The histogram says it all.

First, rapid growth between 2011 and 2014 to 30 million downloads, despite the fierce hostility of the project created to kill LibreOffice.

Then a few years of stagnation, at a time when it seemed that desktop office suites were destined to die, and fashion was driving users to the cloud.

Then the upswing, when even the most fashionable users realised that desktop office suites would never die and would coexist with the cloud.

In 2019, a series of attacks on the download counter – no data is collected other than the click on the DOWNLOAD button – led to a barely credible increase (the figure you see has already been cleaned up as much as possible).

After 2019, a slow but inexorable growth to over 35 million downloads – and 400 million downloads since 2011, with an average of 28.6 million downloads per year – in 2024.

Thanks to everyone: those who developed LibreOffice, those who helped improve it, and those who downloaded it to use it.

Click here to download LibreOffice

LibreOffice 25.2 – our next major release – is due to arrive next week! But while you’re waiting, here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more…

• We started 2025 by highlighting Hazard: A LibreOffice Impress template to play Jeopardy-like games. Marcial Machado recently posted on Reddit about his “fully-featured LibreOffice Impress template for creating Jeopardy-style games. Just add your questions and categories, and you’re good to go!” So we talked to him to find out more!

• Next, our Documentation team announced the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8. This has been updated to reflect the changes in the latest stable branch of the suite. Great work, everyone!

• Our guidebooks are being translated too, thanks to our industrious localisation communities. In January, the Czech community released its translation of the Getting Started Guide 24.8.

• Then we put the spotlight on another extension: localwriter, an optional LibreOffice Writer extension for local generative AI. LibreOffice is very privacy-oriented and includes no AI features out-of-the-box – but we know that many users are interested in AI technology, so the (again, purely optional!) extension using locally installed tools is worth a look.

• We’ll be at FOSDEM this weekend in Brussels! Come to our stand, grab some merch and have a chat – or visit the devroom for tech talks.

• And finally, we raised awareness about the upcoming Document Freedom Day, which will take place on March 26.

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!

Every year, on the last Wednesday of March, advocates of free and open technologies come together to celebrate Document Freedom Day (DFD). In 2025, the Document Freedom Day will happen on March 26, and will be driven by the LibreOffice community.

Today, Document Freedom Day – together with Software Freedom Day (SFD, celebrated in September) and Hardware Freedom Day (HFD, celebrated in April) – is coordinated by the Digital Freedom Foundation (DFF). This global event raises awareness about the importance of open standards and accessible formats in the digital age, empowering individuals, organizations, and governments to embrace freedom in how they create, share, and preserve information.

But what exactly is Document Freedom Day, and why is it so crucial in today’s world? Let’s explore its significance, the challenges posed by proprietary formats, and how embracing open standards can create a more inclusive, transparent, and resilient digital future.

What is Document Freedom Day?

Document Freedom Day was established by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to promote the use of open standards for documents, and transferred to the Digital Freedom Foundation in 2016. It is a day dedicated to advocating for formats and tools that ensure documents can be accessed, edited, and shared by anyone, without restrictions or reliance on specific software or vendors.

At its core, Document Freedom Day celebrates the idea that information should be accessible to all. It highlights the need for transparency and interoperability in digital documents, ensuring that no one is excluded or locked into using a particular platform due to proprietary constraints.

The Problem with Proprietary Formats

Proprietary formats come with significant drawbacks. They are typically controlled by a single company or entity, meaning that access to these formats can be restricted or even revoked at any time. This lack of control over how information is stored and accessed poses numerous challenges:

1. Vendor Lock-In: Proprietary formats often force users to rely on specific software, limiting their choices and tying them to a single vendor. This can lead to long-term costs, as organizations may have to pay for updates, licensing fees, or migration to alternative platforms.
2. Inaccessibility: Over time, older proprietary formats may become obsolete, making it difficult or impossible to access historical data. This is especially problematic for governments, libraries, and archives that need to preserve information for future generations.
3. Lack of Transparency: Proprietary formats often hide how data is stored, making it harder to verify, analyze, or integrate with other systems. This lack of transparency can lead to inefficiencies and mistrust.
4. Exclusion: Individuals who cannot afford expensive software or who use alternative platforms may find themselves excluded from accessing or sharing documents.

The Power of Open Standards

Open standards offer a solution to these challenges by providing formats that are publicly available and free from restrictive licensing. They are designed to be:

• Interoperable: Open standards enable seamless communication between different software and systems, allowing users to share and access information across platforms.
• Accessible: They ensure that anyone, regardless of their tools or financial …

FOSDEM is one of the largest meetups for free and open source software projects, and it takes place every year in Brussels at the ULB Solbosch campus. This year it’ll be on 1 and 2 February – and, of course, LibreOffice and The Document Foundation will be there! Our stand will be in in K level 1, so come by and have a chat, grab some merchandise (stickers, pens, flyers, beer/coffee mats), and support us with a donation if you like

We also have the LibreOffice devroom on the first day, with 20 talks and presentations about the software, technology and community.

See you there!

LibreOffice is a privacy-oriented office suite that runs on your own computer and doesn’t include AI features out-of-the-box. But we know that many users are interested in combining AI tools with the suite, so we talked to John Balis who is working on a (fully optional!) LibreOffice extension called localwriter. Here’s what he had to say…

What does the extension do?

Localwriter is a libreoffice writer extension to allow for inline generative editing with local inference. It can be used with any language model supported by Ollama or text-generation-webui. This extension adds two powerful commands to LibreOffice Writer:

• Extend Selection – Uses a language model to predict what comes after the selected text. There are a lot of ways to use this. Some example use cases for this include, writing a story or an email given a particular prompt, adding additional possible items to a grocery list, or summarizing the selected text.

• Edit Selection – A dialog box appears to prompt the user for instructions about how to edit the selected text, then the selected text is replaced by the edited text. Some examples for use cases for this include changing the tone of an email, translating text to a different language, and semantically editing a scene in a story.

When did you start working on it?

I started working on localwriter in July 2024, because I wanted an AI tool to assist with my writing that would benefit from the intrinsic advantages in terms of availability (can’t lose access), confidentiality (doesn’t leak data), and integrity (no surprise model version changes) that come with using a fully open source local AI stack instead of a third-party API. I feel it is really important to embrace learning to benefit from artificial intelligence without sacrificing agency, and this software follows from that line of thinking.

What are the current limitations, and what’s coming next?

localwriter currently only supports LibreOffice Writer, although Calc support is in development and will be offered in the next release. Another limitation is that it does not support streaming, and does not offer a “Chat with document” feature.

How can others help to improve it?

There are a ton of open feature requests in the repository from several users, which should be really easy for an experienced LibreOffice extension developer to complete. I can easily set up anyone interested with a task to work on. Tests would be welcome, as currently it doesn’t have any tests. Also, donating to me helps me allocate my own time towards development.

Get the extension here

Zdeněk Crhonek (aka “raal”) from the Czech LibreOffice community writes:

The Czech team has finished its translation of the LibreOffice Getting Started guide 24.8. As usual it was a team effort, with translations by Petr Kuběj, Zdeněk Crhonek and Radomír Strnad; localized pictures from Roman Toman; and technical support from Miloš Šrámek. Thanks to all the team for their work!

The Czech translation of the Getting Started Guide 24.8 is available for download here.

The team will continue working on a translation of the Math Guide 24.8. We always looking for new translators and correctors. Join us!

Stanislav Horáček cleaned up the bookshelf page and he added an online version of the Math Guide. More online versions are ti come.

Great work everyone!

Dione Maddern and The Documentation Team are proud to announce the immediate availability of the LibreOffice Calc Guide 24.8, an update of the existing Calc Guide 24.2 with enhancements taken from the current LibreOffice 24.8 Calc module.

The book was reviewed for clarity, readability and content additions, notably the Calc database table referencing in formulas, removal of deprecated JavaScript debugger and refactoring of the Calc’s chart topic – in which the chapter on charts was split in two, one for the chart basics and the second for the chart types. Dione Maddern, Calc editor says:

I took on the challenge of compiling the Calc Guide because I wanted to learn about advanced editing and working with master documents. While I’ve previously worked on large documents in the engineering and insurance industries, documents were often compiled with clunky cut-and-paste techniques which created a lot of errors and labor-intensive rework. Working on the Calc Guide 24.8 was a great opportunity to expand my skills in LibreOffice and document production generally. It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with the LibreOffice Documentation Team. I had a great time working with such a fun and supportive team.

Special thanks to Ed Olson, Lisa Samy and Claire Wood for their review of the contents of the guide. And to B. Antonio F. for his throughout review of formatting the guide and by writing a set of macros, bundled in an LibreOffice extension that allows automatic and assisted fixing of images, tables , styles and more.

It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with the LibreOffice Documentation Team. I had a great time working with such a fun and supportive team. (Dione Maddern)

It has been an honor to share my wordsmithing skills with the LibreOffice documentation team. Replacing verbose paragraphs in the Calc guides with simplified, minimalist text has been both challenging and rewarding. I look forward to continuing my work on other applications in the suite as new releases become available. (Ed Olson)

Joining the Calc Guide team marked my first time contributing to an open-source platform. My time working with other team members was both enriching, yet eye-opening to all the facets of document editing. As such, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the LibreOffice Community as a whole. (Lisa Samy)

I accepted the challenge of creating mechanisms to harmonize he appearance of chapter text according to the chapter template established by the documentation team. It was an opportunity to delve deeper into macro programming and get to know the LibreOffice API better. SanityCheck macros allow you to correct formatting errors (based on styles), correctly adjust images, tables, and automatically apply descriptions for accessibility. With SanityCheck you can check documentation chapters in English, Spanish and Portuguese. (B. Antonio F.)

I enjoyed working on the Calc Guide as it gave me the opportunity to work with a truly global team. The content also challenged my knowledge about spreadsheets. I was happy to develop my knowledge, getting new information …