LibreOffice (/ˈliːbrə/)[11] is afree and open-sourceoffice productivity software suite, a project ofThe Document Foundation (TDF). It wasforked in 2010 fromOpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlierStarOffice. It consists of programs for word processing; creating and editing spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams, and drawings; working withdatabases; and composing mathematical formulae. It is available in 120 languages.[9] Although TDF does not provide support for LibreOffice, enterprise-focused editions are available from companies in the ecosystem.[12]
LibreOffice Online is anonline office suite that includes the applications Writer, Calc, and Impress, and provides anupstream for projects such as commercialCollabora Online. It is the most actively developed free and open-source office suite, with approximately 50 times the development activity ofApache OpenOffice, the other major descendant of OpenOffice.org, in 2015.[15]
The project was announced, and a beta was released on September 28, 2010. LibreOffice was downloaded about 7.5 million times between January 2011 (the first stable release) and October 2011.[16] The project claimed 120 million unique downloading addresses from May 2011 to May 2015 (excluding Linux distributions), with 55 million of those from May 2014 to May 2015.[17] The Document Foundation estimates that there are 200 million active LibreOffice users worldwide, about 25% of whom are students and 10% are Linux users.[18]
Aword processor with functionality similar to Microsoft Office and file support forMicrosoft Word orWordPerfect files. It has extensiveWYSIWYG word processing capabilities, but can also be used as a basictext editor.[19] It can also create fillable forms viaPDF or the Forms tab.
An application designed for creating and editing mathematical formulae. The application uses a variant ofXML for creating formulas, as defined in the OpenDocument specification. These formulas can be incorporated into other documents in the LibreOffice suite, such as those created by Writer or Calc, by embedding the formulas into the document.[23]
Adatabase management program, similar toMicrosoft Access. LibreOffice Base allows databases to be created and managed, and the generation of forms and reports of database content. Like Access, it can be used to create small embedded databases that are stored with the document files (using Java-basedHSQLDB andC++ basedFirebird as its storage engine), and for more demanding tasks it can also be used as a front-end for various database management systems, includingAccess Database Engine (ACE/JET),ODBC/JDBC data sources, andMySQL,MariaDB,PostgreSQL andMicrosoft Access.[19][24]
Impress and Math, version 7.1.2 (released in April 2021, running onLinux with default theme and icon set)
Starting with LibreOffice 25.2, there will be no guarantee that LibreOffice will work on Windows 7 or 8/8.1 (since they are now deprecated platforms as of version 24.8).[34] Support for Windows 7 and 8/8.1 will be removed in version 25.8.[35]
Historically, predecessors of LibreOffice, dating back toStarOffice 3, have run onSolaris withSPARC CPUs thatSun Microsystems (and later Oracle) made. Unofficial ports of LibreOffice, whose versions are now obsolete, have supported SPARC. Current unofficial ports of LibreOffice 5.2.5 run only on Intel-compatible hardware, up to Solaris 11.
In 2011, developers announced plans to port LibreOffice both toAndroid and toiOS.[36] A beta version of a document viewer for Android 4.0 or newer was released in January 2015;[37] in May 2015, LibreOffice Viewer for Android was released with basic editing capabilities.[38] In February 2020,Collabora released its first officially supported version of LibreOffice (branded as Collabora Office) for Android and iOS.[39]
In July 2020, Collabora shipped an app, branded Collabora Office, forChromeOS, as used on the popular Chromebook line of notebook computers as well as other form factors of computers. The LibreOfficeImpress Remote application for various mobile operating systems allows for remote control of LibreOffice Impress presentations. In June 2023,Red Hat announced that it will no longer support LibreOffice on future editions ofRed Hat Enterprise Linux in order to focus onWayland support and other priorities towards workstation users. LibreOffice will still be available via distribution-neutralFlatpak.[40] Starting with LibreOffice 7.6 on Fedora 39, packaging and maintenance of LibreOffice on Fedora Linux will be managed by the Fedora LibreOffice Special Interest Group instead of Red Hat.[41][42]
LibreOffice Online is theonline office suite edition of LibreOffice. It allows for the use of LibreOffice through a web browser by using thecanvas element ofHTML5. Development was announced at the first LibreOffice Conference in October 2011, and is ongoing.[44] The Document Foundation,IceWarp, andCollabora announced a collaboration to work on its implementation.[45][46] A version of the software was shown in a September 2015 conference,[47] and the UKCrown Commercial Service announced an interest in using the software.[48][49] On 15 December 2015, Collabora, in partnership with ownCloud, released a technical preview of LibreOffice Online branded as Collabora Online Development Edition (CODE).[50]
In July 2016, the enterprise versionCollabora Online 1.0 was released.[51] That same month,Nextcloud and Collabora partnered to bring CODE to Nextcloud users.[52][53] By October 2016, Collabora had released nine updates to CODE.[54] The first source code release of LibreOffice Online was done with LibreOffice version 5.3 in February 2017.[55][56] In June 2019, CIB software GmbH officially announced its contributions to LibreOffice Online and "LibreOffice Online powered by CIB".[57] In October 2020, Collabora announced the move of its work onCollabora Online from The Document Foundation infrastructure toGitHub.[58]
A detailed 60-page report in June 2015 compared the progress of the LibreOffice project with the related project Apache OpenOffice. It showed that "OpenOffice received about 10% of the improvements LibreOffice did in the period of time studied."[59]
LibreOffice can use theGStreamer multimedia framework in Linux to render multimedia content such as videos in Impress and other programs. Visually, LibreOffice used the large "Tango style" icons that are used for the application shortcuts, quick launch icons, icons for associated files and for the icons found on the toolbar of the LibreOffice programs in the past,[83][84] and used on the toolbars and menus by default. They were later replaced by multiple icon themes to adapt the look and feel of specific desktop environment, such as Colibre for Windows, and Elementary for GNOME.[85]
LibreOffice also ships with a modified theme which looks native on GTK-based Linux distributions. It also renders fonts viaCairo on Linux distributions; this means that text in LibreOffice is rendered the same as the rest of the Linux desktop.[86] With version 6.2, LibreOffice includes a ribbon-style GUI, called Notebookbar, including three different views.[87] This feature has formerly been included as an experimental feature in LibreOffice 6 (experimental features must be enabled from LibreOffice settings to make the option available in the View menu).[88]
LibreOffice has a feature similar toWordArt calledFontwork.[89] LibreOffice usesHarfBuzz forcomplex text layout, it was first introduced in 4.1 for Linux and 5.3 for Windows and macOS.[90][82] Fonts withOpenType,Apple Advanced Typography orSIL Graphite features can be switched by either a syntax in the Font Name input box,[91] or the Font Features dialog from the Character dialog. LibreOffice supports a "hybrid PDF" format, a file inPortable Document Format (PDF) which can be read by any program supporting PDF, but also contains the source document in ODF format, editable in LibreOffice by dragging and dropping.[92]
The LibreOffice project uses a dualLGPLv3 (or later) / MPL 2.0 license for new contributions to allow the license to be upgraded.[93] Since the core of the OpenOffice.org codebase was donated to theApache Software Foundation, there is an ongoing effort to get all the code rebased to ease future license updates.[94]
LibreOffice supports third-party extensions.[95] As of July 2017[update], the LibreOffice Extension Repository lists more than 320 extensions.[96] Another list is maintained by theApache Software Foundation[97] and another one by theFree Software Foundation.[98] Extensions and scripts for LibreOffice can be written in C++, Java,CLI, Python, andLibreOffice Basic.Interpreters for the latter two are bundled with most LibreOffice installers, so no additional installation is needed. Theapplication programming interface for LibreOffice is called "UNO" and is extensively documented.[99]
Members of the OpenOffice.org community who were notSun Microsystems employees had wanted a more egalitarian form for the OpenOffice.org project for many years; Sun had stated in the original OpenOffice.org announcement in 2000 that the project would eventually be run by a neutral foundation,[101] and put forward a more detailed proposal in 2001.[102]Ximian and thenNovell had maintained the ooo-buildpatch set, a project led byMichael Meeks, to make the build easier onLinux and because it was difficult to get contributions accepted by Sun, even from corporate partners. It tracked the main line of development and was not intended to constitute a fork.[103] It was also the standard build mechanism for OpenOffice.org in mostLinux distributions,[104] and was contributed to by said distributions.[105]
In 2007, ooo-build was made available by Novell as a software package calledGo-oo (ooo-build had used the go-oo.orgdomain name as early as 2005),[106] which included many features not included in upstream OpenOffice.org. Go-oo also encouraged outside contributions, with rules similar to those later adopted for LibreOffice.[107] Sun's contributions to OpenOffice.org had been declining for some time.[108] They remained reluctant to accept contributions[109] and contributors were upset at Sun releasing OpenOffice.org code to IBM forIBM Lotus Symphony under a proprietary contract, rather than under an open source licence.[110]
Sun was purchased byOracle Corporation in early 2010. OpenOffice.org community members were concerned by Oracle's behaviour towards open source software, specifically theJava lawsuit against Google[111] and Oracle's withdrawal of developers,[112] and lack of activity on or visible commitment to OpenOffice.org, as had been noted by industry observers;[113] as Meeks put it in early September 2010, "The news from the Oracle OpenOffice conference was that there was no news."[114] Discussion of a fork started soon after.[115]
On 28 September 2010,The Document Foundation was announced as the host of LibreOffice, a new derivative of OpenOffice.org. The Document Foundation's initial announcement stated their concerns that Oracle would either discontinue OpenOffice.org, or place restrictions on it as an open source project, as it had on Sun'sOpenSolaris.[116][117][118][119] LibreOffice 3.3 beta used the ooo-build build infrastructure and the OpenOffice.org 3.3 beta code from Oracle, then adding selected patches from Go-oo.[120] Go-oo was discontinued in favour of LibreOffice. Since the office suite that was branded "OpenOffice.org" in most Linux distributions was in fact Go-oo, most moved immediately to LibreOffice.[121] Oracle was invited to become a member of The Document Foundation; however, Oracle demanded that all members of the OpenOffice.org Community Council involved with The Document Foundation step down from the OOo Community Council, claiming a conflict of interest.[122]
The name "LibreOffice" was picked after research in trademark databases and social media and checks to ensure it could be used forURLs in various countries.[123] Oracle rejected requests to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project.[124] LibreOffice was initially named BrOffice in Brazil. OpenOffice.org had been distributed as BrOffice.org by theBrOffice Centre of Excellence for Free Software because of a trademark issue.[125]
End of OpenOffice.org and beginning of Apache OpenOffice
Oracle announced in April 2011 that it was ending its development of OpenOffice.org and would lay off the majority of its paid developers.[126] In June 2011, Oracle announced that it would donate the OpenOffice.org code and trademark to theApache Software Foundation,[127] where the project was accepted for a project incubation process within the foundation, thus becomingApache OpenOffice. In an interview withLWN in May 2011, Ubuntu founderMark Shuttleworth blamed The Document Foundation for destroying OpenOffice.org because it did not license its code under Oracle'sContributor License Agreement.[128] In opposition to Shuttleworth's view, the former Sun executiveSimon Phipps argued in an article for the same online magazine, that the lay-off was an inevitable business decision by Oracle, not impacted by existence of LibreOffice.[129] In March 2015, an LWN.net comparison of LibreOffice with its cousin project Apache OpenOffice concluded that "LibreOffice has won the battle for developer participation".[130]
The Math module now has a new item "Import MathML from Clipboard".
Core and filters
Support Unicode character input withAlt+X on Windows
PNG export in Writer, Calc and Impress;
Import of the following formats supported: Gnumeric, Microsoft Write, Apple Keynote 6
LibreOffice Writer 5.1 showing the flat Breeze icon set, reorganised items in sidebar, whitespace hiding in the document, and the 'Always correct to' spellcheck submenu
Export cell range selection or a selected group of shapes (images) to PNG or JPG
The text/plain Unformatted text format results in unquoted/unescaped content as expected for external pastes
Added "Paste unformatted text" command
New command to select unprotected cells on protected or unprotected sheet
Lock symbol to mark protected sheet
Added three new ODFF1.2 compliant functions
English syntax keywords for number format
"Styles" entry in the main menu
Impress
Better UI for handling layer attributes
Added 10 new Impress templates
Slide format defaulting to 16:9 screen
Core and filters
Addition ofNoto fonts and some additional Arabic and Hebrew fonts
Cross platform support for OpenPGP document signing and encryption
TSCP-based classification for ODF and OOXML formats
Option to save images modified in place
Visualization of borders for tables
New filters to import from QuarkXPress 3–4 and export to EPUB
Various improvements to OOXML, EMF+, ODF, XHTML, Adobe Freehand, Pagemaker, publisher, Visio, FictionBook, Abiword, Apple Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Quattro Pro filters
GUI
Insert Special Characters button become drop-down list, Special characters dialog was also reworked
Added elementary icon theme
Reworked Customize dialog
Added Groupedbar Full and Tabbed Compact interfaces
Added experimental feature for Universal Accessibility
Calc
TEXT() now allows the second argument to be an empty format string for interoperability with other implementations
Improved opening speed of XLSX files with many pictures
Impress & Draw;
Subscripts now return to the default of 8%. Automatic positioning fixed for superscripts and subscripts in Textboxes
Implemented support for semi-transparent text
Speed up: Long operation during typing in list with animations
Speed up: entering to table editing mode became faster
Base
Macro signatures are now evaluated on document load
Math
Added RGB personalized color
Added Laplace symbol
Core / General
The underlying Cairo graphics library was replaced with Skia library
Glow effect on objects was implemented
Navigator's categories are gray if they do not have any items
All objects in Navigator (Headings, Tables, Frames, Images, etc.) have own context menu items like Go To, Edit, Delete, Rename
Headings in Navigator have Promote/Demote level and Promote/Demote chapter context menu items
Table's context menu in Navigator now has Insert caption item
Added Outline tracking for Headings in Navigator. It can be in three states: Default, Focus, Off. Try clicking with your mouse in several places in your big text document with many headings
Replaced the navigation toolbox with the navigate by elements control
Added Navigator section tooltip word and character count
Filters
Added support for exporting to ODF version 1.3
Multiple improvements for Open XML filters
GUI
All toolbars are locked by default now on fresh user profiles
Added a new Sukapura icon theme. That icon theme will be a default theme for new LibreOffice installations in macOS
Sifr has been polished and receive many updates
The unmaintained Tango icon theme was removed from core but will be available as extension
New icons and banner in Windows installer
Renaming a page in Draw or slide in Impress with empty or already used name give a tool tip dialog
New Style Inspector to display the attributes of Paragraph and Character Styles, and manually formatted (Direct Formatting) properties
Default anchor for newly added images is able to be configured
Ability to detect Unicode, even if the imported text file does not have theByte Order Mark
Significant speed improvement of find/replace operations
Calc
Added an option to manage pasting with Enter key
Added option to select items in Autofilter window clicking on all item's row, in addition to the checkbox
Significant speed improvement of Autofilter and find/replace operations
Impress & Draw
Possibility to add visible signatures to existing PDF files in Draw
Possibility to change animations for several objects at once in Impress
Addition of "Pause/Resume" and "Exit" buttons to Presenter's Screen
Addition of realistic soft blurred shadows to objects
Addition of new physics based animation capabilities and new animation effect presets that use them
General
New dialog to select the User Interface flavor, aiming to pick the right UI based on each user's own preferences at first start
Improved search for a matching printer paper size for the printed document
Show all supported files when adding a new extension in Extension Manager
Print Preview is now updated asynchronously, to not block UI when adjusting settings in Print Dialog
Additions Dialog: to search, get and install extensions with one-click
Macro
ScriptForge libraries: an extensible and robust collection of macro scripting resources for LibreOffice to be invoked from user Basic or Python scripts
This is the first version added experimental support for Windows ARM64 platform.
Visualization and Manage Changes support for tracked deletion and insertion of tables and table rows.
Calc
The "Link to External Data" dialog lists HTML tables in the order they appear in the source.
Whitespace line feed and character tabulation in cell formula expressions are now preserved and survive round-tripping between Office Open XML and ODF file formats.
New "Evaluate formulas" option in the CSV Import and Paste Special and Text to Column dialog.
Bash like autocompletion for Calc autoinput was implemented.
Use system's highlight color for cell cursor.
Support Color Filter in "Standard Filter" dialog.
Queries and filters using some text-based operations such as 'contains' now properly work even with numeric data.
Quick find allowed to search for values instead of formulas.
New Page Number Wizard in the Insert menu, for easy one-step insertion of the page number in the header/footer
The Paragraph Style dropdown in the Formatting toolbar shows a list of styles used in the document, rather than the full list of the available styles
Tables of Figures can be generated more flexibly based on paragraph styles
Bibliography entries can be edited directly from a bibliography table, and bibliography marks hyperlink by default to the matching row in a bibliography table
Highlighting for used paragraph and character styles and direct formatting in text
Phrase checking: multi-word dictionary items of Hunspell and custom dictionaries are now accepted
Calc
Number format:? is now supported when exporting to ODF to represent an integer digit, replaced by blank if it is a non significant zero, and decimals for formats in seconds without truncation like[SS].00 are now accepted
Spreadsheets copied to another document retain a user-defined print range
Solver settings are saved with documents, and page styles are exported even if they are not in use
Support for drawing styles for shapes and comments, including a dedicated style for comments that makes it possible to customize the default look and text formatting of new comments
New compact layout for pivot tables
Autofilter support for sorting by color. Filter/sort by color considers colours set by number format.
The Import Text dialog (as CSV file or as unformatted text) has a new option to not detect number in scientific notation (only if “Detect Special Numbers” is off)
Impress & Draw
New navigation panel for switching slides while viewing a presentation (option is enabled by flagging a checkbox in Slide Show Settings)
Objects can now be listed in front to back order in the Navigator, with the top-most object at the top of the list
Support for free text annotations to PDFium import, plus support for ink, free text and polygon/polyline annotations in PDFium export
Modified the auto-fitting text scaling algorithm to work in a way similar to MS Office. Text scaling now separates scaling for space (paragraph and line) and scaling fonts, where space scaling can be 100%, 90% and 80%, and font scaling is rounded to the nearest point size. Horizontal spacing (bullets, indents) is not scaled anymore
Base
Added Firebird functions DATEDIFF and DATEADD to the set of functions that can be used in the query designer
Added MariaDB/MySQL functions TIMESTAMPDIFF and TIMESTAMPADD to the set of functions that can be used in the query designer
Core / General
Added support for zoom gestures when using touchpads in the main view
Exporting to PDF updates the last printed time in document properties
Added support for document themes
Added support for multicolor gradients
Each view of a document now can have its language specific accelerator manager
Entering a group once again dims the objects that are not included in it
Added support for compressing CJK punctuations encoded in Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms block
Categorized link targets when linking to a presentation
GUI
Documents in the Start Center can now be pinned to show them at the beginning of the recently opened document list
Filters
Added support for OOXML files created in ZIP64 format
Added support for SVG files with elements prefixed byfe
This is the last version to support the FTP protocol.
"Legal" ordered list numbering: make a given list level use Arabic numbering for all its number parts
Comments can use styles
Linkable elements can be drag-and-dropped from the Navigator onto a text selection to use the selection as the hyperlink text
Nested Sections can be collapsed just like Headings and can be hidden or made visible from their context menu
In Outline Folding mode, the hidden headings are greyed out in the Navigator instead of not being visible
Start of multi-page floating tables in Writer
Comments in a thread are now grouped in the Navigator
Templates with the required settings for Japanese text added to the Localization category
New line break algorithm with the concept of Microsoft Word 2013
Calc
New search field in the Functions sidebar deck
Support scientific number format in ODF
Shortcuts to switch sheets now work to cycle from last to first
Highlight the row and column for the active cell
Impress
Implement Small Caps effect in Character dialog
Draw
Support to import multi-page TIFF files placing one image per page
Math
Support Arabic mathematical notation
Support custom Math font
Inline (Visual) formula editing mode enabled by default
Core / General
"Save AutoRecovery information" and "Always create backup copies" turned on by default
Exporting to PDF updates the last printed time in document properties
Added search functionality in LibreOffice
Automatically switching to dark app colors and a dark icon theme when a dark color scheme is configured in the desktop settings also works for the Qt-based UI variants
Expert config shows explanatory text to the config items in a tooltip
Expert config can be filtered by modified values
Alt+NumPad codes support for Windows allow full Unicode range
UI: handling of formatting characters, width of comments panel, selection of bullets, new dialog for hyperlinks, new Find deck in the sidebar
Navigator: adding cross-references by drag-and-drop items, deleting footnotes and endnotes, indicating images with broken links
Hyphenation: exclude words from hyphenation with new contextual menu and visualization, new hyphenation across columns, pages or spreads, hyphenation between constituents of a compound word
The width of the Comment panel can now be adjusted
Bullets used in the document can now be selected in the bullets dropdown
Calc
Addition of FILTER, LET, RANDARRAY, SEQUENCE, SORT, SORTBY, UNIQUE, XLOOKUP and XMATCH functions
Cell focus rectangle moved apart from cell content
Comments can be edited and deleted from the Navigator’s right-click menu
Define ranges when exporting sheets to PDF
The sheet protection dialog is async
Support importing and exporting OOXML pivot table (cell) format definitions, which allow direct formatting of the pivot table cells (which survive pivot table update)
AutoFilter now has a Lock checkbox to prevent losing an unapplied selection when searching
Displaying comment authorship metadata is now optional
Data validity can now be made case-sensitive
The cell cursor was more accessible to colour blind users
Impress
In Normal view, it is possible to scroll between slides, and the Notes are available as a collapsible pane under the slide
By default, the running Slideshow is immediately updated when applying changes in Edit View or in Presenter Console, even on different Screens
Draw
Support tiling patterns in imported PDF files
Hovering over a layer's tab highlights the objects it contains
Base
Firebird: Saving of data should be done automatically
Firebird: Solved DATALOSS Data updated (new/edit) using the data Beamer window or Dataform in odt/ods files when they are closed
Connect to MS Access mdb files by means of "ACE.OLEDB.12.0" provider
Chart
New chart types “Pie-of-Pie” and “Bar-of-Pie” break down a slice of a pie as a pie or bar sub-chart respectively (this also enables import of such charts from OOXML files created with Microsoft Office)
Text inside chart’s titles, text boxes and shapes (and parts thereof) can now be formatted using the Character dialog
Core / General
Diacritics no longer being clipped on screen
The "Special Characters" dialog allows typing the Unicode code point to filter the matching glyphs
The recent document list will now only show documents for the current module
New "Sinusoid" shape added to the Basic Shapes category
Buttons that control Font, Highlight and Background colors now retain their value between sessions
Objects can now be searched in the Gallery sidebar deck
Filters
Option to make personal information not be exported to documents
A new mode of password-based ODF encryption has been implemented
Support importing and exporting OOXML pivot table (cell) format definitions
PPTX files with heavy use of custom shapes now open faster
User Interface
The default bullet selection can be modified
The Keep Ratio setting in the Position and Size dialog was made more intuitive
Buttons and combo boxes in Writer's Navigator now set the properties needed for proper announcement by screen readers
Toggling formatting like bold or italic in Writer is now announced by the NVDA screen reader (version 2024.3 or newer)
Comments can be tracked in the Navigator when moving the focus into comments, while resizing the area containing comments now shows a visual guide.
Options to set a default zoom level for opening documents, overriding the level stored in documents
It is possible to delete all content of a content type (excluding headings) via the Navigator
Added Group and Mono controls to the Asian Phonetic Guide dialog
Writer TextBoxes now handle page captures
Boundaries are toggled independently of Formatting Marks
The Page Number Wizard offers an option to fit the numbers into existing margins in order to avoid repagination
The dialog and Sidebar deck for managing tracked changes now have sorting options
Selecting a match in the Find Sidebar deck will show its index number
Resizing the area containing comments shows a visual guide
The Hanging Indent command now also works, if the targeted paragraph has no existing indent
Hovering the mouse over a heading in the Navigator displays a tooltip showing the word and character count of the content associated with it
All footnotes in a document can be changed to endnotes and vice versa
Option to ignore warnings in the Accessibility Sidebar deck
Support was added for inline headings, which are commonly used in legal documents
Improved ignoring of the paragraph margin at the top of pages
Calc
Addition of a “Handle Duplicate Records” dialog to select/remove duplicate records in Calc
Solver models can be saved into spreadsheets and Solver is able to provide a sensitivity analysis report
Addition of new sheet protection options related to Pivot Tables, Pivot Charts and AutoFilters
When selecting all while in a cell with neighbouring data, the selection will cover the neighbouring cells. The next call of Select All will select the full sheet
Impress
The Interaction dialog (click actions) is async
Per-paragraph semi-transparent shape text in Impress' SVG export
Automatic repeating of slides can be activated in windowed mode
Soft edge and glow effects are allowed in text frame objects
Objects can be centered on the slide (or page in Draw) in one step
Overflowing text in presenter notes is no longer cut off when printing
Draw
Support for clipping stroke paths in imported PDFs was added
Base
Unicode ODBC calls are supported
Math
Formulas can be stored in a user-defined category
Core / General
macOS Quick Look is supported
It is possible to automatically sign documents after defining a default certificate
The commands for setting the colour and background colour of text can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts
Support was added for pasting HTML strikethrough formatting
Filters
Added support for exporting to ODF version 1.4
Import filter for Visio.vstx files
User Interface
Added support for zooming on a touch screen for Windows
Added support for controlling hyphenation from the Properties deck of the Sidebar
The choice of "Link" when inserting an image is remembered during a session
The application theme can be customized independent of the system/desktop-environment theme
Localization
Added Guinean French locale
This is the last version to support Windows 7 and 8.1.
In late 2017 The Document Foundation held a competition for the new mascot of LibreOffice. The mascot was to be used primarily by the community, and was not intended to supersede existing logos for the project. Over 300 concepts were submitted before the first evaluation phase.[188] The mascot contest was cancelled soon after new submissions stopped being accepted. The Document Foundation cited their lack of clear rules and arguments among community members as their reasoning for cancelling the contest.[189]
Since March 2014 and version 4.2.2, two different major "released" versions of LibreOffice are available at any time in addition to development versions (numbered release candidates and dated nightly builds).[190] The versions are designated to signal their appropriateness for differing user requirements.[191] Releases are designated by three numbers separated by dots. The first two numbers represent the major version (branch) number, and the final number indicates the bugfix releases made in that series. LibreOffice designates the two release versions as:
"Fresh" – the most recent major version (branch), which contains the latest enhancements but which may have introducedbugs not present in the "still" release.
"Still" (formerly "Stable") – the prior major version, which, by the time it has become the "still" version, has had around six months of bug fixing. It is recommended for users for whom stability is more important than the latest enhancements.
Since January 2024 and version 24.2.0, LibreOffice use calendar-based release numbering scheme.[178]
LibreOffice uses atime-based release schedule for predictability, rather than a "when it's ready" schedule. New major versions are released around every six months, in January or February and July or August of each year. The initial intention was to release in March and September, to align with the schedule of other free software projects.[192]Minor bugfix versions of the "fresh" and "still" release branches are released frequently.
Commercially supported distributions for LibreOffice withservice-level agreements are available via partners such asCollabora (marketed as Collabora Office andCollabora Online), CIB (marketed as CIB Office on theMicrosoft Store), andRed Hat.[193][194] The three vendors are major corporate contributors to the LibreOffice project.[194] As of version 7.1, the open source release of LibreOffice is officially branded as "LibreOffice Community", in order to emphasize that the releases are intended primarily for personal individual use, and are "not targeted at enterprises, and not optimized for their support needs". The Document Foundation states that usage of the community versions in such settings "has had a two-fold negative consequence for the project: a poor use of volunteers' time, as they have to spend their time to solve problems for business that provide nothing in return to the community, and a net loss for ecosystem companies."[194]
The figure shows the worldwide number of LibreOffice usersm 2011 to 2018 in millions. References are in the text.
2011
The Document Foundation estimated in September 2011, that there were 10 million users worldwide who had obtained LibreOffice viadownloads orCD-ROMs. Over 90% of those were on Windows, with another 5% onOS X. LibreOffice is the default office suite for mostLinux distributions, and is installed when theoperating system is installed or updated. Based onInternational Data Corporation reckonings for new or updated Linux installations in 2011, The Document Foundation estimated a subtotal of 15 million Linux users. This gave a total estimated user base of 25 million users in 2011.[195] In 2011, the Document Foundation set a target of 200 million users worldwide before the end of 2020.[195]
2013
In September 2013, after two years, the estimated number of LibreOffice users was 75 million.[196] A million new unique IP addresses check for downloads each week.[197]
2015
In 2015, LibreOffice was used by 100 million users and 18 governments.[198]
2016
In August 2016, the number of LibreOffice users was estimated at 120 million.[199]
2018
The Document Foundation estimated in 2018 that there are 200 million active LibreOffice users worldwide. About 25% of them are students and 10% Linux users (who often automatically receive LibreOffice through their distribution).[200] In comparison, Microsoft Office was used in 2018 by 1.2 billion users.[201]
Estimated value ofBRL 3.5 million (approximately US$1.2 million at the time), and became acase study for similar initiatives in Brazil, particularly ine-government.
The German city ofMunich announced that it would transition from OpenOffice to LibreOffice in the near future. This is in line with Munich's long-term commitment to using open-source software. Munich usesLiMux, anUbuntu Linux derivative, on nearly all of the city's 15,000 computers. The city of Munich is the second public administration to join the advisory board at the Document Foundation. News appeared in 2014 that the council is considering migrating back to Microsoft Windows & Microsoft Office but was later denied. Based on a study, the mayor of Munich,Dieter Reiter, initiated the re-investigation of the scenario of migrating back to Microsoft systems.The trustworthiness of the study is questionable because the company has been "Microsoft's Alliance Partner of the Year" for nine years. Further details were issued by the Document Foundation.
The MoD announced that it would install LibreOffice on 150,000 PCs. Accordingly to the European Open Source Observatory, this was the second largest open source migration in Europe.
The IT project manager working for the city administration talked about the ongoing switch of its 5,000 workstations to LibreOffice started in 2013. According to the IT project manager, the switch to LibreOffice allowed the administration to save €1.7 million.
As of 2015, LibreOffice is installed on almost all of the 500,000 workstations of the 11 French ministries members of the MIMO working group, who was the first public administration to join the advisory board at the Document Foundation.
The majority (75%) of municipalities in the region use open source software and services which include LibreOffice. As of March 2017, over 20,000 public administration staff and many times more citizens use the services.
The region announced plans to finalize its switch to LibreOffice at several central government services and ministries, making LibreOffice the only office productivity suite on 6,000 workstations.
The city began installing LibreOffice on all of its 14,000 PC workstations, in parallel to the existing proprietary office suite. It is one of the planned steps to increase the city's use of free and open-source software, aiming to reduce lock-in to IT vendors.
The city announced its transition to LibreOffice from Microsoft Office in January 2018. The change was part of a broader shift from proprietary to open-source software, and the city council aimed to eventually reach "full technological sovereignty" by eliminating its dependency on Microsoft products. During the announcement, Barcelona indicated that it would dedicate 70 percent of its software budget to open-source software.
The state wants to switch completely from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice by 2025 for its 25,000 employees. The transition will begin gradually in 2021.
Administration of several Russiannuclear power plants and subsidiaries of Rosatom were planning to switch toAstra Linux by the end of 2021, which includes LibreOffice; a total of 15,000 users.
In 2011, the administrative authority of theÎle-de-France region (which includes the city of Paris) also included LibreOffice in aUSB flash drive given to approximately 800,000 students which contains free open-source software.[36][246]
EuroOffice is a derivative of LibreOffice with free and non-free extensions, for the Hungarian language and geographic detail, developed by Hungarian-based MultiRacio Ltd.[266][267]
NeoOffice (discontinued 2024) 2017 and later versions are based on LibreOffice.[269] Prior versions included stability fixes from LibreOffice, but were based on OpenOffice.[270]
OxOffice is a derivative of LibreOffice (originally a derivative of OpenOffice.org[271]) with enhanced support for theChinese language.[272]
OffiDocs is a derivative of LibreOffice online developed and supported by the OffiDocs Group OÜ[273][274] with multiple applications to use LibreOffice in mobile apps.[275]
ZetaOffice is a derivative of LibreOffice developed and supported by allotropia software GmbH with desktop LTS versions as well as the online version based on WebAssembly technology.[276][277]
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^Linton, Susan (5 June 2015)."Apache OpenOffice versus LibreOffice".OStatic.Archived from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved22 June 2015.OpenOffice received about 10% of the improvements LibreOffice did in the period of time studied.
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^Bergmann, Stephan (7 July 2006).".oxt, .uno.pkg, .zip".dev@extensions.openoffice.org (Mailing list). Archived fromthe original on 5 May 2009. Retrieved10 August 2007.
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^Dölle, Mirko (4 November 2010)."Die Woche: Bad Company Oracle?" [The Week: Bad Company Oracle?].Heise Open Source (in German). Heinz Heise.Archived from the original on 24 October 2013. Retrieved19 October 2013.Nach der Übernahme von Sun hatte Oracle offenbar etliche Entwickler vom OpenOffice-Projekt abgezogen, was zu empfindlichen Verzögerungen bei der Weiterentwicklung geführt hat. [After the acquisition of Sun, Oracle apparently took several developers off the OpenOffice project, which led to severe delays in development.]
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^Vignoli, Italo (7 February 2018)."Wednesday Community No. 4". The Document Foundation Blog.Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved8 February 2018.
^"ReleaseNotes/25.2". The Document Foundation's Wiki. Retrieved6 February 2025. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY-SA 3.0 license.
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