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.

Thursday
24 October, 2024

LibreOffice Dev Blog: Crash fix part 5: crash report tool

@ 14:05 UTC

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In previous blog posts about crashes in LibreOffice, I have discussed how to debug and fix some of crashes. Now I discuss a nice tool to keep track of the crash reports from volunteers: Crash report tool.

Crash Report Statistics

Crash report is available via this LibreOffice website:

You can see that different versions of LibreOffice listed there, and for each and every tracked version, number of crashes during the previous 1, 3, 7, 14 and 28 days can be seen. This is possible using the appropriate buttons on the top.

This data is gathered from those to volunteer to submit reports to make LibreOffice better.

This statistic is very helpful to understand the robustness of the builds in different versions.

Crash Signatures

If you choose a specific version, you may see signatures of the crashes. This is helpful when trying to fix crashes. For example, this is one of the crash signatures found in LibreOffice 24.8.0.3:

This shows that the crash happens in GetCharFormat() function. One may use this information to track and fix the problem.

Looking into one of the crashes, one may see the details of the crash, including the stack trace in the crashing thread, and link to the exact place of the source code that leads to the crash.

As an example, you can see this crash report.

Sometimes, experienced developers may be able to reproduce the bug using crash signatures while knowing some background. Otherwise, in most cases, filing a bug with documents and instructions to reproduce the bug is essential. Adding a link to the crash report can be helpful.

Tuesday
22 October, 2024

Official TDF Blog: Interview with Phil Shapiro, an outstanding LibreOffice advocate

@ 11:20 UTC

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According to the Library Journal, who has recently awarded him with the Movers & Shakers 2024 Award (the people shaping the future of libraries), in the Educators category, Phil Shapiro

Is an enthusiastic champion of digital inclusion and outside-of-school learning, assisting youth and adults with public Linux computers at the Takoma Park Maryland Library (TPML) and singing the praises of open-source software through his YouTube channel. His advocacy goes beyond library walls, however; he and a group of friends have delivered hundreds of computers donated by community members to families in need. One recipient, then a third grader, learned to touch type 50 words per minute before reaching middle school—and recently graduated from Yale. Shapiro also created Pairs, a paper-based math game, using LibreOffice Calc, and freely distributes it worldwide, with versions for preschool through middle school.

We have asked Phil a few questions, about his experience with LibreOffice, the math game he developed using LibreOffice Calc, and his passion for open source software.

Hi Phil, you received an award from Library Journal magazine for the mathematical game you developed with LibreOffice Calc. Can you tell us why you decided to create this game, and why you decided to do it with LibreOffice Calc?

I decided to create this free, paper-based math game to help families enjoy some recreational math activities around the dining room table. The web site for this game is at http://pairsmathgame.com I use Google Sites, the free web tool, to build this web site.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that 50 percent of the students who visit the public library where I work do not like math. If you’re going to spend hundreds of hours learning math in school, then it’s unfortunate if you do not like math. This game is intended to make math more recreational, spontaneous, fun. It might be particularly useful to grandparents raising grandchildren, where the family can have some fun number related conversations around the dining room table.

In playing this game, I also encourage students to invent their own math questions. This gives them a greater sense of agency. There is no greater thrill for a youth (or adults) than to watch someone enjoy thinking about a question you yourself invented.

My goal is to reduce the percent of students who dislike math. If we, as a society, and reduce that percentage from 50 percent to 20 percent, then the world will be a better place for everyone. We all have a role to play in reaching for that goal. I’ve done my part and I challenge others to do their part – whatever they choose their part to be.

Can you describe the math game to us? Why is it called the Pairs Math Game?

The game is shown as a grid of random numbers. The object of the game is to find two numbers that add up to 100. In the original game, these two numbers needed to live in the same column …

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Thursday
17 October, 2024

LibreOffice Dev Blog: WSL for building LibreOffice

@ 14:01 UTC

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Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a mechanism to use complete Linux distributions on Windows. Here I discuss how to use it to build LibreOffice for both Linux and Windows binaries.

What is WSL?

WSL is the relatively new mechanism in Windows that lets you use a complete Linux distribution alongside your Windows. Interoperability between WSL and Windows lets you to share files and utilities between Windows and Linux. That is where it becomes helpful for LibreOffice, as LibreOffice make depends heavily on GNU tools, which are available in Linux.

Linux or Windows?

You can use WSL for 2 different scenarios:

1. Building for Linux: this is the full Linux build, in which Linux compilers, libraries and utilities will be used to create a Linux binary. You can then run or package the Linux build. You can find more information here:

Using WSL2 is recommended, as it is supposed to be faster, and also you can simply use the graphical interface of LibreOffice.

LibreOffice build on WSL with Linux binaries, displayed on Windows

LibreOffice build on WSL with Linux binaries, displayed on Windows

When you run the resulting binary, the graphical interface is usable, and it will use GTK fronted by default.

2. Building for Windows: this is the WSL as helper mode, where it uses only a few Linux utilities like pkg-config, make, automake and a few other utilities to configure the project.  Then, GNU Make for Windows will be the tool to build the project. More information is available here:

The results are Windows .exe files, and you can simply run them on Windows as native programs.

Build Options on Windows

You can build LibreOffice on different platforms. On Windows, it is possible to use Cygwin, but using WSL can be faster, and considering some issues with recent Cygwin versions, WSL is an alternative.

One can imagine of other ways to build LibreOffice on Windows, including MinGW. But, at the moment, MinGW, both as a helper to use Visual Studio, and also as an independent distribution to build LibreOffice, is not usable due to various reasons.

And last note: if you do not have prior experience with LibreOffice development but you are interested, you can start from our video tutorial for getting started with LibreOffice development.

Tuesday
15 October, 2024

LibreOffice QA Blog: QA/Dev Report: September 2024

@ 11:25 UTC

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General Activities

  1. LibreOffice 24.2.6 was released on September 5
  2. LibreOffice 24.8.1 was released on September 12
  3. LibreOffice 24.8.2 was released on September 27
  4. Olivier Hallot (TDF) continued with a massive Help bookmark cleanup effort, updated help for BASIC Now() function, improved the help for regular expressions by including a description of \w and \W patterns and extended the Document Type Definition of Help XML
  5. Pierre F. improved readability and maintainability of the Document Type Definition of Help XML and updated help for Navigator in Calc after the addition of comment deletion functionality
  6. Dione Maddern added help pages for Properties Sidebar decks, updated help for Styles Sidebar deck and added a help page for database table references
  7. Adolfo Jayme Barrientos improved UI strings in Calc and updated Help pages accordingly
  8. Bogdan Buzea improved UI strings and updated Help pages accordingly
  9. Laurent Balland did many updates and cleanups to Impress templates, for example replacing images with vector graphics for better quality
  10. Miklós Vajna (Collabora) implemented per-paragraph semi-transparent shape text in Impress and added digital signing support to LOKit
  11. Michael Meeks, Tomaž Vajngerl, Bayram Çiçek, Rashesh Padia, Gülşah Köse and Marco Cecchetti (Collabora) worked on LOKit used by Collabora Online
  12. Jaume Pujantell (Collabora) added a command to promote a Writer reply comment to a new main one and fixed an issue with comment threads breaking when exporting ODT files as DOCX
  13. Julien Nabet fixed database queries being saved corrupted, fixed incorrectly included values with BETWEEN and NOT BETWEEN statements in dBASE file connections, fixed an issue preventing the use of Report Builder Wizard and added the new Histogram chart type to Sidebar’s Chart deck
  14. Xisco Faulí (TDF) added the schema for ODF 1.4 while doing several fixes and adaptations related to it, converted many Java tests to CppUnit tests, fixed an issue with Position and Size dialog showing dimensions in incorrect measurement units, upgraded many dependencies and fixed some crashes
  15. Michael Stahl (allotropia) fixed issues with hiding of FlyFrames in hidden sections, made zip file handling more robust, made the display of hidden text with a non-hidden paragraph marker in Microsoft document formats match that of MS Word and fixed an issue related to widow paragraphs in sections
  16. Mike Kaganski (Collabora) made BASIC’s CStr() and Format() functions produce localized output for currency values, fixed a DOCX table layout issue, fixed an issue with undo history being populated simply by opening a certain Impress presentation, implemented a fallback for inline formulas in imported PPTX files, implemented handling of Exit Property for Property Set in BASIC, improved the performance of Writer table row height calculation while also making it correct and fixed an issue resulting in broken OLE objects when re-exporting some PPTX files. He also fixed many crashes and did code cleanups
  17. Caolán McNamara (Collabora) improved the layout of Start Center and made Impress/Draw Navigator focus handling more robust. He also fixed many issues found by static analysers …
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Sunday
13 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-13 Sunday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Gave OggCamp talk:
    Wrestling a giant C++ code-base (Hybrid PDF)
    Talked to various people afterwards - handed out stickers and discussed stories of this & that.
  • Train home via London.

Saturday
12 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-12 Saturday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Up earlyish; bus to the airport, flight with KLM who do rather better than Ryanair - via Amsterdam to Manchester. Got slides nearly done on the plane.
  • Arrived at OggCamp - met lots of interesting new UK based people around FLOSS: really good, I missed the old UKUUG style conferences with a great community feel and low-commerciality.
  • Sync with Simon and met interesting people at dinner; finished slides late.

Friday
11 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-11 Friday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Up rather early; train to the strikingly cool post- industrial conference venue. Various talks.
    Introduction to problem solving techniques (Hybrid PDF)
    Collabora Online Progress Talk (Plain PDF)
  • And finally another topic that Uwe wanted presented more widely, albeit being a rather old tool:
    Collabora Online Ole Automation Tool Talk (Hybrid PDF)
  • Managed to talk with some of the board together before heading out: talking across difference respectfully is something we need to do a lot more of.
  • Back to the hotel, Ethiopian dinner, drinks with team & allotropians at the hotel until rather late.

Official TDF Blog: LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024 – Group photo 😊

@ 12:08 UTC

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We’re half-way through the event, so there’s still time to join us in Luxembourg (or you can watch recordings after the event).

Photo of attendees standing on stairs in front of the venue

Thursday
10 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-10 Thursday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Up remarkably early, train to the University; Eliane's opened, lots of open-source'y talks, gave my keynote.
    Collabora Productivity LibreOffice Conference Keynote (Plain PDF)
  • Enjoyed a number of talks from friends, partners, and caught up and shook the hand of many great contributors to the project; lunch etc.
  • Gave a tentative Building a successful Open Source business around LibreOffice talk.
  • Out for the community dinner in the evening; chatted happily to people in the evening.

Official TDF Blog: Photos from day 1 of the LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024

@ 15:36 UTC

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The LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024 has started! We’ll be uploading videos from the talks as soon as possible, and in the meantime, here are a few photos from today’s talks and events…

LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024

LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024

LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024

LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024

Wednesday
09 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-09 Wednesday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Breakfast, got slides finished; bus + pretty walk + train to the University venue. Caught up with various types before doing some OggCamp slides through the community meeting.
  • Back into town to a new hotel, enjoyed a drink, and out for dinner at a rather tiny Italian restaurant, on for some drinks.

Tuesday
08 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-08 Tuesday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Up rather early, packed, slurped mail. Taxi to the airport. Got to the hotel, worked on slides; out for dinner with Arnaud & Lionel - visited Lione's nice office too; sleep.

Monday
07 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-07 Monday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Up earlyish, quiet-time interrupted by door-bell: parcel delivery - hmm. Drove into Cambridge to see Doug & collect another laptop: the joy of an efficient sysadmin team. Returned with a surplus T14 and no fan noise - phew.
  • Plugged away at 1:1's and residual admin, marketing team call too.
  • Prepped for travel to the LibreOffice Conference in Luxembourg tomorrow early.

Official TDF Blog: Luxembourg’s Digital Learning Hub supports the LibreOffice Conference 2024

@ 14:06 UTC

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Luxembourg Digital Learning Hub

The LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024 starts in just a few days in Luxembourg, and it’s supported by the country’s Digital Learning Hub, which offers short and hands-on training courses in the fields of computer science. Director Serge Linckels says:

We are delighted to announce our partnership with the LibreOffice Conference 2024, taking place in Luxembourg. This collaboration underscores our commitment to fostering innovation and supporting the open-source community.

As the Digital Learning Hub, we are dedicated to advancing digital education and empowering individuals with the skills needed for the future. Our involvement in the LibreOffice Conference 2024 reflects our mission to promote digital literacy and open-source solutions. We believe that by supporting events like this, we can help build a more inclusive and technologically adept society.

We look forward to engaging with the vibrant community at the conference, sharing insights, and exploring new opportunities.

Thank you to The Document Foundation for organizing this pivotal event. We are very excited to be part of this journey.

Click here to learn more about the conference – and join us there!

Sunday
06 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-06 Sunday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • All Saints in the morning, home for pizza lunch. E. out early, lots of resting action with J.
  • Put up a parcel box outside, and instructions to not ring the bell: hopefully it helps reduce interruptions from the babes' shopping habits.

Saturday
05 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-05 Saturday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Talked with B&A in the morning; roast lunch. Bid 'bye to B&A; caught up with some work quickly, D. over. Mended & re-fabric'd a stool together.
  • Celebrated D's birthday with some buns, and some fun together. Worked somewhat in the evening.
  • Distressed to see & hear ThinkPad laptop fan flaking / stopped something rotten. Disassembled and re-assembled to no benefit - bother, laptop needed for travel.

Friday
04 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-04 Friday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Sync with Dave, partner group call; B&A, and Henry & Gill Shaw over - into town for a fine lunch at Unico. Back for a customer sales call.
  • B&A stayed over - nice to see them.

Miklos Vajna: Per-paragraph semi-transparent shape text in Impress

@ 06:22 UTC

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The SVG export in Impress now supports a per-paragraph setting to handle semi-transparent shape text, while previously this was only possible to control at a per-shape level.

This work is primarily for Collabora Online, but the feature is available in desktop Impress as well.

Motivation

As described in a previous post, Impress already had the capability to have semi-transparent shape text, but the SVG export of this for the case when not all paragraphs have the same setting was broken.

Transparency in SVG can be described as a property of a group (<g style="opacity: 0.5">...</g>) and it can be also a property of the text (<tspan fill-opacity="0.5">...</tspan>).

The SVG export works with the metafile of the shape, so when looking for meta actions, it tries to guess if the transparency will be for text: if so, it needs to use the tspan markup, otherwise going with the g markup is OK.

What happened here is that meta action for a normal text started, so the SVG export assumed the text is not semi-transparent, but later the second line was still transparent, so we started a group element, and this resulted in a not even well-formed XML output.

Results so far

The relevant part of the test document is simple: just 3 paragraphs, the second one is semi-transparent (and also has a bullet, as an extra):

Bugdoc: original Impress render

Once this was exported to SVG, this resulted in a non-well-formed XML, so you got this error in a web browser:

Bugdoc: old SVG render

Once tweaking the transparency mask writer to check if text started already, we get the correct SVG render:

Bugdoc: new SVG render

How is this implemented?

If you would like to know a bit more about how this works, continue reading... :-)

The bugfix commit was SVG export: fix handling of semi-transparent text inside a list.

The tracking bug was tdf#162782.

Want to start using this?

You can get a development edition of Collabora Online 24.04 and try it out yourself right now: try the development edition. Collabora intends to continue supporting and contributing to LibreOffice, the code is merged so we expect all of this work will be available in TDF's next release too (25.2).

Thursday
03 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-03 Thursday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Tech. planning call, plugged at slides and admin most of the afternoon, Worship Committee meeting in the evening - good to see David's progressing attic conversion.

Official TDF Blog: LibreOffice joined Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal 😊

@ 14:19 UTC

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LibreOffice at Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal

On September 21, free and open source software (FOSS) enthusiasts celebrated the 21st worldwide Software Freedom Day. Our community members in Nepal were not behind with the celebrations either: they were active supporting small open source communities and connecting them for the greater good in the LibreOffice community. Here’s their report:

Suraj Bhattarai, LibreOffice liaison in Nepal, was available at the LibreOffice booth at the Software Freedom Day celebration by Open Source Klub (NOSK) at Nepal College of Information and Technology (NCIT), Lalitpur.

He described how the LibreOffice booth was so busy and engaging. In particular, the LibreOffice community supported the event with fun games, swag, candies, and engagement – all while advocating for the best free and open source office suite. The booth included amazing LibreOffice merchandise, such as T-shirts, tote-bags, water-bottles, round pin plastic badges, flyers, a variety of stickers, beer mats, candies, and so forth.

LibreOffice at Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal

The booth had a LibreOffice crossword game, and showed LibreOffice 24.8 on a display for hands-on testing. There was also a presentation deck for newbies, and some verbal support/assistance to improve the LibreOffice experience and customization for easier navigation within the user interface. Suraj also mentioned that around three quarters of the people who appeared at the booth for a quick “hello” mentioned hearing about or knowing and using LibreOffice in their home or workspace.

LibreOffice at Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal

The event was mainly joined by students across Kathmandu valley, open source contributors, club alumni, and veteran FOSS contributors/kickstarters in Nepal. Apart from the event itinerary and other activities, the LibreOffice “paper plane contest” received major attention and everyone seems to have enjoyed their paper plane flight to software freedom!

The winner was awarded a 750ML aluminum water bottle, with the LibreOffice logo printed on it. Suraj concluded the competition with the 3R principle and the analogy of releasing paperwork and transitioning to digital open source office suites for document-related work pieces. The college administration expressed some interest in replacing Microsoft Office and migrating the campus computers to LibreOffice suite.

LibreOffice at Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal

Similarly, Suraj also delivered a recorded talk named “Diversity, Inclusion and Community Model in Free Software Communities” at Birendra Multiple Campus, Chitwan. There, the Software Freedom Day celebration was hosted by the Birendra Open Source Club (BOSC) with support from the LibreOffice community.

The aim of the talk was to deepen and bridge the relationship of the club with the LibreOffice community and LibreOffice activities/contributions in the future. Previously, the club contributed greatly to the success of a local event: the LibreOffice Localization Sprint 2023. Achyut Koirala, the acting president of the on-campus club, represented the LibreOffice community there.

While Suraj himself couldn’t be present, Achyut Koirala together with Shreeram Lamichhane communicated the positive feedback from the recorded talk Suraj had shared. As a closing remark, Achyut thanked the LibreOffice community as a whole for the inclusive community model and for welcoming their community into the project.

LibreOffice at Software Freedom Day celebrations in Nepal

And finally, Nirjal Bhurtel, representing LibreOffice’s local community, did the same at Kathmandu University …

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LibreOffice Dev Blog: Setting dialogs that are available via UNO Commands

@ 14:01 UTC

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LibreOffice options page provides rich set of settings for everyone who wants to tune LibreOffice to match their needs. But, what if you as a developer, need setting dialogs that are needed elsewhere in the LibreOffice application? Here I discuss some of such use cases, which are handled by defining UNO commands.

Options Page

The code for providing “Tools > Options” is not in a single module, but main part resides in cui module, which contains code which is used across different modules. Looking into cui/source/options/ folder from LibreOffice core source code, you can see various different source files related to the options. The biggest file there is cui/source/options/treeopt.cxx, which is the actual implementation of the tree-based dialog that you see when you open Tools > Options dialog. There are other C++ files that handle .ui files related to options. You can find those UI files in cui/uiconfig/ui/ folder with a name like opt*.ui:

$ ls cui/uiconfig/ui/opt*.ui

These files can be edited and they are used as described in the LibreOffice design blog:

UNO Dispatch Commands

Only some of the dialogs can be opened available via UNO dispatch commands. As an example, you may see “.uno:AdditionsDialog” is used both in cui/source/options/optgdlg.cxx for creating a dialog in Tools > Options (when you click for “more icons”), and also in sfx2/source/appl/appserv.cxx.

You can try running this UNO command in LibreOffice BASIC editor with this code snippet:

Sub Main()
    Set oDispatch = CreateUnoService("com.sun.star.frame.DispatchHelper")
    Dim args(0) As New com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
    Set oFrame = StarDesktop.Frames.getByIndex(0)
    oDispatch.executeDispatch(oFrame, ".uno:AdditionsDialog", "", 0, args)
End Sub

The above command is defined specifically to help developers use the “Extensions” dialog, anywhere in LibreOffice UI, from top menus to context menus and toolbars and also in code, in a simple way.

"Extensions

There is another dialog titled “Security Options and Warnings”, which is opened through .uno:OptionsSecurityDialog UNO command. In this way, it can be used easily in other modules of LibreOffice.

SecurityOptionsDialog

SecurityOptionsDialog

Implementing UNO Command

Adding a new UNO command was discussed before, in a separate blog post:

Adding a new UNO command

Adding a new UNO command for an options dialog is basically the same. There can be differences regarding the configurations and the data that is passed between the dialog and the caller.

When you create a dialog box directly like the code snippet below, you have access to the member functions defined for that specific dialog:

IMPL_LINK_NOARG( SwGlossaryDlg, PathHdl, weld::Button&, void )
{
    SvxAbstractDialogFactory* pFact = SvxAbstractDialogFactory::Create();
    ScopedVclPtr<AbstractSvxMultiPathDialog> pDlg(pFact->CreateSvxPathSelectDialog(m_xDialog.get()));
    SvtPathOptions aPathOpt;
    const OUString sGlosPath( aPathOpt.GetAutoTextPath() );
    pDlg->SetPath(sGlosPath);
    if(RET_OK == pDlg->Execute())
    {
        const OUString sTmp(pDlg->GetPath());
        if(sTmp != sGlosPath)
        {
            aPathOpt.SetAutoTextPath( sTmp );
            ::GetGlossaries()->UpdateGlosPath( true );
            Init();
        }
    }
}

As you can see, pDlg->GetPath() is accessible here, and you can use it to …

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Wednesday
02 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-02 Wednesday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • FY 2025 finance / planning; sync with Richard on slides, signed up somehow to too many talks I suspect, sales catch-up, late customer sales call. Band practice.

Official TDF Blog: Passbolt supporting the LibreOffice Conference 2024

@ 13:34 UTC

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LibreOffice Conference 2024 logo

Our LibreOffice and Open Source Conference 2024 is taking place next week in Luxembourg, and one of the sponsors is Passbolt S.A., which makes an open source password manager. Kevin Muller, the company’s CEO, says:

We are excited to participate in the LibreOffice and Open Source Conference, where I will be speaking about the pivotal role open source has played in Passbolt’s commercial success.

Passbolt has been 100% open source from day one—and it always will be. This approach has given us a significant competitive edge, driving market adoption and commercialization from the outset. Compared to many competitors Passbolt’s open source philosophy offers unmatched transparency and control.

In today’s world, where nations are increasingly focused on reclaiming their digital sovereignty, the transparency and trust fostered by open source software are more critical than ever.

Kevin is giving a talk on the opening day, so check it out!

Tuesday
01 October, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-10-01 Tuesday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Planning call, catch up with Karen, sync with Miklos, catch up with Tor & Kendy, partner call.

Monday
30 September, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-09-30 Monday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Lots of 1:1's, partner meetings, customer meetings.

Official TDF Blog: The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2023

@ 17:24 UTC

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The Annual Report of The Document Foundation describes the foundation’s activities and projects, especially in regard to LibreOffice and the Document Liberation Project.

We’ve been posting sections of the 2023 report here on the blog, and now the full version is available in PDF format on TDF’s Nextcloud server in two different versions: low resolution (6.4MB) and high resolution (43.7MB). The Annual Report is based on the German version presented to the authorities.

The document has been entirely created with free open source software: written contents have obviously been developed with LibreOffice Writer (desktop) and collaboratively modified with LibreOffice Writer (online), charts have been created with LibreOffice Calc and prepared for publishing with LibreOffice Draw, drawings and tables have been developed or modified (from legacy PDF originals) with LibreOffice Draw, images have been prepared for publishing with GIMP, and the layout has been created with Scribus based on the existing templates.

We at The Document Foundation are very grateful to all contributors to our projects and communities in 2023 – none of this would be possible without you!

Official TDF Blog: LibreOffice Community releases the Writer 7.6 Guide in Brazilian Portuguese.

@ 11:27 UTC

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Translated by Timothy Brennan Jr.

Rio de Janeiro, September 26, 2024 – The Brazilian LibreOffice community proudly presents its new edition of the Writer Guide 7.6 , based on LibreOffice 7.6 and with the innovations introduced in this version.

The guide meets the need for LibreOffice documentation in Brazilian Portuguese and the Writer Guide will help all LibreOffice users in editing texts, monographs, theses, reports, minutes and much more.

This book introduces the most important features of LibreOffice Writer:

  • Text typing, editing and formatting.
  • Templates and styles; Data tables.
  • Page layouts, with frames, columns and tables.
  • Exporting to PDF, including bookmarks, mail merge, fields and forms.
  • Embedding or linking images, spreadsheets and other objects.
  • Summaries, indexes and bibliographies; master documents.
  • Database integration, including a bibliographic database – and more.

The Brazilian documentation team was composed of Jackson Cavalcanti Jr., Timothy Brennan Jr., Túlio Macedo, Luciana Motta, and Olivier Hallot. The Writer’s Guide translation and editing process was coordinated by Timothy Jr.

“It has been a pleasure to work with the Brazilian team. I have had the privilege of completing the publication of the Writer’s Guide 7.6, a milestone for me personally. We are a great team and I had a lot of help during the process, which was quite valuable. I consider that working on the LibreOffice guides is a very good way to learn how to use office software and develop skills in the area”, said Timothy Brennan Jr,. “The pleasure of working on a translation and editing project of this scope, of learning new skills, and, above all, having contact with other Brazilians from different regions, is an immense and unparalleled joy”, added Timothy.

Writer’s Guide 7.6 can be downloaded in PDF and the ODF format from the LibreOffice Bookshelf website at https://books.libreoffice.org/pt-br/

Would you like to help us produce new LibreOffice guides for the Brazilian public? Contact our team at pt-docs@community.documentfoundation.org

Sunday
29 September, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-09-29 Sunday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Played at All Saints in the morning, Sue spoke; lunch & applied resting.

Saturday
28 September, 2024

Michael Meeks: 2024-09-28 Saturday

@ 21:00 UTC

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  • Poked at circular saw groove cutting with E. in the morning. Lunch, out with E. and H. to a nearby arboretum lovely sunny day, nice work with the babes.

Friday
27 September, 2024

Official TDF Blog: LibreOffice 24.8.2 is available for download

@ 11:07 UTC

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An office suite optimised for the privacy-conscious office suite user who wants full control over the information they share

Berlin, 27 September 2024 – LibreOffice 24.8.2, the second minor release of the LibreOffice 24.8 family of the free, volunteer-supported office suite for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), MacOS (Apple and Intel) and Linux, is available at https://www.libreoffice.org/download.

The release includes over 80 bug and regression fixes over LibreOffice 24.8.1 [1] to improve the stability and robustness of the software, as well as interoperability with legacy and proprietary document formats.
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. As such, LibreOffice is the best option for the privacy-conscious office suite user, and offers a feature set comparable to the leading product on the market.

In addition, 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 optimising the space available on the desktop to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away.

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.

This allows LibreOffice to produce identical and fully interoperable documents based on the two ISO standards: the Open Document Format (ODT, ODS, ODP) and the proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX). The latter hides a great deal of artificial complexity, which can cause problems for users who are confident that they are using a true open standard.

End users looking for support can download the LibreOffice 24.8 Getting Started Guide from the following link: https://books.libreoffice.org/. In addition, they will be able to get first-level technical support from volunteers on the user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: https://ask.libreoffice.org.

LibreOffice for Enterprise

For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners with dedicated value-added features and SLAs: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for enterprise customers is shared with the community on the master code repository and improves the LibreOffice Technology platform. Products based on LibreOffice Technology are available for all major desktop operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and the cloud.

The Document Foundation’s migration protocol helps companies move from proprietary office suites to LibreOffice, by installing the LTS (long-term support) enterprise-optimised version of LibreOffice, plus consulting and training provided by certified professionals: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/.

In fact, LibreOffice’s mature code base, rich feature set, strong support for open standards, excellent compatibility and LTS options make it the ideal solution for organisations looking to regain control of their data and break free from vendor lock-in …

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