LibreOffice


LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite, a project of The Document Foundation. It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite consists of programs for word processing, creating and editing of spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, working with databases, and composing mathematical formulae. It is available in 115 languages.
As its native file format to save documents for all of its applications, LibreOffice uses the Open Document Format for Office Applications, or OpenDocument, an international standard developed jointly by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. LibreOffice also supports the file formats of most other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, through a variety of import and export filters.
LibreOffice is available for a variety of computing platforms, including Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux, Android and iOS, as well as in the form of an online office suite [|LibreOffice Online]. It is the default office suite of most popular Linux distributions. It is the most actively developed free and open-source office suite, with approximately 50 times the development activity of Apache OpenOffice, the other major descendant of OpenOffice.org.
The project was announced and a beta released on 28 September 2010. Between January 2011 and October 2011, LibreOffice was downloaded approximately 7.5 million times. The project claims 120 million unique downloading addresses from May 2011 to May 2015, excluding Linux distributions, with 55 million of those being from May 2014 to May 2015.

Features

Included applications

Operating systems

The Document Foundation developers target LibreOffice for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS. Community ports for FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS X 10.5 PowerPC receive support from contributors to those projects, respectively. LibreOffice is also installable on OpenIndiana via SFE.
Historically predecessors of LibreOffice, back to StarOffice 3, have run on Solaris with SPARC CPUs that Sun Microsystems made. Unofficial ports of LibreOffice, versions now obsolete, have supported SPARC. Current unofficial ports of LibreOffice 5.2.5 run only on Intel-compatible hardware, up to for Solaris 11.
In 2011, developers announced plans to port LibreOffice both to Android and to iOS. A beta version of a document viewer for Android 4.0 or newer was released in January 2015; In May 2015, LibreOffice Viewer for Android was released with basic editing capabilities. In February 2020, Collabora released its first officially supported version of LibreOffice for Android and iOS.
The LibreOffice Impress Remote application for various mobile operating systems allows for remote control of LibreOffice Impress presentations.

LibreOffice Online

LibreOffice Online is the online office suite edition of LibreOffice. It allows for the use of LibreOffice through a web browser by using the canvas element of HTML5. Development was announced at the first LibreOffice Conference in October 2011, and is ongoing. The Document Foundation, IceWarp, and Collabora announced a collaboration to work on its implementation. A version of the software was shown in a September 2015 conference, and the UK Crown Commercial Service announced an interest in using the software. On 15 December 2015, Collabora, in partnership with ownCloud, released a technical preview of LibreOffice Online branded as Collabora Online Development Edition. In July 2016 the enterprise version Collabora Online 1.0 was released. The same month, Nextcloud and Collabora partnered to bring CODE to Nextcloud users. By October 2016, Collabora had released nine updates to CODE. The first source code release of LibreOffice Online was done with LibreOffice version 5.3 in February 2017. In June 2019, CIB software GmbH officially announced its contributions to LibreOffice Online and "LibreOffice Online powered by CIB".

Comparison with OpenOffice

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."

Supported file formats

FormatExtensionTypeReadWriteNotes
AbiWordABW, ZABWDocument
Adobe FlashSWFGraphics, multimedia
Adobe PageMakerPMD, PM3, PM4, PM5, PM6, P65Document, DTP
AppleWorks word processingCWKDocumentFormerly called ClarisWorks
Adobe Swatch ExchangeASEColor plate
Adobe FreeHandAGD, FHDGraphics / Vector
Apple KeynoteKTH, KEYPresentation
Apple NumbersNumbersSpreadsheet
Apple PagesPagesDocument
AportisDoc PDBDocumentRequires Java
AutoCAD DXFDXFGraphics / CAD
BMP file formatBMPGraphics / Raster
Comma-separated valuesCSV, TXTText
ClarisDrawGraphics / Vector
CorelDRAW 6-X7CDR, CMXGraphics / Vector
Computer Graphics MetafileCGMGraphicsBinary-encoded only; not those using clear-text or character-based encoding
Data Interchange FormatDIFSpreadsheet
DBase, Clipper, VP-Info, FoxProDBFDatabase
DocBookXMLXML
Encapsulated PostScriptEPSGraphics
Enhanced MetafileEMFGraphics / Vector / Text
EPUBEPUBeBook
FictionBookFB2eBook
GIMP PaletteGPLColor plate
GnumericGNM, GNUMERICSpreadsheet
Graphics Interchange FormatGIFGraphics / Raster
Hangul WP 97HWPDocumentNewer "5.x" documents are not supported
HPGL plotting filePLTGraphics
HTMLHTML, HTMDocument, text
Ichitaro 8/9/10/11JTD, JTTDocument
JPEGJPG, JPEGGraphics
Lotus 1-2-3WK1, WKS, 123, wk3, wk4Spreadsheet
Lotus Word ProDocument
MacDraftGraphics / CAD
MacDrawGraphics / Vector
MacDraw IIGraphics / Vector
Macintosh Picture FilePCTGraphics
MacWrite Pro 1.5Document
MathMLMMLMath
METMET
Microsoft Excel 2003 XMLXMLSpreadsheet
Microsoft Excel 4/5/95XLS, XLW, XLTSpreadsheet
Microsoft Excel 97–2003XLS, XLW, XLTSpreadsheet
Microsoft Excel 2007-2016XLSXSpreadsheet
Microsoft Excel Web Query FileIQYData sources, text
Microsoft Office 2007-2016 Office Open XMLDOCX, XLSX, PPTXMultiple formats
Microsoft Pocket ExcelPXLSpreadsheetRequires Java
Microsoft Pocket WordPSWDocumentRequires Java
Microsoft PowerPoint 97–2003PPT, PPS, POTPresentation
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007-2016PPTXPresentation
Microsoft PublisherPUBDocument, DTP
Microsoft RTFRTFDocument
Microsoft Word 2003 XML XMLDocument
Microsoft Word 4/5/6.0/95DOC, DOTDocument
Microsoft Word 97–2003DOC, DOTDocument
Microsoft Word 2007-2016DOCXDocument
Microsoft Word for MacDocumentWord 1–5.1
Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0DOC, DOTDocument
Microsoft WorksWPS, WKS, WDBMultipleMicrosoft Works for Mac formats since 4.1
Microsoft WriteWRIDocument
Microsoft VisioVSDGraphics / Vector
Netpbm formatPGM, PBM, PPMGraphics / Raster
OpenDocumentODT, FODT, ODS, FODS, ODP, FODP, ODG, FODG, ODFMultiple formats
Open Office BaseODBDatabase forms, data
OpenOffice.org XMLSXW, STW, SXC, STC, SXI, STI, SXD, STD, SXMMultiple formats
PCXPCXGraphics
Photo CDPCDPresentation
PhotoShopPSDGraphics
Plain textTXTTextVarious encodings supported
Portable Document FormatPDFDocumentIncluding hybrid PDF
Portable Network GraphicPNGGraphics / Raster
QuarkXPress 3–4QXPDocument, DTP
Quattro Pro 6.0WB2, wq1, wq2Spreadsheet
RagTime for Mac
Scalable vector graphicsSVGGraphics / Vector
SGVSGV
Software602 602, TXTDocument
StarOffice StarCalc 3/4/5SDC, VORSpreadsheetnowrap nowrap
StarOffice StarDraw/StarImpressSDA, SDD, SDP, VORPresentation
StarOffice StarMathSXMMath
StarOffice StarWriter 3/4/5SDW, SGL, VORDocument
Star Writer graphicsSGFGraphics
Sony Broad Band eBookRLFeBook
SunOS RasterRASGraphics / Raster
SVMSVMGraphics / Vector
SYLKSLKSpreadsheet, file exchange
Tagged Image File FormatTIF, TIFFGraphics / Raster
Truevision TGA TGAGraphics / Raster
Unified Office FormatUOF, UOT, UOS, UOPMultiple
Windows MetafileWMFGraphics, vector, bitmap
WordPerfectWPDDocument
WordPerfect Suite 2000/Office 1.0WPSDocument
WriteNow 4.0Document
X BitMapXBMGraphics / Raster
X PixMapXPMGraphics / Raster
Zoner DrawZMFGraphics

Miscellaneous features

LibreOffice can use the GStreamer 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. They were also used on the toolbars and menus by default. Later LibreOffice integrated multiple icon themes to adapt the look and feel of specific desktop environment, such as Colibre for Windows, and Elementary for GNOME.
LibreOffice also ships with a modified theme which looks native on GTK-based Linux distributions. It also renders fonts via Cairo on Linux distributions; this means that text in LibreOffice is rendered the same as the rest of the Linux desktop.
With version 6.2, LibreOffice includes a Ribbon-style GUI, called Notebookbar, including three different views.
This feature has formerly been included as an experimental feature in LibreOffice 6.
LibreOffice has a feature similar to WordArt called Fontwork.
LibreOffice uses HarfBuzz for complex text layout, it was first introduced in 4.1 for Linux and 5.3 for Windows and macOS. Fonts with OpenType, Apple Advanced Typography or SIL Graphite features can be adjusted.

Licensing

The LibreOffice project uses a dual LGPLv3 / MPL 2.0 license for new contributions to allow the license to be upgraded. Since the core of the OpenOffice.org codebase was donated to the Apache Software Foundation, there is an ongoing effort to get all the code rebased to ease future license updates. At the same time, there were complaints that IBM had not in fact released the Lotus Symphony code as open source, despite having claimed to. It was reported that some LibreOffice developers wanted to incorporate some code parts and bug fixes which IBM already fixed in their OpenOffice fork.

Scripting and extensions

LibreOffice supports third-party extensions., the LibreOffice Extension Repository lists more than 320 extensions. Another list is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation and another one by the Free Software Foundation. Extensions and scripts for LibreOffice can be written in C++, Java, CLI, Python, and LibreOffice Basic. Interpreters for the latter two are bundled with most LibreOffice installers, so no additional installation is needed. The application programming interface for LibreOffice is called "UNO" and is extensively documented.

LibreOffice Basic

is a programming language similar to Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications but based on StarOffice Basic. It is available in Writer, Calc and Base. It is used to write small programs known as "macros", with each macro performing a different task, such as counting the words in a paragraph.

History

ooo-build, Go-oo and Oracle

Members of the OpenOffice.org community who were not Sun 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 and put forward a more detailed proposal in 2001.
Ximian and then Novell had maintained the ooo-build patch set, a project led by Michael Meeks, to make the build easier on Linux and due to the difficulty of getting contributions accepted upstream by Sun, even from corporate partners. It tracked the main line of development and was not intended to constitute a fork. It was also the standard build mechanism for OpenOffice.org in most Linux distributions and was contributed to by said distributions.
In 2007, ooo-build was made available by Novell as a software package called Go-oo, 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.
Sun's contributions to OpenOffice.org had been declining for some time, they remained reluctant to accept contributions and contributors were upset at Sun releasing OpenOffice.org code to IBM for IBM Lotus Symphony under a proprietary contract, rather than under an open source licence.
Sun was purchased by Oracle Corporation in early 2010. OpenOffice.org community members were concerned by Oracle's behaviour towards open source software, the Java lawsuit against Google and Oracle's withdrawal of developers and lack of activity on or visible commitment to OpenOffice.org, as had been noted by industry observers – as Meeks put it in early September 2010, "The news from the Oracle OpenOffice conference was that there was no news." Discussion of a fork started soon after.

The Document Foundation and LibreOffice

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's OpenSolaris.
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. 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.
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.

Naming

The name "LibreOffice" was picked after researching trademark databases and social media, as well as after checks were made to see if it could be used for URLs in various countries. Oracle rejected requests to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project.
LibreOffice was initially named BrOffice in Brazil. OpenOffice.org had been distributed as BrOffice.org by the BrOffice Centre of Excellence for Free Software because of a trademark issue.

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. In June 2011, Oracle announced that it would donate the OpenOffice.org code and trademark to the Apache Software Foundation, where the project was accepted for a project incubation process within the foundation, thus becoming Apache OpenOffice. In an interview with LWN in 2011, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth blamed The Document Foundation for destroying OpenOffice.org because it did not license code under Oracle's Contributor License Agreement. But former Sun executive Simon Phipps denies this is the case:
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".

Release history

BranchVersion Release dateNotesScreenshot
3.x28 September 2010Initial release based on OpenOffice.org and ooo-build; 80,000 downloads
3.x25 January 2011First-introduced features unique to LibreOffice:
  • SVG image import
  • New or improved import filters: Lotus Word Pro, Microsoft Works, WordPerfect. PPTX chart import feature
  • Bundled extensions, including Presenter View in Impress
  • Colour-coded document icons
  • Load and Save ODF documents in flat XML
  • AutoCorrections match case of the words that AutoCorrect replaces
  • Vastly improved RTF export
  • Embedding of standard PDF fonts
3.x3 June 2011New features include:
  • Memory usage improvements
  • Speed and MS Excel compatibility improvements to Calc, redesigned Move/Copy Sheet dialog
  • Code cleanup: German comments translated to English, dead code removed
  • Improved GTK+ theme integration and font rendering in Linux.
  • Reduction of LibreOffice's dependence on Java
  • Continuing the transition to GNU Make for building LibreOffice
    • 3.x14 February 2012New features include:
  • Visio .vsd import
  • A native PostgreSQL driver
  • AES encryption support for ODF file encryption
  • An .msi Windows Installer,
  • Improved Office Open XML support
  • Introduction of an online update checker. By default, this feature is not fully automated.
    • 3.x8 August 2012New features include:
  • Support for color scales and data bars in Calc
  • Added word count to status bar
  • PDF Export with watermark option
  • 10 new Impress master pages
  • Support for importing Office SmartArt
  • Import Filter for CorelDRAW documents
    • This was the last version to support the Windows 2000 operating system.
    4.x7 February 2013New features include:
    • Import/export support for native RTF math expressions, import filter for Microsoft Publisher files
    • Support of all versions of Visio files
    • Improved XLSX load time
    • Various DOCX improvements
    • CMIS support
    • Support for Firefox Personas
    • PDF import, Presenter Console and Python scripting provider now core features
    • Support for comments to text ranges in Writer
    4.x25 July 2013 New features include:
  • Sidebar
  • Improved image rotation
  • Gradient backgrounds
  • Embedding fonts in documents
  • Import large HTML documents with more than 64,000 table cells
  • Import/export of charts to ODC files and export to various vector formats
  • OOXML and RTF bugfixes and enhancements,
  • Basic implementation of EMF+ metafiles.
  • Import of legacy Mac text formats
  • Layout via Core Text for OSX and HarfBuzz for Linux
    • 4.x30 January 2014New features include:
  • Calc performance improvements and OpenCL for calculations via the graphics card
  • Start Center with file lists
  • New set of monochrome icons, "Sifr"
  • Import filter for Apple Keynote and AbiWord files
  • IAccessible2 in Windows version
  • Embedded Firebird database engine for Base
    • 4.x30 July 2014New features include:
  • Brand new drawingML-based DOCX import/export filter for shapes and TextFrames
  • Improved PDF import
  • Improved handling of Microsofts's Office Open XML format
  • Non-printing characters are displayed in a different color
  • Paragraphs in Writer can now be over 65,536 characters
  • The default icon set has been updated
  • Toolbar background is now rendered natively on Mac OS X
  • Comments can be printed in the margins
  • Data fields in Calc pivot tables can now be set to columns
  • Presentations can have OpenGL 3D objects
    • 4.x29 January 2015New features include:
    • Sidebar now enabled by default in Writer, Calc and Draw
    • Possibility of connection directly to OneDrive and SharePoint 2010/2013 directly from LibreOffice
    • Allowing Draw to import Adobe PageMaker files
    • The ability to digitally sign PDF files in Windows
    • Toolbar buttons in Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw have been reorganized and improved
    • New color selector:
    • * Shows recently used document colors
    • * Support for different color palettes and for.gpl GIMP palette format
    • * Allows directly opening the color picker and choose another color
    • Added the ability to import files from MacDraw, MacDraw II and RagTime for Mac in Draw and Writer
    • Firefox Themes improvements
    • Added new fonts: Caladea and Carlito
    5.x5 August 2015New features include:

    Writer:
    • Sidebar previews styles as formatted ;
    • Emoji support in 22 languages, including shortcodes for symbols and numerous other replacements; :keyboard: becomes ⌨
    • Images can be cropped;
    • Text highlighting and shading compatible with MS Word;
    • Improved import of comments for text ranges in binary.doc files;
    • Equations in early RTF and DOC formats imported as editable math objects;
    • Apple Pages '09 or older import.
    Calc:
    • Added UI to conditional formatting;
    • Improvements to scientific formatting of cells;
    • Import of Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro, and Apple Numbers '09 or earlier.
    Math:
    • Equations and their parts can be given 15 basic colors.
    Draw:
    • Import of MacDraft and ClarisDraw files.
    Core and filters:
    • When e-mailing, maintain document invisible content;
    • PDF export supports Time-Stamp Protocol ;
    • MS Works import: Add dialog to ask for text encoding;
    • Support for Adobe Swatch Exchange color palettes;
    • LibreOffice Expert Configuration now searchable.
    5.x10 February 2016New features include:
    Writer:
    • A Styles menu has been added to the main menus.
    Calc:
    • A Sheet menu has been added to the main menus.
    Impress:
    • A Slide menu has been added to the main menus.
    Math:
    • The Math module now has a new item "Import MathML from Clipboard".
    Core and filters:
    • Support Unicode character input with on Windows
    • PNG export in Writer, Calc and Impress;
    • Import of the following formats supported: Gnumeric, Microsoft Write, Apple Keynote 6
    5.x3 August 2016New features include:
    Writer:
    • New drawing tools
    • New button for showing/hiding track changes toolbar
    • Single Toolbar Mode
    Calc:
    • New drawing tools
    • Pressing in the multiline input to insert a new line
    • Single Toolbar Mode
    • Option to delete border from adjacent cells too in the borders tab of "Format Cells" dialog
    • Freeze Rows and Columns button became a split button and added "Freeze First Row" and "Freeze first Column" options in that button
    • Extensive function tooltips
    Impress:
    • Quick access to slide and page properties in a new 'Slide' and 'Page' content panel in the 'Properties' sidebar tab
    • Exporting to PDF only notes pages
    Filters:
    • Better import of DOCX and RTF linked graphic into LibreOffice Writer
    • Import of Microsoft Word for DOS files
    GUI:
    • Print to File available within the list of printers in Print dialog
    • Video clips, charts and OLE objects will resize proportionately by default
    • Improved resizing behavior for images, videos and OLE objects
    • Simplification of Character spacing
    • "Save as Template" is now available in the Save toolbar button dropdown
    • Added Find Previous button
    • Added Icon View and buttons for switching between modes at Remote Files dialog, as well as supporting Google Drive's Two-Factor Authentication
    • New user interface for Template Manager
    5.x1 February 2017Type 1 font support dropped.
    New features include:
    Writer:
    • New dialog for quickly jump to another page
    • Implement table styles
    • New drawing tools for arrows
    • A toolbar button for small capitals
    Calc:
    • New drawing tools for arrows
    • Improve saving WEEKNUM field behavior to ODF
    • New options for fraction number formats
    • Median is added to functions available in pivot tables
    • New option for merging non empty cells
    Impress:
    • Images inserted via Photo Album can be linked in the document
    • Slide properties content panel in sidebar for master slide mode
    • Opening Template Selector at startup
    Draw:
    • New arrow endings, including Crow's foot notation's ones.
    Base:
    • Upgrade Firebird to version 3.0.0
    Text Layout:
    • New cross-platform text layout engine that uses HarfBuzz for consistent text layout on all platforms, also improved text layout on macOS and Windows.
    • Improved and consistent calculation of inter-line spacing across platforms
    • Enable vertical "left to right" block direction for traditional Mongolian and Manchu
    Filters:
    • Multiple improvements in OpenXML, PDF and DOC filters
    • StarOffice StarWriter, StarCalc and StarDraw/StarImpress files can again be imported
    GUI:
    • Revamped the Extension Manager dialog
    • Redesign of the Colors, Gradients, Hatching and Bitmap tabs and the addition of a Pattern tab
    • Introduction of the Page Deck in the sidebar in Writer
    • Added "Import Bitmap" functionality to the Area Content Panel found in the Properties deck
    • Added Styles Preview checkbox functionality to the Styles & Formatting Sidebar Deck
    • Introduction of the new "Media Playback Panel" found in Properties deck when Media is selected
    • Introduction of the "Default Shapes Panel" in the new Shapes Deck for Draw
    Online:
    • First source code release of LibreOffice Online
    Experimental features:
    • Added four toolbar modes to make it easy for users to switch the visible toolbars
    5.x28 July 2017New features include:
    Writer:
    • Importing AutoText from Microsoft Word DOTM templates
    • Preserving full structure of numbered and bulleted lists while exporting or pasting them as plain text
    • Creating custom watermarks via Format menu
    • New context menu items have been added for working with sections, footnotes, endnotes and styles
    Calc:
    • Adding support for pivot charts, which use data from pivot tables. When the table is updated, the chart is automatically updated as well.
    • Menu commands to show, hide and delete all comments
    • Priority of conditional formatting rules can be changed with new up/down buttons
    • Extra sheet protection options have been added, to optionally allow insertion or deletion of rows and columns
    • CSV export settings are now remembered
    Impress & Draw:
    • Allowing specify fractional angles while duplicating an object
    Core:
    • A new standard colour palette has been included, based on the RYB colour model
    • Support OpenPGP keys for signing ODF documents on Linux
    • Added support for ECDSA keys on Linux and macOS
    • Signature status showing with colored infobars
    Filters:
    • File format compatibility has been improved with better support for EMF vector images
    • Using PDFium to render imported PDF files
    Online:
    • Responsive design and read-only mode for the document iframe added
    • Performance and rendering improvements
    This was the last version to support the Windows XP and Vista operating system.
    6.x31 January 2018New features include:
    Writer:
    • Add Form menu in menubar
    • Input field behavior improves
    • Implement rotation of images to any angle
    • Use ODT and XLSX files as mail merge data source
    • New default table style
    • "Grammar By" spell checking
    Calc:
    • Expert cell range selection or a selected group of shapes 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 of Noto 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 expert 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
    6.x8 August 2018New features include:Writer:
    • Multiple improves for Ruby characters
    • Support generating signature line via Insert menu
    • Add localized settings for tab scopes and caption order
    • Multiple improves to EPUB export
    Calc:
    • Sorting images anchored to Calc cells
    Draw:
    • Added New Page menu item
    Base:
    • HSQLDB database engine is still used by default, but Firebird engine is used by default when experimental mode is turned on.
    Core / General:
    • New default order for Traditional and Simplified Chinese fonts
    • Reworked Areafill backgrounds
    • New RYB Standard palette, based on Itten RYB color ring theory providing Red, Yellow, Blue primaries
    • New set of default gradients
    • New application icons
    • Colibre and Karasa Jaga icon themes added
    6.x7 February 2019New features include:Writer:
    Calc:
    • Support Signature Line in the spreadsheet
    • Data Validation supports custom formulas
    • Do multivariate regression analysis via regression tool
    • Add the REGEX function to match or replace text with regular expression
    Impress and Draw:
    • Multiple improvements on animation
    • Add a couple of text related drawing styles
    • Add Table submenu to menu Format in Draw
    Base:
    • Embedded Firebird database engine becomes available in public
    • Firebird Migration Assistant creates a backup copy of content for migration
    • MySQL C++ connector is replaced with MariaDB C connector
    BASIC:
    • Add fully support for Firebird RDBMS
    Core / General:
    • Signing Signature Lines with an image of handwritten signature
    • Add Source Serif Pro font
    Filters:
    • Add support for exporting OOXML gradient, bitmap and pattern properties for chart
    • Implement OOXML agile encryption
    GUI:
    • Notebookbar becomes available in public
    • Add three SVG based icons styles
    • Added Minimum and Maximum labels for some conditions in Conditional formatting dialog
    • Add a dialog to switch font feature
    6.x8 August 2019New features include:Writer:
    • AutoCorrect exception list function has been extended to avoid auto-capitalization in words like mRNA, iPhone, fMRI
    • Add "Send Outline to Clipboard" button to Navigator → Context Menu
    • New bottom-to-top, left-to-right writing direction in table cells and text frames
    • Support importing charts from DOCX drawingML group shapes
    • New interface add Word form controls
    Calc:
    • New UNO API to let cell anchored graphics resize with the cell
    • New Russian ruble currency symbol to currency formats
    • New drop-down widget into formula bar instead old tool Sum
    • New checkbox to trim input range to the actual data content
    • Add With replacement and Keep order checkboxes for Sampling
    • FOURIER function to computes discrete Fourier transform of an input array
    Impress and Draw:
    • Various improvements for importing SmartArt from PPTX files
    Base:
    • Firebird Migration Assistant is enabled by default
    Chart:
    • Add palette selection to options charts default colors
    Math:
    • Introduce attributes harpoon and wideharpoon for an alternative representation of vectors
    Core / General:
    • LibreOffice TWAIN module can work on both 32-bit and 64-bit on Windows
    • New UNO command to insert narrow no-break space via keyboard shortcut
    • Tip-Of-The-Day dialog shows useful information once per day on startup
    • What's-New infobar pointing to the release notes after update
    • Sentence selection is available for keyboard customization
    • Support redacting documents
    • Support Apple Advanced Typography outside macOS
    Filters:
    • Various improvements on EMF+, PDF and OOXML filters
    GUI:
    • Tabbed Compact UI is available in public
    • Contextual Single UI is available in public
    This version removed support for Firefox personas.
    6.x29 January 2020New features include:
    Writer:
    • Option to mark comments as resolved in Writer
    • The bottom-to-top, left-to-right text direction is available in Writer Text Frames
    • Comments on Writer images and charts
    • New Paste Special menu options for pasting table data into tables
    Calc:
    • The columns/rows headers are drawn flat now
    • Password length no longer limited to 15 symbols for XLSX files
    • Whole Sheet Export setting of the PDF export options
    Impress & Draw
    • Added 'Remove Hyperlink' to context menu
    • Added 'Consolidate Text' to combine multiple selected textboxes into one
    • Interaction now only executed in presentation mode
    • Image Maps now respect the setting to require Ctrl+Click to follow the hyperlink
    • Hyperlink in Image Maps now work in presentation mode
    Base:
    • Access2Base API for Base users can be invoked from Python
    BASIC:
    • Implement Save As Word 2000 and Save As for Word.VBA document
    Core / General:
    • Internal Paths are now displayed in the UI
    • Added checkbox to enable/disable sending crash reports to The Document Foundation
    • Hyperlink context menus were unified
    • Added QR Code Generator
    GUI:
    • Document thumbnails at the start center have an icon overlaid to indicate the module
    • Added Table panel to Writer's Sidebar
    7.x12 May 2020New features include:Writer:
    • Implemented a padded numbering in Writer's lists
    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
    • 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
    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 don't have any items
    • All objects in Navigator 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
    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

    Mascot competition

    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.
    Tyson Tan submitted a design he named Libbie the Cyber Oryx. The character was a cybernetic oryx, following in the robotic design of his other mascots. Tan's reasoning for it being an oryx was because LibreOffice and oryxes share a similar story of revival. The character is described as "social, swift, sharp and smart," and as being the public relations manager of The Document Foundation. As the character is an android it can swap parts of its body to glow a different color or have an entirely different appearance. Tan's original concept art included versions of Libbie with colors and poses for each of the LibreOffice programs as well as dark and male versions.
    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.

    Versions

    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. The versions are designated to signal their appropriateness for differing user requirements. Releases are designated by three numbers separated by dots. The first two numbers represent the major version number, and the final number indicates the bugfix releases made in that series. LibreOffice designates the two release versions as:
    LibreOffice uses a time-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.
    Minor bugfix versions of the "fresh" and "still" release branches are released frequently.

    Users and deployments

    The figure shows the worldwide number of LibreOffice users from 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 via downloads or CD-ROMs. Over 90% of those were on Windows, with another 5% on OS X. LibreOffice is the default office suite for most Linux distributions, and is installed when the operating system is installed or updated. Based on International 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. In 2011, the Document Foundation set a target of 200 million users worldwide before the end of 2020.
    2013: In September 2013, after two years, the estimated number of LibreOffice users was 75 million. A million new unique IP addresses check for downloads each week.
    2015: In 2015, LibreOffice was used by 100 million users and 18 governments.
    2016: In August 2016, the number of LibreOffice users was estimated at 120 million.
    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. In comparison, Microsoft Office was used in 2018 by 1.2 billion users.

    Mass deployments

    LibreOffice has seen various mass deployments since its inception:
    2003–2010
    2011
    2012
    2013
    2014
    2015
    2016
    2017
    2018
    2019
    2020
    Starting in 2011, The Document Foundation has organized the annual LibreOffice Conference, as follows: