Important Announcement: Early release of LibreOffice 7.6.2 Community and LibreOffice 7.5.7 Community with a crucial security fix
LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community, the first minor version in the 7.6 family of the free, volunteer-supported office suite, is now available for immediate download for desktop productivity on Windows (Intel/AMD and ARM processors), macOS (Apple and Intel processors), and Linux at www.libreoffice.org/download.
This release of LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community includes the applications and document tools used for daily office work, including Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw. It is designed for users who need to create, edit, share and manage documents in common office formats, while keeping support for the Open Document Format (ODF).
LibreOffice stands out as the only open-source office suite for personal productivity that can be functionally compared to the market leader. LibreOffice offers the highest level of compatibility in the office suite market segment, with native support for the Open Document Format (ODF) - surpassing proprietary formats in terms of security and robustness - as well as superior support for MS Office files, with filters for many legacy document formats, giving ownership and control back to users.
Based on the advanced features of the LibreOffice technology platform for personal productivity on desktop, mobile, and cloud, the LibreOffice 7.6 family brings a host of improvements and new features aimed at users sharing documents with MS Office or migrating from MS Office. These users should regularly monitor new releases of LibreOffice as the advancements are so rapid that each new version significantly improves upon the previous one.
Key New Features of LibreOffice 7.6 Community
LibreOffice 7.6 Community brings improvements across the suite. The changes listed below cover general use, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings and PDF-related workflows. They are especially relevant for users who exchange ODF and OOXML documents or work with MS Office files.
GENERAL
- Support for zoom gestures when using touchpads in the main view.
- Support for document themes, and import/export of theme definitions for ODF and OOXML documents.
- Numerous improvements in font management, particularly for right-to-left scripts, CJK alphabets, and other Asian alphabets.
The general improvements help users work more comfortably with documents. Touchpad zoom gestures make it easier to adjust the view while reading or editing. Document theme support also helps keep visual formatting consistent when files are opened, saved, imported or exported in ODF and OOXML formats.
WRITER
- New Page Numbering Assistant in the Insert menu for easy insertion of page numbers in headers/footers.
- The paragraph style dropdown in the formatting toolbar displays a list of styles used in the document, rather than the full list of available styles.
- Figure tables can be generated more flexibly based on paragraph styles rather than solely from categories or object names.
- Bibliography entries can be edited directly from a bibliography table, and bibliography marks create hyperlinks by default to the corresponding line in a bibliography table.
- Highlighting of used paragraph and character styles, as well as direct text formatting.
- Phrase checking: multi-word dictionary items from Hunspell and custom dictionaries are now accepted.
In Writer, these changes focus on document creation and editing. The Page Numbering Assistant simplifies the insertion of page numbers in headers and footers. The improved style dropdown helps users find the styles already used in a document, which is useful when editing long texts, reports or structured documents.
The bibliography and figure table improvements support documents that include references, illustrations or structured content. Highlighting used paragraph and character styles also makes formatting easier to review.
CALC
- The number format: the "?" is now supported when exporting to ODF to represent an integer, replaced by a space if it is a non-significant zero, and decimals for second formats without truncation, like [SS].00, are now accepted.
- Copied spreadsheets in another document now retain a user-defined print range.
- Solver settings are saved with documents, and page styles are exported even if they are not used.
- Support for drawing styles for shapes and comments, including a dedicated style for comments that allows customization of default appearance and text formatting for new comments.
- New compact layout for pivot tables.
- Support for auto filter for sorting by color. Filtering/sorting by color considers colors defined by the number format.
- The text import dialog (as a CSV or plain text file) has a new option not to detect numbers in scientific notation (only if "Detect special numbers" is disabled).
Calc receives improvements for spreadsheet formatting, printing, filtering and data import. Retaining a user-defined print range when copying spreadsheets into another document helps preserve page setup. Saving Solver settings with documents also helps keep spreadsheet configuration attached to the file.
The compact layout for pivot tables provides another display option for summarized data. The auto filter support for sorting by color helps users organize spreadsheet content by visual formatting, including colors defined by the number format.
IMPRESS & DRAW
- New navigation pane to change slides when viewing a presentation (the option is enabled by checking a box in the slideshow settings).
- Objects can now be listed in front-back order in the Navigator, with the top object listed first.
- Support for free text annotations for PDFium import, as well as support for ink, free text, and polygon/polyline annotations in PDFium export.
- Modification of the automatic text scaling algorithm to operate similarly to MS Office. Text scaling now separates scaling space (paragraph and line) from font scaling, where space scaling can be 100%, 90%, and 80%, and font scaling is rounded to the nearest font size. Horizontal spacing (bullets, indents) is no longer scaled.
- Several improvements in font management for CJK and Arabic languages.
Impress and Draw include improvements for presentations, drawing objects and PDF annotations. The navigation pane can help users move between slides during a presentation when the option is enabled in the slideshow settings. The Navigator listing objects in front-back order also helps identify the visual stacking order of objects on a slide or drawing page.
The PDFium import and export updates extend support for annotations such as free text, ink, free text, and polygon/polyline annotations. The automatic text scaling update changes how paragraph spacing, line spacing and font scaling are handled.
LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community at a Glance
| Item | Details mentioned |
|---|---|
| Version | LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community |
| Release family | 7.6 family |
| Type | Free, volunteer-supported office suite |
| Supported desktop systems mentioned | Windows, macOS and Linux |
| Windows processors mentioned | Intel/AMD and ARM processors |
| macOS processors mentioned | Apple and Intel processors |
| Formats mentioned | ODF, OOXML and MS Office files |
LibreOffice for Businesses
For enterprise deployments, TDF strongly recommends the LibreOffice Enterprise application family from ecosystem partners - for desktop, mobile, and cloud - offering a wide array of dedicated value-added features and additional benefits such as SLAs (Service Level Agreements): www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business
FAQ about LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community
What is LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community?
LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community is the first minor version in the 7.6 family of the free, volunteer-supported office suite for desktop productivity.
Where can LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community be downloaded?
LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community is available for immediate download at www.libreoffice.org/download.
Which desktop systems are mentioned for LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community?
The article mentions Windows with Intel/AMD and ARM processors, macOS with Apple and Intel processors, and Linux.
Which LibreOffice applications receive improvements in this article?
The article lists improvements for Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw, along with general improvements for the LibreOffice 7.6 Community family.
Which document formats are mentioned?
The article mentions native support for the Open Document Format (ODF), import and export of theme definitions for ODF and OOXML documents, and support for MS Office files.
Conclusion
LibreOffice 7.6.1 Community is available for download for Windows, macOS and Linux. This release in the 7.6 family includes improvements for document themes, font management, Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and PDF-related workflows, while continuing to support ODF, OOXML and MS Office files.
