LibreOffice 7.6 arrives: Open source stalwart is showing its maturity
- Reference: 1692790568
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/23/libreoffice_76_is_out/
- Source link:
The [1]release notes show an impressive list of changes, and numerous fresh features, albeit relatively small ones. Headline global features are trackpad zoom in and out, document themes with import and export, and "improved font handling, especially for right-to-left scripts, CJK and other Asian alphabets" . (That's Chinese, Japanese and Korean.)
Also, buried far down near the bottom, is a significant system requirement: it needs macOS 10.15 or later. So any Mac users still using Mojave, perhaps because they need certain 32-bit apps, must stay on the slower-moving "still" branch – the latest version, 7.5.5, [2]appeared a month ago, and updates are [3]planned until this November.
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LibreOffice, formerly known as OpenOffice, before that called StarOffice, and which evolved from a German CP/M word processor called StarWriter, is the leading open source desktop office suite. StarWriter was released in 1985, so the product family is now nearly 40 years old – considerably older than Linux itself. Its history is so long that when The Reg [5]reported that Sun was acquiring Star Division and [6]making the product free last century, this was still a young publication, newly moved from email newsletter to website. (You can tell by how short those stories are.)
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Its corporate backer, the Document Foundation, said:
LibreOffice is the only open source office suite for personal productivity which can be compared feature-by-feature with the market leader. After 12 years and five release cycles – code cleaning, code refactoring, polishing the user interface, extending to new hardware and software platforms, and optimizing interoperability with OOXML to support users – it is increasingly difficult to develop entirely new features, so most of them are refinements or improvements of existing ones.
It's a fair comment. LibreOffice, a true survivor despite multiple changes of ownership, is a living exemplar of mature software. It's only two years younger than that unnamed "market leader": Microsoft Word – or [9]Multi-Tool Word as it was called then – came out in 1983, and Excel, originally a Mac program, appeared the same year as StarWriter.
If the developers are finding it hard to add new features – or maybe more saliently, hard to find new features to add (although see the bootnote for more on that theme) – that may be why the version numbering scheme will change next year. The next release will be in February and will be called version 2024.2.
But there are some giveaways in the announcement, we feel. When it notes the "feature-for-feature" comparison, that may well be a glance in the general direction of [10]rival FOSS suite OnlyOffice , or even commercial-but-freeware rivals [11]Hancom Office and [12]WPS Office .
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Of course, there were once several much higher-profile rivals to that anonymous market leader. Despite many years of [14]vigorous competition , and the [15]occasional lawsuit , Corel's WordPerfect Office is alive and well and still on sale. Sadly, a native Linux version of the suite never appeared. Following a [16]cash injection from the direction of Seattle, Corel jettisoned all its Linux products, [17]as we predicted .
(Although The Reg FOSS Desk rarely runs Windows, he really wishes he had sprung for the [18]"Work Remote" Humble Bundle during the lockdown. We've tried evaluation versions, and WordPerfect really is an excellent and extremely fast word processor these days.)
IBM [19]killed off SmartSuite in 2014. (We note that ISO images are still out there, and the free Fixpaks to make it as current as it will ever be still are, too. As we verified to help a reader who needed 1-2-3 on 64-bit Windows, it works fine on Windows 11, with a single exception – the online help, and there is a [20]workaround for that.)
[21]
Partly, Smartsuite was no longer competitive against MS Office; partly, Notes had succumbed to MS Exchange, although [22]it's still clinging to life . Exchange Server remains a killer app, and its native client, Outlook, is part of Office, intimately entwined with the rest.
Everyone who went directly mano a mano against Redmond has retired from the fray. Apple is thriving, but then, while Apple has its own productivity apps and messaging tools, there's also a native Office 365 for macOS.
Only one company is still growing its market share in the email and office suite sector: Google. Statista [23]reckons it has just over 50 per cent; others [24]claim as much as 69 per cent.
Google Workspace includes Gmail, which in this vulture's humble opinion remains the best webmail tool around. The Contacts and Calendar tools may not be best of breed, but they work. The Apps suite – Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive – are very far from the best around, but the thing is, they're good enough . Their feature list may not be the longest, but their collaboration features are extremely good, and they work on anything with a modern browser, which in turn is why ChromeBooks are thriving.
Red Hat is not telling, but we suspect that this is at least a big factor behind its decision to [25]stop packaging LibreOffice for RHEL . A web-based suite is good enough for light use, and a Flatpak version will serve for those who need rich local functionality.
Google managed to do an end-run around Microsoft by not trying to compete on Microsoft's home ground. It found a different space. Microsoft offers the most feature-rich groupware server around, and the richest client for it. Google doesn't offer either, not at all, but it has such a good webmail client that most companies don't need one, be it local or hosted. And it does chat, too. When [26]Microsoft acquired Skype , it got the leading cross-platform internet video- and voice-telephony client. Google doesn't offer one, but its browser-based tool is good enough. And so it goes.
And of course, for customers who are deeply wedded to the Microsoft portfolio of tools but don't need the rich local clients on all their kit, the company now has competitive web-based versions, too. And yes, they work on Linux, as does Edge.
[27]Will Flatpak and Snap replace desktop Linux native apps?
[28]Red Hat to stop packaging LibreOffice for RHEL
[29]OnlyOffice treated to an update – and fresh plugins
[30]OnlyOffice treated to an update – and fresh plugins
Nobody has effectively managed to stay competitive with Microsoft's rich local business apps and its groupware servers, but the goalposts have moved. LibreOffice itself is now available in a web-based form, via [31]Collabora Online . We really hope that the Document Foundation and Collabora are not getting tired of keeping up just yet, but the writing is on the wall for full-fat local clients.
Bootnote: The missing feature from LibreOffice Writer
For this particular writer, there remains one big item from Microsoft Word that LibreOffice still has no replacement for: [32]Outline view . We are not the first to [33]note that it's a wonderful tool for long-form writers.
A bare handful of modern outliners exist today, such as the new [34]Bike , although it's macOS-only.
However, we suspect it's not a priority for Microsoft any more, either. Notably, it's [35]missing from Word Online, and from both [36]Android and [37]iOS versions too. ®
Get our [38]Tech Resources
[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.6
[2] https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2023/07/20/libreoffice-7-5-5-community-available-for-download/
[3] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/7.5
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZOYtJ7ePCC--odqg2utGlAAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/1999/07/26/sun_to_buy_linux_competitor/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/1999/08/31/sun_to_take_on_ms/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZOYtJ7ePCC--odqg2utGlAAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZOYtJ7ePCC--odqg2utGlAAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.core.co.uk/blog/blog/history-microsoft-word
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/27/onlyoffice_72_released/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/06/uk_south_korea_data_agreement/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/21/onlyoffice_7_3_and_wps_11/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZOYtJ7ePCC--odqg2utGlAAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2011/11/22/gates_testimony_wordperfect/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2004/11/08/microsoft_novell_netware_settlement/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2000/10/14/ms_bucks_save_linux_vendor/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2000/11/17/corel_moots_linux_selloff/
[18] https://support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045980374-Humble-Software-Bundle-Work-Remote-WordPerfect-Office-X9-instructions
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2014/10/02/so_long_lotus_123_ibm_ceases_support_after_over_30_years_of_code/
[20] https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/view-winhelp-hlp-files-windows-10-with-winhlp32-exe/
[21] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZOYtJ7ePCC--odqg2utGlAAAA1Q&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/12/hcl_domino_14/
[23] https://www.statista.com/statistics/983299/worldwide-market-share-of-office-productivity-software/
[24] https://6sense.com/tech/office-suites/google-workspace-market-share
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/red_hat_drops_libreoffice/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2011/05/10/microsoft_buys_skype/
[27] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/09/will_flatpak_and_snap_replace/
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/red_hat_drops_libreoffice/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/21/onlyoffice_7_3_and_wps_11/
[30] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/21/onlyoffice_7_3_and_wps_11/
[31] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/01/collabora_releases_code_2205_webbased/
[32] http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/outlining.htm#Big_Idea_4
[33] https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/software/microsoft-products/word/how-writers-can-use-word-2019s-outline-view-259128/
[34] https://www.hogbaysoftware.com/bike/
[35] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/where-is-outline-view-in-word-365-online/24b8161b-04e2-49fb-81d4-81bdc076c6c5
[36] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/does-word-for-android-have-outline-view/a4505135-2277-4f29-8e97-d03c67261cd9
[37] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/need-outline-mode-in-word-ios/2a01cd37-f1dd-4c21-a623-092668f54b47
[38] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: long-form writers...
I have edited some books with c100 pages but I think a 600 page document would best be split for editing purposes and reassembled.
LO 7.6 - Outline View
I'm not sure if this is the functionality required: [1]https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/01/outlinecontent_visibility.html?DbPAR=WRITER
This seems to bring outlining to the main edit rather than within Navigator, but I can't test as I'm not on 7.6 yet.
[1] https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/01/outlinecontent_visibility.html?DbPAR=WRITER
Re: LO 7.6 - Outline View
[Author here]
The folding functionality is the very rudiments of a start, yes, but it's so extremely vestigial so far that it's no use to me.
It's a bit like comparing MS-DOS 3.3 `EDLIN` with a heavily-customised Vim setup. They are the same core model, yes, but one is so minimal it's very little use, and the other is a rich sophisticated tool with 30 years of effort and investiment into refining it.
Re: LO 7.6 - Outline View
Thanks for the feedback Liam, I'll stick with vim for now then :D
I miss ClarisWorks
It had just about the right level of functionality for everyday purposes and the ability to embed different document types was quite advanced for the time. I remember writing some XTNDs to generate HTML a very long time ago.
Back in the day when I worked in an office with typists, they hated being forced to give up WordPerfect for DOS which was pretty much perfect for entering large amounts of text without taking your hands off the keyboard.
LibreOffice is pretty competent and I find it less buggy than Microsoft Word (or at least the old version I still possess) which seems to get increasingly fragile as the document becomes longer and more complex. But as the use of paper declines (I mainly use it these days for getting the attention of otherwise evasive customer service departments) and the contents that once went on it is destined for multiple different media, WYSIWYG is perhaps not the killer feature it once was.
OnlyOffice is worth a shout
Ought to cover most bases for a lot of people. Open source with a nice GUI toolkit. Desgined around the MS Office paradigm but if you can live with that you might like it.
"the best webmail tool around"
Damning with faint praise.
[Author here]
> Damning with faint praise.
Yes, and absolutely intentional. But it is actually competent enough at what it does that I can use it all day with hardly any cursing, which no other webmail I've seen can do.
It is, like most Google products, getting worse not better over time, though.
a useful feature
Improve the formula editor so it is easier to put latex like stuff in documents. It works OK but not brilliantly. I will use texmaker on this MAC for real work but the OU still requires assignemnts to be docx, doc or rtf.
Re: a useful feature
I would prefer that LO focus on improving their Office document compatibility - contrary to the clams of their [last] update, LO was still unable to open the most recent version of Word documents.
Re: a useful feature
The talk to Microsoft and tell them to stop tweaking their shit every time somebody else manages to make a 1:1 compatible version.
Re: a useful feature
It's THEIR software. They can tweak it any damn way they like - that's the benefit of making it yourself. DOC is not a standard, is a pseudo-standard, so well known that it has become a de-facto 'industry standard', but no industry standards organization is involved with deciding its structure.
Your complaint is like complaining that an LG remote doesn't work with a Samsung. With no standards, and self-ownership, you can do anything you want. It is up to everyone else to keep up if they [voluntarily] choose to (in this example, the universal remote makers). It's not pretty, but that's the damn-honest truth of this.
"it is increasingly difficult to develop entirely new features"
As an avid Excel user I can only laugh. Calc is still far away from reaching parity when it comes to diagrams, built-in functions and formatting, and I'm not even speaking of the more advanced Excel tools such as Macros and Powerquery. The ability to use it without the mouse just through keyboard shortcuts would also be neat.
Re: "it is increasingly difficult to develop entirely new features"
I stopped using Excel about five years ago I've been using LO since then. Calc's OK, but I'm doing simpler stuff these days and I'm happy-ish with it.*
The statement in the article "...the only open source office suite for personal productivity which can be compared feature-by-feature with the market leader" is correct in the sense that you could compare them feature-by-feature, but if it were done then Calc alone would come up wanting in many areas, whereas I can't think of anything that LO does well that Excel didn't when last I used it five years ago.
*I'm hoping that the new version won't crash every day, as the last dozen or so have. The way it buggers about with csv files is a pain and its conditional formatting isn't half as good as Excel was in about 2010 when it limited you to three stacked conditions.
Outline View?
I must admit that I have not found the need for that feature as I tend to use the Navigator - its functionality is better than what can be found (after some digging) in Word. I forgot what it was called in Word as I haven't used Word in what is rapidly approaching a decade, but it was mega useful to keep tabs on where you were in larger document work.
Ironically, it is exactly because I used this feature so much in Word that it was about the first thing I looked up when I switched to LO.
As for Word compatibility, given that we focus more on content than looks I have never found the need for it, and yes, I know we're lucky that way :).
Re: Outline View?
[Author here]
> I tend to use the Navigator
OK, if that works for you, then good. I am not here to dump on anyone's preferences.
For me, it's like asking a 20-year Vim veteran to switch to using EDLIN from MS-DOS 3.3. It is sort of vaguely recognisable as something roughly comparable, but one is a rich capable tool, and the other is a rudimentary just-about-viable-in-emergency thing that's not really any use to me.
Way back in the Stone Age, I used pfs:Professional Write on DOS and Windows 3.0. The only features in word that it didn't have that I can remember were mail merge and easy envelope printing. Between it, pfs:Publisher and Quatro Pro 4 (which had features in DOS Excel didn't have in windows), I ran our multi-million dollar entity. Most of the features in word and excel are just so much bloat.
Now if I could just get LO to install without throwing repeated 2503/2504 errors.
Meet?
What is Google meet? I use meet a lot, but didn't know Skype was still a thing.
long-form writers...
I've noticed only recently that with the current version of LO, on the latest Mint/Cinnamon, that for some reason a document with six hundred plus A5 pages turns very slow when deleting characters that cross to the next page (e.g. a series of line feeds). I'm not sure what's going on here, and I don't know when it started doing it - I haven't used LO in this way for some time.
If I were to add to the wish-list, I'd love to be able to import (and ideally, export) LyX files - or even default styles matching those of LyX. As it is, while you can copy and paste from Lyx to LO, it doesn't preserve styles, and each line of text is a separate paragraph after the paste.
---> obvious icon!