Welcome to The Document Foundation Planet

This is a feed aggregator that collects what LibreOffice and Document Foundation contributors are writing in their respective blogs.

To have your blog added to this aggregator, please mail the website@global.libreoffice.org mailinglist or file a ticket in Redmine.


Monday
11 August, 2025


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General Activities

  1. LibreOffice 25.2.5 was announced on July 17
  2. Olivier Hallot (TDF) updated help for CSV import, explained Property Mapping in help for Charts and improved help for Calc’s FILTERXML function and AutoFilter
  3. Gábor Kelemen (Collabora) did many code cleanups
  4. Tomaž Vajngerl (Collabora) made internal hyperlinks in a table of contents accessible when exported to PDF/UA
  5. Pranam Lashkari, Szymon Kłos and Hubert Figuière (Collabora) worked on LOKit used by Collabora Online
  6. Parth Raiyani (Collabora) did reorganisations in some dialogs
  7. Miklós Vajna (Collabora) polished the support for floating tables in Writer, fixed some crashes and continued improving the handling of tracked changes that depend on each other
  8. Xisco Faulí (TDF) added Albanian and Moldovan locale, fixed short weekdays in Romanian locale, improved the translation checker script, added some new automated tests, upgraded many dependencies and did many code cleanups and optimisations
  9. Michael Stahl (Collabora) fixed an issue with expansion of list level numbering formats with repeated levels and fixed a column width issue in RTF tables
  10. Mike Kaganski (Collabora) implemented Markdown export, fixed not being able to apply colour to Chart walls via Sidebar, fixed an issue with paragraph numbering in RTF files, helped Miklós with floating table polishing, fixed an issue with date conversion in Base, made URL handling more robust in Extension updating code, fixed and issue with spacing in lists in RTF files, fixed RTF export issues causing loss of bullet fonts and “No character border” explicit formatting and fixed some crashes. He also did many code cleanups and optimisations
  11. Caolán McNamara (Collabora) fixed many issues found by static analysers and did code cleanups and optimisations
  12. Stephan Bergmann (Collabora) worked on the WASM build. He also adapted the code to compiler changes and did code cleanups
  13. Noel Grandin (Collabora) made Skia rendering backend mandatory on Windows and greatly improved the import time of CSV data with trailing newline characters. He also did many code cleanups and optimisations, especially in the area of transparency handling
  14. Justin Luth (Collabora) made it so failed command line operations return exit status 1, allowing for automated bisecting of command line issues among other things, fixed an issue with spellchecking and the option “Check uppercase words” and fixed a style continuity issue with page breaks in DOCX files
  15. Michael Weghorn (TDF) continued cleaning up and reorganising accessibility-related code, made the orientation radio buttons in Envelope dialog accessible, fixed an issue with unwanted focus accessibility events being fired in Borders tab page of Writer’s Paragraph dialog, made the border preset selection be clearly indicated when focused, implemented support for native colour pickers in GTK and Qt UIs and did cleanups and reorganisations in Android, vcl and report design code. He also worked on using native widgets in Qt UIs
  16. Balázs Varga (Collabora) implemented support for Microsoft Media Foundation APIs on Windows to for playback of common codecs, fixed Calc’s MATCH function returning an incorrect result with inline arrays and fixed an issue

Friday
08 August, 2025


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Adhering to these guidelines can enhance productivity and guarantee that documents remain consistent, robust and accessible over time, irrespective of the platform.

Firstly, use an editor such as LibreOffice that natively supports the format without conversion. This preserves the nuances of the ODF XML structure, supports all its features and reduces the risk of formatting issues or data loss. It also ensures that documents are fully compatible with the ISO standard.

Secondly, use an up-to-date version of LibreOffice to benefit from continuous improvements in ODF feature management, avoid bugs that could cause file corruption (a rare event thanks to the robustness of the ODF format, but still possible) and enjoy the highest level of security in file management.

Thirdly, use LibreOffice document templates and styles for all elements, such as headings, fonts, paragraphs, and tables, to ensure consistent formatting throughout the document. This allows you to make global changes quickly by changing the style rather than each individual element, and improves accessibility, as screen readers and other assistive technologies rely on a consistent structure. This also results in smaller, more robust ODF files.

Creating and reusing LibreOffice templates is an excellent practice for companies that produce many similar documents (such as invoices or monthly reports). Once all the characteristics of the document have been defined, simply save it in ‘template’ format to obtain a blank copy with all repetitive elements already in place.

The fourth condition is to save and back up documents frequently and regularly. ODF files are compressed XML files, which makes them robust and reliable, but not immune to problems. In a business environment, it is advisable to use a cloud storage solution with a version history, such as Nextcloud, which allows you to revert to an earlier version of a file.

The fifth recommendation is to avoid overly complex formatting to ensure maximum compatibility when sharing ODF files with a diverse audience or converting them to other formats, such as Microsoft Office proprietary formats, because complicated layouts, embedded objects or macros may not work or appear differently.

It is recommended that you use basic styles and standard LibreOffice fonts (open source and available to all users), or fonts that can be installed by any user, independently of the operating system, even if backed by an End User Licence Agreement (such as Microsoft Aptos, which can only be downloaded from the Microsoft website). You should also avoid excessive use of tables or nested text boxes.

The sixth condition is to integrate multimedia content sensibly, optimising images or videos used in presentations to reduce their size without compromising quality.

The seventh and final condition is to always save the original file in ODF format, even when sharing with users who insist on using Microsoft Office’s proprietary format — thereby handing over ownership of their files to Microsoft. Once the document is finalised, save a copy in OOXML format and share this with Microsoft users.

Similarly, when receiving an OOXML document from a Microsoft user, immediately save a copy


Thursday
07 August, 2025


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  • Packed, hearts set for home, rested by the beach, bus, plane, car - back home. Good to see Leanne; bed early - two hours ahead time-wise.

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The Document Foundation's team

Love LibreOffice development? Want to turn your passion into a paid job? We are The Document Foundation (TDF), the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice. We’re passionate about free software, the open source culture and about bringing new companies and people with fresh ideas into our community.

To improve the user interface of LibreOffice, the office productivity suite for over 200 million users around the globe, we’re searching for a developer (m/f/d) to start work (from home) as soon as possible. This is what you’ll do:

  • Work on the LibreOffice codebase (mostly C++)
  • Focus on LibreOffice’s user interface, in the way it is rendered and laid out
  • Fix bugs, implement new features, and improve the quality of the UI code in LibreOffice while working together with the design team and other contributors
  • Document what you do, actively share knowledge in public with volunteers and contributors via blog posts, workshops and conference talks, so other developers and users have an easier time learning about your work

Examples of tasks:

  • Convert the remaining uses of macOS Carbon API to Cocoa and move from deprecated functions to supported ones
  • Rework the code responsible for the Tabbed UI and other alternative UIs to make it consistent with the rest of the UI

What we want from you:

  • Very good C++ development skills
  • Proven experience working on macOS
  • Proven experience working with UI toolkits
  • Good understanding of graphics programming
  • Good team-playing skills
  • Speaking and writing English

Previous development experience under Windows and Linux and contributions to FOSS projects (show us your repos!) are a plus. A previously established relationship within the developer community, as well as with other teams such as QA is a plus, but it is not mandatory at the start and can be achieved during the work itself.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

Join us!

All jobs at The Document Foundation are remote jobs, where you can work from your home office or a co-working space. The work time during the day is flexible, apart from a few fixed meetings. The role is offered as full-time (ideally 40 hours per week). While we prefer full-time for the role, part-time applications, or proposals to grow the hours over time, will be considered. Candidates that are resident in (or willing to relocate to) Germany will be employed directly by TDF. Otherwise, external payroll services will be used if available in the candidate’s country of residence.

Are you interested? Get in touch! We aim to schedule the first interview within two weeks of your application. You can also approach us any time for an informal chat, to learn about the role or in case of questions.

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, gender, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age. Don’t


Wednesday
06 August, 2025


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  • J. out for an intermediate paddleboarding lesson; took H. and M. for a sail in a Quest - the wind veering amazingly around the compass - onto, then off-shore, then no wind etc.
  • The team published the next strip: "Spending a surplus"
    The Open Road to Freedom - strip#29 - Spending a surplus
  • Final windsurfing in the afternoon, a somewhat exhausing time of gusts of wind then none, repeated clambering up the board, good practice I guess.
  • Ministry in the evening, dinner, swimming, evening celebration of the week - having met lots of lovely people.

Tuesday
05 August, 2025


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  • Prayer on the beach, Breakfast, took J. out for a sail in a Quest, fun. Lunch.
  • Out to the Hatziioannou Estate with H. and M. for some organic wine-tasting action; fun.
  • Rested by the sea & pool with the babes, who enjoyed the free Bingo game, good to spend time with them.

Monday
04 August, 2025


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  • J. and M. biked to Kerveli Bay, rested by the pool.
  • Windsurfing in the afternoon - a great combination of wind and wave: good progress up-wind, and ran back to the beach at the end - spent much more time out of the water; lots of bruising and sanding of fore-arms on board grip though/
  • Dinner, Go-Karting in the evening, leaving H.&J. at the hotel - M.&E. discovered amazing new ways to get underneath the protective tires somehow.

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Dione Maddern with quote saying the LibreOffice documentation team are such a great bunch of people to work with

Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…

Danish Ministry switching from Microsoft Office/365 to LibreOffice

  • Then we posted the LibreOffice Podcast, Episode #4 – Documentation in Free and Open Source Software. What exactly makes “good” documentation? And why is it important today? Watch to learn more (also available on PeerTube).

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.

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If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

XML logo

  • On July 17, we announced LibreOffice 25.2.5. This is the fifth minor update to the 25.2 branch, with bugfixes and compatibility improvements. All users are recommended to upgrade.

LibreOffice 25.2 banner

  • And while that branch is being updated regularly, we’re also preparing for the next major release. LibreOffice 25.8 RC2 is available for testing – thanks in advance to everyone who helps to report issues, so we can make it a rock-solid final version!

Getting Started Guide 25.2 cover

Group photo from LibreOffice Asia Conference 2024

Keep in touch – follow us on Mastodon, X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, Reddit and Facebook. Like what we do? Support our community with a donation – or join our community and help to make LibreOffice even better!


Sunday
03 August, 2025


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  • Early breakfast, off to Pythagorio for a ferry to Ephesus. Coach tour of the rather well preserved and photogenic ruins - great to see where Paul was teaching.
  • Dragged through a number of tourist-trap / bazaars, lunch at a fine place by the dock, ferry home. Dinner, pool.

Saturday
02 August, 2025


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  • J. bike ride to the White Chapel, slept. Paddleboarding taster - with some Kayaking.
  • Wind-surfing in the afternoon, balance improved by looking at the horizon, staying on somewhat more.
  • Out for another sailing refresher in a Venture with a group of ladies.
  • Sat by/in the pool, and on the beach into the evening, watching the moon on the water, and started getting into reading Dominion.

Friday
01 August, 2025


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  • Up early, prayer meeting on the beach before breakfast. Wandered out to Psili Ammos for lunch and a swim.
  • Back with J.H.N.M. for a windsurfing taster lesson in the afternoon; lots of falling in the water, sailing refresher afterwards.
  • Worship & teaching before dinner.
  • Out to Pythagorio by night for shopping, and to see the harbour lit up - full of large yachts, and a statue of the eponymous mathmetician. Bed late.

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ODF ensures that documents remain accessible, portable, and free from restrictions. Now that version 1.3 has been widely adopted and version 1.4 is on the horizon, it’s time to have a look at the new features and upcoming releases.

ODF 1.3: What’s New

ODF 1.3 was finalised in January 2021 by OASIS. It introduced a number of long-awaited improvements, particularly in the areas of security, digital signatures, and document integrity.

1. Digital signatures and document security:

One of the most significant enhancements in ODF 1.3 was the formal specification for digital signatures:

  • It now supports XAdES (XML Advanced Electronic Signatures).
  • You can sign entire documents, individual parts (e.g. only spreadsheets), or even multiple sections.
  • Improved metadata provides information about who signed, when and under what circumstances.

This is a significant development for public administrations and organisations that require reliable document verification.

2. OpenPGP support for encryption

  • ODF 1.3 now offers optional OpenPGP-based encryption in addition to the traditional Blowfish method.
  • Higher cryptographic standards and better integration with tools such as GnuPG are also included.
  • It encourages key-based encryption for personal and business documents.

3. Change management:

  • The format now offers greater granularity for change management.
  • Supports change tracking in tables, which was previously a weak point.
  • Improves compatibility with editing tools that handle collaborative workflows.

4. Metadata:

  • Improved management of custom metadata fields using RDF.
  • Greater richness of semantic descriptions of content (e.g. for archival or academic purposes).
  • Encourages integration with deep graphs and linked data systems.

5. Other changes:

  • New chart types and charting features.
  • Improved text formatting options.
  • Improved compliance with accessibility standards.

ODF 1.3 introduced two new compliance modes: Strict, for clean documents that comply with the specifications, and Extended, which allows specific enhancements by a company for broader feature support.

What’s new in ODF 1.4

ODF 1.4 is still under active development, with the first drafts already implemented in the latest versions of LibreOffice. Although the specifications are not final, the following is planned:

1. Change tracking:

  • Support for tracking style changes (e.g. switching from bold to italic).
  • Better differentiation between insertions, deletions and formatting changes.
  • Change IDs and support for real-time conflict resolution for collaborative editing.

2. Charts:

  • More flexibility in charts, including custom colours, gradient fills, multiple axes and formatted data labels.
  • Better alignment with modern expectations and improved interoperability with Excel.

3. Accessibility:

  • Clearer semantics for assistive technologies.
  • Improved navigation for screen readers.
  • Structural tags for headings, lists and tables make documents easier to analyse programmatically.

4. Form controls:

  • More robust form field types, such as date pickers, drop-down menus and sliders.
  • Better interaction support for forms within spreadsheets and presentations.
  • Cross-platform consistency.

5. Improved spreadsheet features:

  • Native support for named ranges in the sheet.
  • Improved formula representation for functions in edge cases.
  • More complex conditional formatting rules.

6. Compatibility:

  • Mapping of Microsoft Office formats (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX) to reduce conversion issues.
  • Improved handling of embedded media

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Photo from the LibreOffice Asia Conference 2024

Photo from the LibreOffice Asia Conference 2024

This is a translation of the Japanese post:


The LibreOffice Asia Conference Committee is pleased to invite proposals for talks at the LibreOffice Asia Conference 2025, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan, on December 13 (Saturday) and 14 (Sunday), at IIJ Head Office (Iidabashi Grand Bloom).

This conference brings together LibreOffice users and contributors across Asia — including developers, translators, QA testers, community organizers, and marketing professionals — to share knowledge, tools, experiences, and challenges. We will welcome international guests, including team members from The Document Foundation, and encourage cross-border exchange and collaboration.

The conference will be held as a single-track event over two days, with most sessions in English. However, talks in Japanese are also welcome. If you plan to give your talk in Japanese, please prepare your slides in English so that non-Japanese-speaking attendees can follow along. We may also organize separate workshops or additional sessions.

Please make sure to check the following for details such as the event schedule.
(The information will be updated as needed.)
wiki.documentfoundation.org/Events/2025/LibreOffice_Asia_Conference

Here are some examples of topics (but not limited to):

  • Case studies of LibreOffice adoption or ODF migration efforts
  • Technical insights into LibreOffice code development
  • Community activities such as translation, quality assurance, outreach, or marketing
  • Tips and techniques for using LibreOffice effectively

Talk duration: 25 minutes including Q&A

  • The presentation will be recorded and made publicly available.
  • Please apply the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license to your presentation slides.
  • Please submit your slides after the event.

Travel support:
We may provide travel support to accepted speakers traveling from outside Tokyo:

  • Airfare or bullet train tickets
  • Hotel accommodation (up to 2 nights; up to 4 nights for those traveling long distances, e.g., from overseas)

How to submit

Please submit your proposal via the following website:
events.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-asia-conference-2025/
If you have difficulty submitting through the website, please send an email to ja-contact@libreoffice.org with the following information and with the email subject “Proposal Submission for LibreOffice Asia Conference 2025”:

  • Your name
  • Your email address
  • Your profile
  • Talk title
  • Abstract (around 130-250 words)
  • Travel cost approximate estimation (only if you want to request travel support)

Due to limited hotel availability in Tokyo, please make a cancelable hotel reservation at the time of your CFP submission.

Submission deadline: September 16, 2025, 23:59 (JST, UTC+9)

Notification of acceptance: by October 1, 2025


Thursday
31 July, 2025


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  • Up remarkably early with the babes, folded ourselves and luggage into the car, and off to Gatwick. Checked in, and flew with TUI to Samos.
  • Coach to the hotel by the beach, welcome meeting, briefing on bikes, watersports etc. Bed early.

Wednesday
30 July, 2025


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  • Customer contract call, internal call, cusotmer kick-off. More last-minute admin, plugged away at contracts, later customer call, sync with Philippe.
  • Published the next strip: The result, or the credit ?
    The Open Road to Freedom - strip#28 - The result, or the credit
  • Packing, bed early.

Tuesday
29 July, 2025


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The LibreOffice Documentation Team is excited to announce the release of the brand new Getting Started Guide 25.2, updated with all the latest features of LibreOffice 25.2!

Whether you’re brand new to LibreOffice or just want a fast track to mastering its tools, this guide is your perfect starting point. Inside, you’ll find easy-to-follow introductions to:

📝 Writer (word processing)
📊 Calc (spreadsheets)
📽 Impress (presentations)
🎨 Draw (vector graphics)
🧮 Math (formula editor)
📚 Base (database management)

This guide is part of our growing collection of documentation — lovingly written, edited, and reviewed by a global team of dedicated volunteers who are passionate about open-source software and digital freedom.

👏 The 25.2 update was coordinated by Dione Maddern, with valuable contributions from Peter Schofield, Jean Weber, Ed Olson, Karen Burke, B. Antonio F., and Olivier Hallot. A huge thanks to everyone involved!

📥 Ready to dive in? Download the guide for free from the Documentation website or check it out on the Bookshelf Project.


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  • Planning call, sync with Laser, catch up with Dave; sync with Andras, admin and contract bits variously. Multi-partner meeting. Trying to clear the decks for holiday.

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LibreOffice 25.8 will be released as final on August, 20, 2025 (check the Release Plan). LibreOffice 25.8 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) brings us closer to the final version, which will be preceded by Release Candidate 3 (RC3). Check the release notes to find the new features included in this version of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice 25.8 RC1 can be downloaded for Linux, macOS and Windows, and it will replace the standard installation.

In case you find any problem in this pre-release, please report it in Bugzilla (you just need a legit email account in order to create a new account).

For help, you can contact the QA Team directly in the QA IRC channel or via Matrix.

LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven community project, so please help us to test, we appreciate your contribution! Happy testing!!!


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LibreOffice 25.8 will be released as final on August, 20, 2025 (check the Release Plan). LibreOffice 25.8 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) brings us closer to the final version, which will be preceded by Release Candidate 3 (RC3). Since the previous release, LibreOffice 25.8 RC1, 70 commits have been submitted to the code repository and 34 issues got fixed. Check the release notes to find the new features included in this version of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice 25.8 RC2 can be downloaded for Linux, macOS and Windows, and it will replace the standard installation.

In case you find any problem in this pre-release, please report it in Bugzilla (you just need a legit email account in order to create a new account).

For help, you can contact the QA Team directly in the QA IRC channel or via Matrix.

LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven community project, so please help us to test, we appreciate your contribution! Happy testing!!!

Download it now!


Monday
28 July, 2025


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  • Mail chew, sync with Miklos, Naomi, Chris, Pedro, Eloy, Philippe, dinner.

Sunday
27 July, 2025


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  • All Saints in the morning, good band - new drummer, N. singing, fun. Back for a use-ups lunch with everyone.
  • Talked with the babes and slugged variously, watched movies rested thoroughly.

Saturday
26 July, 2025


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  • Up extremely early, poked at mail, found a customer to support, worked away at some analysis, tickets, tried to clear the desk to get to hacking - without success.
  • Prepped the house with the family for Bruce's 90'th Birthday celebration, streamers, bunting, washed outdoor chairs; bid 'bye to Josh, and welcomed lots of J's family, lovely to catch up with some not seen in many years.
  • Played games with the cousins after most people left, cleared up the aftermath; fun.

Friday
25 July, 2025


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  • Up early, mail chew, sync with Dave. Analysis in the afternoon, dug through quite some chunks of new code.
  • Adcocks person around to poke at the house variously; Josh over for dinner - really good to meet him; played games together.

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If you’ve ever wondered what those .odt, .ods, or .odp files are all about – or if you’ve stumbled across them and weren’t sure what to do – this post is for you.

.odt: The Open Document Text File

Think of .odt as the open counterpart to .docx. It’s the default file format for LibreOffice Writer. You can use it for everything from a quick grocery list to a dissertation.

What’s great about .odt is that it’s built on open standards. That means anyone can build software to read or write it without jumping through legal hoops. It also means you’re not tied to one company’s ecosystem, which is increasingly important when you think about long-term access to your own data.

Yes, you can open .odt files in Word – and yes, the formatting usually holds up pretty well. Not perfect, but usable.

.ods: Spreadsheets Without Strings Attached

Spreadsheets aren’t just for accountants anymore. Whether you’re managing a budget, tracking tasks, or planning a trip, you’re probably using rows and columns for something. .ods is the ODF version of .xlsx, and it’s handled by tools like LibreOffice Calc.

If you’re used to Excel, Calc will feel familiar enough. Basic formulas, charts, conditional formatting – it’s all there. Advanced Excel users might bump into limits (especially with macros or highly specific plugins), but for everyday work, .ods gets the job done.

And again, it’s open. Your data isn’t buried in a proprietary format you need a subscription to access five years from now.

.odp: Presentations Without PowerPoint

Then there’s .odp, the ODF format for presentations. It works like PowerPoint’s .pptx. You’ve got slides. You’ve got transitions. You’ve got bullet points. Even if you’re trying to build the next TED Talk with embedded video and flashy animations, it’s more than enough.

LibreOffice Impress opens and edits .odp files easily, and you can usually open them in PowerPoint too, though some visual effects might not translate perfectly. For most professional or academic presentations, it’s a reliable option – especially when you don’t know what software will be available on the receiving end.

Other File Types in the ODF Family

ODF isn’t limited to just text, spreadsheets, and slides. There are a few lesser-known formats worth mentioning:

  • .odg – for vector graphics and diagrams. Think flowcharts, not Photoshop.
  • .odf – confusingly, this one’s for formulas (as in math), used by LibreOffice Math.
  • Templates like .ott (text), .ots (spreadsheets), and .otp (presentations) make it easy to standardize layouts and branding across documents.

These formats are all part of the same ecosystem. They’re modular, open, and designed to work well together.

Why It Matters

It’s easy to dismiss file formats as a technical detail, but they shape who controls access to your work. When you rely only on proprietary formats, you’re tied to that company’s tools, updates, subscriptions and limitations. You’re


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You know what: Microsoft became miserably incompetent in IT.

I develop open-source code. But that never made me one of the “I hate proprietary software or IT giant corporations” types. I always saw the nice things that Microsoft offered to its users; I saw not only downsides in its products. And I also used (and continue to use) things created by it: Windows to start with (and I develop there, being able to debug and address issues specific to the platform that most of our users use); but also its email service for personal mail.

This Monday, I decided to send something to LibreOffice dev mailing list. Something I do from time to time, you know. Not too fascinating, right?

Well, this time, it turned out, Microsoft decided to teach me to fear them. Thunderbird shown me a message, that the mail couldn’t be sent (well, not a problem: will re-try again…), but then I found myself logged off, with “Your account has been blocked” message. They decided, that I violated their service agreement!

FTR: here is the mail. I was able to send it using another tech giant’s mail service. You may see that it’s full of links. Yes, that’s true; I prefer to provide references to my words. But tell me where was it violating anything in MS agreement?

OK, they have a stupid AI that is worse than good old filters. OK, they made it react immediately, as an undoubted authority. But that’s not a big problem, right? They provide a way to appeal! Let me do that.

And of course, they ask for the phone, and I provide it, just to get a nice reply:

And guess what: there is no other method!

OK! Let’s ask their support. (I am approaching to the point that fascinated me most.) I found a link to “Contact Microsoft Support” on the “Troubleshooting verification code issues” page; and after some automatic answers there, which didn’t answer my problem, I finally got a button telling me … tada …

Yes, you got it right. “Here is a page where we discuss problems signing in. You attempted our FAQ suggestions? You still can’t sign in? No problem! Contact our Support team, and we will solve your problem is a minute! But first, please sign in to continue.”

Heh. I used my wife’s account to contact support. And then I was given a very secret link to an appeal form, where I could file a support ticket. And the next morning, I got a message! Yay! It told me to do something! Let me try! What is that they tell me to do? Reading… hmm… go to sign-in page, and when they tell me that my account is blocked, provide a phone number? Wasn’t it exactly the thing I attempted and failed, and told them about that? But hey, they obviously fixed that problem overnight, they couldn’t just send me the useless instructions, right


Thursday
24 July, 2025


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  • Up rather early, mail chew, pleased to see my new favourite dating app announced: Tender.
  • Tech. planning call, sync with Lily, lunch, Quarterly Management meeting with a customer call & some preparation in between. Worked late, ate at desk, chat with Mother in the evening.

Wednesday
23 July, 2025


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  • Mail chew, research.
  • Published the next strip around investing in the future and making a splash:
    The Open Road to Freedom - strip#27 - Investing in the future
  • Somehow this afternoon & evening is an highly contended zone for meetings - Collabora monthly management call, GNOME Advisory Board, Customer call and TDF Advisory Board all competing for the same slot.
  • Band practice in the evening.

Friday
18 July, 2025


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A document format is a tool for sharing knowledge and, as such, should be as simple and accessible as possible in relation to the complexity of the document content itself. This remains true even when the format is based on an XML schema that is hidden from users when the document is displayed on screen.

Unfortunately, while an XML schema can be simple, it can also be unnecessarily complex, bloated, convoluted and difficult to implement without specific knowledge of its features. This is true even if the on-screen documents are identical. In this case, complexity is an intentional tactic used to lock users into a vendor, as is the case with the Microsoft 365 document format.

An XML schema comprises the structure, data types and rules of an XML document and is described in an XML Schema Definition (XSD) file. This tells the PC what to expect and checks that the data follows the rules. In theory, XML and XSD together form the basis of the concept of interoperability. However, in practice, an XML schema can be made so complex that it becomes a barrier rather than a bridge.

An “artificially complex” XML schema goes beyond the level of complexity needed to display even the most intricate content on screen. In fact, it is completely disconnected from the actual complexity of the content, to the extent that even a simple sentence such as “To be, or not to be, that is the question” becomes an inextricable sequence of tags that users cannot access.

This artificial complexity is characterised by a deeply nested tag structure with excessive abstraction, dozens or even hundreds of optional or overloaded elements, non-intuitive naming conventions, the widespread use of extension points and wildcards, the multiple import of namespaces and type hierarchies, and sparse or cryptic documentation.

In the case of the Microsoft 365 document format, the only characteristic not present is sparse or cryptic documentation, given that we are talking about a set of documents totalling over 8,000 pages. All the other characteristics are present to a greater or lesser extent, making life almost impossible for a developer trying to implement the schema.

To illustrate how this translates into a lock-in strategy, consider a railway system where the tracks are accessible to all, but the main train manufacturer imposes its own incredibly complicated control system. In theory, anyone could build a train compatible with the tracks, but the control system specifications are so convoluted that only the main train manufacturer can ultimately offer rail services.

The worst thing is that passengers don’t realise they are being held hostage by technical constraints that they cannot understand until ticket prices rise or the number of cities served declines. At this point, the main manufacturer can dictate its terms, which passengers are forced to accept.

This is very similar to what is happening in the world of information technology, where Microsoft is effectively forcing its customers to switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 against their will


Thursday
17 July, 2025


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LibreOffice 24.8 has now reached the end of life, so all users have to update their free office suite to the latest release

Berlin, 17 July 2025 – The Document Foundation announces the release of LibreOffice 25.2.5, the fifth maintenance release of the LibreOffice 25.2 family for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux OSs, available for download at www.libreoffice.org/download [1].

LibreOffice 24.8 has reached the end of life, which means that this release – which includes dozen of fixes and enhancements that further improve reliability, performance and interoperability – is suggested for production environments, and all users should update their installation as soon as possible.

LibreOffice 25.2.5 is based on the LibreOffice Technology, which enables the development of desktop, mobile and cloud versions – either from TDF or from the ecosystem – that fully support the two ISO standards for document formats: the open ODF or Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP) and the closed and proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX).

Products based on the LibreOffice Technology are available for all major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and the cloud.

For enterprise-class deployments, TDF recommends a LibreOffice Enterprise-optimized version from one of the ecosystem companies, with dedicated value-added features and other benefits such as SLAs and security patch backports for three to five years.

English manuals for LibreOffice 25.2 Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Math are available for download at books.libreoffice.org/en/. End users can get first-level technical support from volunteers on the user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: ask.libreoffice.org.

Downloading LibreOffice

All available versions of LibreOffice for the desktop can be downloaded from the same website: www.libreoffice.org/download/.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can support The Document Foundation and the LibreOffice project by making a donation: www.libreoffice.org/donate.

[1] Fixes in RC1: wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/25.2.5/RC1. Fixes in RC2: wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/25.2.5/RC2.


Thursday
10 July, 2025


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LibreOffice 25.8 will be released as final at the end of August, 2025 ( Check the Release Plan ) being LibreOffice 25.8 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) the third pre-release since the development of version 25.8 started at the beginning of December, 2024. Since the previous release, LibreOffice 25.8 Beta1, 178 commits have been submitted to the code repository and 101 issues got fixed. Check the release notes to find the new features included in this version of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice 25.8 RC1 can be downloaded for Linux, macOS and Windows, and it will replace the standard installation.

In case you find any problem in this pre-release, please report it in Bugzilla ( You just need a legit email account in order to create a new account ).

For help, you can contact the QA Team directly in the QA IRC channel or via Matrix.

LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven community project, so please help us to test – we appreciate it!

Happy testing!!

Download it now!

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