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Mark Rotteveel and documentation team migrated the first documents to asciidoc – Docbuilding Howto https://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/html/en/firebirddocs/docbuildhowto/firebird-docbuilding-howto.html – Docwriting Guide https://www.firebirdsql.org/file/documentation/html/en/firebirddocs/docwritehowto/firebird-docwriting-guide.html ps: Since May/June 2020, the Firebird
Hi! I live in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and work remotely on PT Sakti Kinerja Kolaborasindo (the office is in Bogor, West Java) as UI and Graphic Designer. Aside from being an active member of the Indonesian LibreOffice community, I am also one of the founders of the Gimpscape ID community (a design community focused on open source applications). Regarding hobbies – hmm, I have an interest in ancient manuscripts (Malay manuscripts), Kamen Rider, and really always enjoy detective, mystery, adventure, and comedy-themed drama films.
You can find me on Instagram, Twitter and Telegram.
The first reason is, because Ahmad Haris (he’s my boss in the office) “sudo’d” me to apply for membership :-) But to be honest, I was indeed very interested in becoming a member since the LibreOffice Conference Indonesia in Surabaya about two years ago.
By becoming a member, I think I can do things related to contributing to LibreOffice better than before. Being a member is a responsibility, in my opinion. Because it means I have to do my best from time to time for the LibreOffice community, both in Indonesia and outside. LibreOffice will get better if the community ecosystem is also good. Well, one of the tasks of members (in my mind) is to ensure that these communities can actively give feedback to LibreOffice, so that they can grow and develop better.
At the moment I am still improving the LibreOffice Theme Changer extension (which I presented some time ago at FOSDEM), occasionally helping with translations, QA, managing Indonesian LibreOffice social media (Instagram, Twitter, and the blog), and inviting community members to learn how to be active contributors. For example, I invited two female members to work on two sets of icons named that we named Srikandi and LibreKids. Making these two icons is a form of learning to contribute to LibreOffice in terms of design.
When there isn’t too much work (both at office or at the university), I usually take time to create a video tutorial related to LibreOffice or other FOSS that I upload on my YouTube channel.
In addition, I and many other Asians (Haris, Frank, Shinji, Naruhiko, DaeHyun, and others) are currently spreading the spirit of Open Document format in the Asian region, through the LibreOffice Asia League.
I really wanted to realize the LibreOffice for Kids task with Marina Latini – I heard she was one of the people who was also working on this topic. One of the reasons why LibreOffice is still less popular in Indonesia, compared to similar applications, is this: since elementary school, children have already been introduced to proprietary office applications.
I know that change cannot happen overnight, but if it does not start from now it will not …
Berlin, May 21, 2020 – The Document Foundation announces the availability of LibreOffice 6.4.4, the 4th minor release of the LibreOffice 6.4 family, targeted at technology enthusiasts and power users. LibreOffice 6.4.4 includes many bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility.
LibreOffice 6.4.4 represents the bleeding edge in term of features for open source office suites, and as such is not optimized for enterprise-class deployments, where features are less important than robustness. Users wanting a more mature version can download LibreOffice 6.3.6, which includes some months of back-ported fixes.
For enterprise class deployments, TDF strongly recommends sourcing LibreOffice from one of the ecosystem partners, to get long-term supported releases, dedicated assistance, custom new features and other benefits, including SLAs (Service Level Agreements): https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/. Also, the work done by ecosystem partners flows back into the LibreOffice project, benefiting everyone.
LibreOffice’s individual users are helped by a global community of volunteers: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/. On the website and the wiki there are guides, manuals, tutorials and HowTos. Donations help us to make all of these resources available.
Availability of LibreOffice 6.4.4
LibreOffice 6.4.4 is immediately available from the following link: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Minimum requirements are specified on the download page. TDF builds of the latest LibreOffice Online source code are available as Docker images: https://hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online/.
LibreOffice 6.4.4’s change log pages are available on TDF’s wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.4.4/RC1 (changed in RC1) and https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Releases/6.4.4/RC2 (changed in RC2).
All versions of LibreOffice are built with document conversion libraries from the Document Liberation Project: https://www.documentliberation.org.
Support LibreOffice
LibreOffice users are invited to join the community at https://ask.libreoffice.org, where they can get and provide user-to-user support. People willing to contribute their time and professional skills to the project can visit the dedicated website at https://whatcanidoforlibreoffice.org.
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can provide financial support to The Document Foundation with a donation via PayPal, credit card or other tools at https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.
(Note: this is a section from The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2019, which will be published in full in the coming weeks.)
In 2019, the conference was organized in Almeria by the Spanish community, and took place from Tuesday, September 10 to Friday, September 13. Most of the conference took place in the Universidad de Almeria, next to the sea, but some social events and meetups were held in the city itself.
Over 100 people from across the globe attended the conference; for several people, it was their first LibreOffice Conference and therefore the first time they could meet other community members in-person.
On Tuesday, before the main conference presentations got underway, there was a community meeting. Various members of the LibreOffice community joined for informal talks about marketing and localisation of the software, and what we can do to bring more people into the project.
Wednesday kicked off with the opening session: a welcome and introduction from the university’s staff; the “state of the project” (summarising the last 12 months of activity in LibreOffice); quick introductions to the TDF team, Board of Directors and Membership Committee; and messages from the sponsors.
During the conference, there were over 70 talks, workshops and feedback sessions on all manner of topics. Some talks focused on technical aspects, such as continuous integration, build systems and debugging, while others were geared towards the community and other non-technical matters – for instance, getting new contributors, how the Membership Committee works, and reports from events in Asia.
In addition, community members and developers gave talks about LibreOffice Online, the PDF export feature, SmartArt editing in Impress, reproducible builds, and a neural machine translation plugin for the suite. Videos of most of the presentations – and a quick summary of the whole conference – are available on TDF’s YouTube channel as a playlist:
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Outside of the conference tracks, various social events and meetups took place over the four days. On Tuesday evening we had a welcome party outside the accommodation, with drinks and light snacks. A beach dinner party was held on Wednesday, with more great local food to try, while a hackfest took place on Thursday, giving developers the opportunity to work shoulder-to-shoulder and discuss ideas in person.
On Friday, the conference organisers took us on a visit to the Alcazaba – the city’s castle – parts of which date back around 1,000 years. We had an entertaining guided tour with excellent views over the …
Microsoft released Windows 7 on October 22, 2009, and ended the support on January 14, 2020. Technical assistance and software updates from Windows Update that help protect PCs are no longer available for the product.
Microsoft released the first Service Pack for Windows 7, also known as Windows 7 SP1, in February 2011, just a few days after the release of LibreOffice 3.3, the very first release after the fork. Only the first few versions of LibreOffice could run without Windows 7 SP1, which was turning Windows 7 into a stable operating system by solving 893 bug fixes and 77 security fixes.
In 2020, we still receive complaints from users who cannot install LibreOffice because the system asks them to install Windows 7 SP1. Nine years after the release of Service Pack 1 they are surprised when they are told to update their operating system. Although Windows 7 users are now a minority, the fact that there are people who have unconsciously used their completely unsecure PCs for years is a sign of a global security issue, as these users would not behave in a different way when using a different OS.
Anyway, users who are requested to update their PCs to Windows 7 SP1 can find more details about Windows 7 SP1 and the installation instructions on this Microsoft web page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/15090/windows-7-install-service-pack-1-sp1.
Firebird Project announces the second (and last) Beta release of Firebird 4.0, the next major version of the Firebird relational database, which is now available for testing on Windows and Linux platforms. This Beta release arrives with features and improvements already implemented by the Firebird development team, as well as with countless bugfixes. Our users are appreciated giving it a try and
LibreOffice communities around the world love to meet in person, share ideas, work on the software, and have a good time. Of course, “real life” meetings have been difficult in recent months, so communities are going online instead. Daniel A. Rodriguez, LibreOffice contributor based in Argentina and TDF Board member, tells us about an online meetup at the weekend:
On Saturday, the Hispanic LibreOffice community held an online event via TDF’s Jitsi instance, and streamed on YouTube. The event started 17:00 UTC and last almost 4 hours. More that 35 people took part, which benefited from the presence of several members who are well-recognised for their participation and collaboration in the project:
- Celia Palacios, from Mexico, told us about the work of the documentation team.
- Mauricio Baeza, also from the Aztec land, talked about the potential of macros using Python.
- Xisco Fauli, from Spain, explained how quality control is applied to software in the development stages.
- Ismael Fanlo, another Spaniard, presented pivot tables.
- Gustavo Pacheco, from Brazil, talked about becoming a member and invited everyone to apply.
Meanwhile, I gave a tour of the collaboration possibilities presented by the project. This was, of course, an open event – free and aimed at anyone interested in the FOSS office suite per excellence. The event took place on Saturday May 16th on our Jitsi server. Also, thanks to our friend Servio from the open-source Latin community, we had a live broadcast through YouTube, now available as recording.
Thanks to everyone who took part! LibreOffice benefits enormously from the work of communities around the globe. If you’re reading this and want to boost LibreOffice in your country or language, check out our native-language projects and give us a hand!
LibreOffice
9to5 Linux: LibreOffice 7.0 Now Available for Public Testing, Final Release Coming in Early August
Phoronix: LibreOffice 7.0 Alpha 1 Released With Its Skia + Vulkan Rendering
Small Tech News: LibreOffice 7.0 First Release: Enhanced Compatibility with Microsoft Office Documents
Softpedia News: First LibreOffice 7.0 Version Is Now Available for Download
Interesting
ZDnet: Linux not Windows: Why Munich is shifting back from Microsoft to open source – again
Two weeks ago, we started a new Month of LibreOffice, saying thanks to contributors from our worldwide community. Everyone who helps out with our projects this month can claim a cool sticker pack at the end – and also has a chance to win a hoodie, T-shirt or mug!
So far 259 sticker packs have been awarded – click the link to see if your name/username is in the list. If not, read on and find out what you can do, 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…
We’ll be posting regular updates on this blog and our Mastodon and Twitter accounts over the next two weeks – stay tuned!
(Note: this is a section from The Document Foundation’s Annual Report 2019, which will be published in full in the coming weeks.)
The Board of Directors (or “BoD”) is the Foundation’s Board of Directors, the main administration of the Foundation’s projects and teams. Directors are directly elected by Community Members. The Board of Directors consists of seven (7) members and two (2) deputies. The Board of Directors may launch any other teams or committees ad hoc if necessary. In December, an election was held for a new Board.
Gabriele Ponzo, Chairman of TDF’s Membership Committee, announced the results:
The vote preliminary results were in conflict with § 8 IV of our statutes, as three candidates – Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws and Jan Holešovský – have the same affiliation. The elected candidates and the membership committee discussed the options to resolve the conflict and Jan Holešovský decided to not accept the role. The Membership Committee would like to thank Kendy for his support in this and especially for his longtime work in the board!
Elected as member of the Board of Directors, in this order, were: Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Franklin Weng, Daniel Armando Rodriguez, Cor Nouws, Lothar Becker and Emiliano Vavassori. Elected as deputies of the Board of Directors were: Nicolas Christener and Paolo Vecchi.
The Document Foundation relies on its Advisory Board Members in order to receive advice and support. The Advisory Board’s primary function is to represent The Document Foundation’s supporters and to provide the Board of Directors with advice, guidance and proposals. Members are the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Software in the Public Interest (SPI), UK Government Digital Services (joined in 2019), City of Munich (Landeshaupstadt München), BPM-Conseil, Kopano b.v., GNOME, Google, Adfinis SyGroup (joined in 2019), RPA RusBITech, KDE e.V., the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Collabora, CIB Software and Red Hat.
Throughout the year, TDF had regular calls with representatives of the Advisory Board. Staff and Board members at TDF provided updates on the foundation, software and community, and described plans for the future. Advisory Board members were invited to provide valuable feedback on TDF’s activities, and various ideas and proposals were discussed. TDF would like to express its thanks to all Advisory Board members for their help.
In 2019, two new staff members joined The Document Foundation’s team. Ilmari Lauhakangas (aka “buovjaga”) was well known in the community for his work in Bugzilla, and joined TDF as a Development Mentor. He described his work and plans in an interview here on the blog.
In addition, Stefan Ficht joined as an Administrative Assistant, helping Florian Effenberger (Executive Director) and the rest of the team with various tasks.
Throughout the year, TDF supported various campaigns and …
The LibreOffice Quality Assurance ( QA ) Team is happy to announce LibreOffice 7.0 Alpha1 is ready for testing!
LibreOffice 7.0 will be released as final at the beginning of August, 2020 ( Check the Release Plan ) being LibreOffice 7.0 Alpha1 the first pre-release since the development of version 7.0 started in the beginning of June, 2019. Since then, 6213 commits have been submitted to the code repository and more than 1200 bugs set to FIXED in Bugzilla. Check the release notes to find the new features included in this version of LibreOffice.
LibreOffice 7.0 Alpha1 can be downloaded from here for Linux, MacOS and Windows, and it can be installed alongside the standard version.
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 Telegram.
LibreOffice is a volunteer-driven community project, so please help us to test – we appreciate it!
Happy testing!!
…
According to our estimates, worldwide there are around 150 million LibreOffice users on Windows. And when we say worldwide we mean worldwide, as according to the origin of downloads we have users in every continent including Antarctica.
As a consequence, we get a large amount of questions related to LibreOffice on Windows. Many of these questions are about the installation process, because there are several issues which prevent the user to get the expected positive user experience. Unfortunately, the majority of these questions are related to Windows issues and not to LibreOffice issues.
When a issue is related to Windows, the Microsoft operating system will show a specific message, under the form of either an error number (for instance, “Error 1303”) or a specific sentence (for instance, “The program can’t start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer”).
Of course, over the years we have built a small knowledge base on the subject, and we have published the results on one page on the wiki, in the area of frequently asked questions: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/General/General_Installation_Issues_(Windows). Another useful resource is the Ask LibreOffice website (https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions/), where users can search for a solution.
The best resources, though, are provided by Microsoft, and are all multilingual, and are the Microsoft Support website (https://support.microsoft.com/) and the Microsoft Community website (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us). For instance, a search for “Error 1303” provides around 20 answers, with comments, on the Ask LibreOffice website, and hundreds or even thousands of answers on the two Microsoft websites.
Already for a while there was a Jenkins instance that checks patches on gerrit for the online-project (and our other projects), before they are submitted to cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/online/
This service is now running on dedicated hardware, what allows us to make it accessible directly from the internet. Links pointing to this server in TDF gerrit will work from now on.
This growing access to our development makes it easier to join the project. Which we of course encourage 
Therefore… read more about participating in developing LibreOffice online here!
If you have any questions, please leave a message here.
The post Online development CI accessible via the internet appeared first on Collabora Productivity.
Thanks to SUSE who made this possible, now we have glow effect on objects in upcoming LibreOffice 7.0. Collabora Productivity engineers Tamás Bunth and myself together have implemented it for shapes and pictures.
Below are some screenshots of a PPTX slide with glow samples collected from the relevant bug report:
How it was in 6.4
How it looks like in master towards 7.0
Reference lookWhat puzzles me is why fontworks’ (right bottom) glow is not shown in the reference, although the effect is present in its properties. Somehow now LibreOffice seems to support glow in fontworks better 
Glow on pictures is only implemented in Impress and Draw. Glow on shapes is available in all modules.
You can use Draw with a document which has a single page, which more or less acts as a canvas with unlimited size to handle vector graphics. The current limit of such a canvas in size is 600 x 600 cm. (And that can be increased further if there is demand without too large problems.)
Exporting such a document to PDF is a different matter, though. The specification (up to, and
including version 1.5) says that the unit to specify sizes is points, and the maximum allowed value
is 14 400. This means that there is no markup to describe that your page is 600 cm wide. PDF 1.6
(and newer versions) introduce a UserUnit markup to allow unlimited page size, and now Draw (and
other apps) can use this to describe the increased size.
Another use-case can be a large sheet in Calc, exporting it to a single PDF page, so you can pan around easily on a touch device. If you have enough rows, then getting rid of this limit is helpful to deal with the large page height.
Here is how a large page looks like now in Draw and then in Adobe Reader:
You can see how both Draw and Adobe Reader show that the page width is larger than 200 ".
If you would like to know a bit more about how this works, continue reading… :-)
The PDF export already converts from an internal unit (e.g. Draw uses 100th millimeters, Writer uses twips) to PDF’s unit
The trick is that now PDF’s unit is no longer points all the time, but we can dynamically switch to a larger unit as needed.
Here is how the PDF markup looks like for a 600 cm wide page:
1 0 obj
<</Type/Page/Parent 4 0 R/Resources 11 0 R/MediaBox[0 0 8503.93700787402 396]
/UserUnit 2/Group<</S/Transparency/CS/DeviceRGB/I true>>/Contents 2 0 R>>
endobj
Notice how we still avoid values larger than 14 400, but now the UserUnit says that 1 unit means 2 points.
You can get a snapshot / demo of Collabora Office and try it out yourself right now: try unstable snapshot. Collabora is a major contributor to LibreOffice and all of this work will be available in TDF’s next release too (7.0).
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