The Free Office Suite the Community Has Always Dreamed Of for Twelve Years
The Document Foundation has announced version 4.0 of LibreOffice, the free office suite. LibreOffice 4.0 is the first version that reflects the goals set by the community at the time of the announcement in September 2010: a cleaner and lighter code base, an enhanced set of features, and improved interoperability.
LibreOffice 4.0: New Features
LibreOffice 4.0 offers a host of new features:
- Integration with content from multiple document management systems - including Alfresco, IBM FileNet P8, Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Nuxeo, OpenText, SAP NetWeaver, and other Cloud Services - through the CMIS standard.
- Improved interoperability with DOCX and RTF, thanks to several new features and enhancements such as the ability to import handwritten annotations and fix text range comments.
- Ability to import Microsoft Publisher documents, and improved Visio import filters with the addition of version 2013.
- Additional user interface enhancements, including integration and support for themes to give a personalized look to LibreOffice.
- Introduction of widget layout techniques via dialog windows, making it easier to translate, resize, and hide user interface elements, reducing code complexity, and laying the groundwork for a greatly improved user interface.
- Different header and footer on the first page of a Writer document, without the need for a separate page style.
- Several performance improvements for Calc, as well as new features such as exporting charts as images (JPG and PNG) and new spreadsheet functions as defined in ODF OpenFormula.
- The first version of the Impress Remote app for Android, supported only on certain Linux distributions. (Coming soon to all platforms: Windows, MacOS X, and all Linux distributions.)
- Significant performance improvements when loading and saving many types of documents, notably improvements for ODS, XLSX, and RTF files.
- Improved through code contributions: Gerrit, an internet-based code review system, makes it easier for projects using the Git version control system.
LibreOffice 4.0: A Thriving Community
In less than 30 months, LibreOffice has experienced phenomenal growth to become the largest independent open-source project focused on office productivity for end users. With its copyleft license, it has attracted over 500 developers, three-quarters of whom are independent volunteers.
"LibreOffice 4.0 is an important milestone in interoperability and an excellent foundation for our ongoing work to improve the user interface,” explains Florian Effenberger, chair of the board. “Our project is not only capable of attracting new developers on a regular basis, but it also creates a transparent platform for collaboration based on a strong ethic of Free Software, where developer-sponsored companies and volunteers work towards the same goal."
How to Get LibreOffice 4.0
LibreOffice 4.0 is immediately available for download at the following link:
https://en.libre-office.fr/staticpages/index.php/download-libreoffice-for-free.
Extensions for LibreOffice can be found at the following link:
http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center.
Support The Document Foundation
Users of LibreOffice, advocates of free software, and community members can support The Document Foundation by making a donation at
http://donate.libreoffice.org. The funds raised will be used to develop infrastructure and support marketing activities to raise awareness of the project both globally and locally.
