/IEC standard. After two decades, it is the only true open standard for document formats available on the market, and the only one protecting users from proprietary lock in and ensuring a full control over contents. The presentation provides an overview over ODF features and explains why ODF should be used versus Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX).

PeerTube: https://peertube.opencloud.lu/w/2b9JeZw1M884V5BK21RioW

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z-Xo9v9-1YU (please note that once you leave this blog to access the video, a different set of privacy rules will apply)

Open Document Format (ODF) has been designed as a document standard for the next 20-50 years, to liberate users from the lock-in strategy built into yesterday’s and today’s proprietary formats and foster interoperability. On the contrary, OOXML – approved by ISO/IEC in 2008 in a version never implemented by MS Office – has been designed as a document pseudo-standard format to propagate yesterday’s document issues and lock-in strategy for the next 20-50 years, to the detriment of users and interoperability.

The philosophy behind the ODF standard document format was to design a mechanism in a vendor neutral manner from the ground up, using existing standards wherever possible. Although this means that software vendors had to tweak their individual packages more than if they continued down their original routes, the benefits for interoperability were important enough to justify this objective. The OOXML pseudo-standard document format was designed by Microsoft for Microsoft products, and to interoperate with the Microsoft environment. Little thought appears to have been exercised for interoperability with non-Microsoft environments, or compliance with established vendor-neutral standards.

Berlin, 8 May 2025 – LibreOffice 24.8.7, the seventh and last 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. 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. In addition, it has a feature set comparable to the leading product on the market.

The biggest advantage over competing products is the LibreOffice Technology engine, the single software platform on which desktop, mobile and cloud versions of LibreOffice – including those from ecosystem companies – are based. Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and the cloud.
End users looking for manuals can download the LibreOffice 24.8 guides from the following link: books.libreoffice.org/.

For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners, with three or five year backporting of security patches, other dedicated value-added features and Service Level Agreements: www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

LibreOffice 24.8.7 availability

LibreOffice 24.8.7 is available from www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 (no longer supported by Microsoft) and Apple MacOS 10.15. Products for Android and iOS are at www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/.

LibreOffice 24.8 will reach its EOL (End of Life) in mid-June 2025. Users are encouraged to migrate to LibreOffice 25.2, which is now fully tested for all types of use in production. The current version is LibreOffice 25.2.3.

End users can get first-level technical support from volunteers on mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: ask.libreoffice.org. They can support the project by donating at www.libreoffice.org/donate.

Join us in Budapest and tell us what you’re doing with LibreOffice!

The Document Foundation invites all members and contributors to submit talks, presentations and workshops for this year’s LibreOffice conference in Budapest at ELTE’s Faculty of Informatics, co-organized by FSF.hu Foundation. The event will take place from 4 to 6 September, with an informal community meeting on 3 September. Whether you are an experienced presenter or have never spoken in public before, if you have something interesting to say about LibreOffice, the Document Liberation Project, the Open Document Format or the ODF Toolkit, we want to hear from you!

Proposals should be submitted by 15 June 2025 to ensure they are considered for inclusion in the conference programme.

The conference programme will be based on the following tracks

a) Development, APIs, Extensions, Future Technology
b) Quality Assurance
c) Localisation, Documentation and Native Language Projects
d) Appealing LibreOffice: Usability, Design and Accessibility
e) Open Document Format, Document Liberation and Interoperability
f) Advocacy, promotion and marketing of LibreOffice

Presentations, case studies, workshops and technical talks will cover a topic in depth and last 30 minutes (including Q&A). Lightning talks will cover a specific topic and last 5 minutes (including Q&A). Sessions will be streamed live and recorded for download.

Please submit your proposal – including a short description of contents and a short biography of yourself – to https://events.documentfoundation.org/. If you would like to give more than one talk, please submit a separate proposal for each one. Only software based on the LibreOffice Technology platform will be allowed on stage, while slide decks will be shared using the ISO standard ODP and PDF file formats.

If you need a VISA, please contact the organising team at conference@libreoffice.org as soon as possible to receive an invitation letter.

If you are unable to travel to Hungary and prefer to present remotely, please include a note in your proposal to allow the organisers to schedule your presentation (and organise a test session beforehand).

If you do not agree to make the data for the presentation available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Licence, please specify your terms. In order to make your presentation available on the TDF YouTube channel, please do not make use of copyrighted material (music, images, etc.) for your slide deck.

Of course, this is only the Call for Papers, but everyone is welcome to attend the talks and events! We’ll post again soon when registration is open…

Thank you for your participation!

On April 26, 2025, the Estácio University Center in Brasília – Taguatinga-DF Unit, was the stage for a remarkable moment in the promotion of technological freedom in Brazil. The LibreOffice community actively participated in FLISOL – the Latin American Free Software Installation Festival – with presentations and strong interactions with the public.

More than just an event, FLISOL was a symbol of resistance, collective construction and promotion of the use of open source tools. And LibreOffice, as the largest and most complete open source office suite in the world, was at the center of these discussions.

Lectures empowering digital sovereignty

Activist and member of The Document Foundation, Eliane Domingos, presented the topic “LibreOffice and Digital Independence”, emphasizing the urgent need for independence in the use of software. “To depend on proprietary platforms is to give up control over your own data,” she said. The talk provided an in-depth reflection on technological sovereignty, the risks of digital monopolies and the importance of conscious choices.

Henderson Matsuura presented the new features in LibreOffice 25.2, connecting the suite’s technical advances with the community spirit that sustains its development. With each version, LibreOffice reiterates this commitment to accessibility, quality and freedom – essential characteristics for any society wishing to move towards digital independence.

A collective construction experience

During the event, it was possible to talk to students, educators, enthusiasts and technology professionals about the transformative role of free software in education, public service and everyday life. The genuine interest of the audience shows that there is a growing demand for open, sustainable and transparent solutions.

We would like to express our deepest thanks to Professor Josyane Lannes, Coordinator of the IT courses at the Estácio University Center in Brasília, for hosting FLISOL on her premises and enthusiastically supporting the cause of free software.

Our thanks also go to LibreOffice community member Henderson Matsuura, one of the organizers of FLISOL in Brasilia, who not only gave an excellent talk, but also made room in the program for the promotion of LibreOffice, demonstrating his commitment and dedication to spreading free knowledge.

Beyond software: a global movement

Promoting LibreOffice isn’t just about promoting a computer program. It’s defending people’s rights to access technology without barriers, to maintain control over their own files, and to study, modify and redistribute tools. It’s saying that the digital future needs to be plural, accessible and transparent.

The success of the LibreOffice community’s participation in FLISOL Brasilia 2025 shows that the open source software movement is more alive than ever. And that together we continue strong in our mission to build a more fair and free digital world.

In 2024, the documentation community continued to update LibreOffice guidebooks, and the Help application

(This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2024 – we’ll post the full version here soon.)

New and translated guides

Throughout the year, the documentation project closed the gap between LibreOffice’s major releases, and the updates of the corresponding user guides. By the end of the year, all of the version 24.2 guides were updated to match the release of LibreOffice 24.8, and ready to continue for the forthcoming release – 25.2 – which arrived in February 2025. The goal of tracking the software releases closely was achieved, and the documentation team is now in a steady state of small updates between releases.

The updates and enhancements of the guides were an effort of all of the team, coordinated by Jean Weber (Writer and Getting Started Guide), Olivier Hallot (Calc Guide), Peter Schofield (Impress and Draw guides). A number of volunteers also worked in each guide by writing and reviewing contents and suggesting improvements. Special thanks to Jean Weber for making the guides available for sale in printed format via Lulu Inc.

LibreOffice Help updates

The documentation community also had a team of Help page bug fixes, closing Help documentation bugs, bridging gaps, fixing typos and improving quality, a must-have update to keep LibreOffice in-shape for its user base and documented reference of the application features. A total of 614 Help patches were merged in 2024. The Help pages, which are part of the LibreOffice codebase, were also refactored continuously for better maintenance and code readability. The localisation and translation team of volunteers was quick in flagging typos and English mistakes – while translating the Help content and the user interface.

ScriptForge libraries, and Wiki updates

The documentation community also had a nice contribution from Jean Pierre Ledure, Alain Romedenne and Rafael Lima, for the development of the ScriptForge macro library, in synchronization with the much-needed Help pages on the subject, a practice rarely followed by junior developers of LibreOffice. As we know, undocumented software is software that’s lacking; features that are unknown to the user can be a cause of costly calls to a help desk in corporate deployments. ScriptForge developments came together with their documentation, demonstrating the ScriptForge team’s professional maturity.

LibreOffice Bookshelf

In 2024, the documentation community also updated the LibreOffice Bookshelf – another download page for LibreOffice guides that is different from the current documentation page. The Bookshelf can be cloned and installed in organizations, libraries, colleges and schools, for immediate availability in controlled environments, as well as online reading of the guides. The Open Document Format chapters were transformed into static HTML pages, and are ready to display on computers, tablets and cell phones, bringing LibreOffice user guides closer to its public, anywhere, at any time.

Like what we do? Support the LibreOffice project and The Document Foundation – get involved and help our volunteers, or make a donation. Thank you!