LibreOffice 3.6 released, download via web or torrent
The developers of LibreOffice have just released version 3.6 of the Office program. It is a lesser known alternative to Microsoft Office and OpenOffice that is available as a web download or as a torrent. LibreOffice 3.6 is a major release that introduces a number of feature updates and new features to the suite as a whole or individual programs.
Most notably - probably - are the performance improvements in the new version that you will notice when importing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, working with pivot tables in Calc (The Excel-like application) and when you scroll and layout large documents.
Here is a list of changes and additions that sound useful for users of the program. You find the full list of features and fixes on this page.
- Word count is now displayed directly in Writer's status bar
- Import filter for Corel Draw documents
- Support for importing Office Smartart
- PDF Export with watermark option
- Support for color scales and data bars
- Support for contextual spacing in Writer
- Cells can now be merged with a right-click in Calc
- The CSV file import filter has been improved, now handles lines with more than 64k characters
- Widescreen format for Impress slideshows
- 10 new master pages for Impress
- Impress now detects the external display correctly, and puts the presenter console on the local display
- General cleanup of the interface, e.g. 3D borders were removed
The latest version of LibreOffice is as usual available for all supported operating systems, Windows, Linux and Mac, and all supported languages. LibreOffice is a solid replacement for Microsoft Office, especially if you are working on computer systems running Linux as well as Windows.
Since we are right at it: which Office program or programs are you using, and why? Are you using Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or maybe even another Office suite other than the three major ones?
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Whoops – make that SEMI-yearly, meaning twice a year…
I did come across their sched, but can’t recall it, sorry. They’re going to release this fairly soon, and then adjust their sched to fit in with a bi-yearly release date common to some other prog.
LO 4 b2 is out, Martin. I see some nice improvements, including loading time and interface. But I am thoroughly frustrated trying to get to first base with the macros. The language is extremely verbose and documentation virtually as nonexistent as peer help. OO.o has a much better forum for that, while LO is using an “Ask LO” sort of “Get Satisfaction” thing that simply is not up to prime time. IMO, the lack of a remotely workable macro system cripples this project an relegates it to only simple use. Too bad for us all, but as it stands it looks like regarding the price of MS office, the workman is worthy of his wages.
Thanks for keeping us up to date. Any word yet on a final release date?
So is LibreOffice better than OpenOffice? Is it suppose to supersede Openoffice? I heard they were made by the same people.
> So is LibreOffice better than OpenOffice? Is it suppose to supersede Openoffice? I heard they were made by the same people.
They share the same code base, but from what I read in LO press-releases they got many new developers. But when I tried to switch from Oracle OO to LO, I run into issues, so I went back to Oracle OO and upgraded to Apache OO then.
You may try both like I did and find what works better for you. Both are free and quick to install and setup.
Ð .S. The good news is that it seems that LibO 3.6 can coexist with OO without problems, so one can install them both and use the one which works better for the every particular case.
Alas, LO 3.6 still lags behind OO on opening some my RTF files in Russian. The large file, the worse lag — I got over 3 minutes on 6mb file. This is unacceptable for me, so I’ll continue to use OO as my main office package, also using Kingsoft office as alternative where OO fails.
Earlier versions wouldn’t open Word .docx files. Will the new one open them?
It does open them, but I noticed some formatting was gone, like numbered lists. They still have some work to do.
I tried OpenOffice but it was too slow opening a doc (around 20 secs).
The free SoftMaker Office 2008 opened the same doc in around 2 seconds but didn’t handle docx.
I am currently using IBM’s Lotus Symphony, soon to be merged with OpenOffice.
BrianS , you may try Kingsoft Office. Free for personal use on one PC. Pretty fast, handles that pesky MS *x formats.
I tried to use it when failed to make OOo work well on presentation editing in both pptx and ppt. Worked with it not so long so far, but you don’t risk anything trying it, right?
Did I miss something on the developers of this program? I hope they are Filipinos since “libre” means free in Filipino. But then again so is in Spanish so maybe Mexicans (or Spanish-loving Americans) are behind this.
thats what i also thought. im a Filipino BTW.
Too many major bugs. Wait for version 3.6.1
Still a WordPerfect user–have been since the para-legal days. X6 is out now. Wonder why? Simplicity? Or just used to it. And Quattro Pro for spreadsheets. Rather archaic I must admit; and MS Office 2010 rests on the hard drive updated and ready to use.
Nearly all of my files are WordPerfect files, and I saw today X6 is out. People ask me why I use it–the simplicity. And most of my spreadsheets are still Quattro Pro. What to say–such an archaic situation–and MS 2010 rests on my hard drive, updated and ready for use.
I prefer MS Office. I gave OOo a full year of devotion several years ago, but ultimately found the advanced features, such as wizards for mail merge, etc to be completely unworkable. The same held true for the macro language and editor, whereas I can do pretty well in MS’s VBA, especially with the help of its excellent editor.
It was when I found that changing Case in OOo was a Style property instead of an absolute character change that I gave up. Case changes were not being copied over into other programs via the clipboard (in Windows, anyway), and my attempts to reason that this was a weakness were met with “religious” resistance. I’m patient, but not when it comes to attitude. I went back to MS Office, set up my macros again, and tripled my productivity.
I recently reevaluated OO and then LO, and found little change. I’m sorry to say that this is a major factor keeping me in the MS ecosystem. When I delve into Linux, I use LO, and it’s good for what it does. But once you get past the top level menu items, it unfortunately can’t compare to MS Office.
Paul B. , I respect your choice, but it’s about one’s needs, tastes and habits, and they are different for different people. For me OO is better that MSO, and that’s why:
I have often to edit and change large documents, and MSO didn’t learned to pick selected text to Find/Replace dialog automatically up to MSO 2007. Then I discovered that OO allows Autotext with tables, and MSO – not. Then I found that OO Calc works better with my favorite clipboard manager than MS Excel.
More to it, with OO I can work with the same documents on 4 PCs working with different OSs – Win 7 Pro and Mac OS X in office, Win XP at Home, Win 7 Starter on my netbook in my bed or on the move. The very thought of looking for 3 MSO copies to have the same possibility makes me nervous (even if pirated ones not costing bloody money).
“wizards for mail merge” – I don’t know what they are and why I could need them. I believe that you do know and do need but I go my own ways :)
I generally agree with Paul B. It works okay for simple stuff, but LO cannot stand toe-to-toe with MSO. Just today I tried to load a docx file into LO and all of the paragraph numbering was stripped out. What?! I used to use it to fix corrupted Word docs, but now it seems it isn’t any good even for that anymore. As much as I want LO and OO to make it to the big time, they are still really only good for the casual user. At least the price is right.
>>> It is a lesser known alternative to Microsoft Office and OpenOffice
I love your joke, boy.
I use LibreOffice and before that OpenOffice.
LibreOffice does everything I need for documents and spreadsheets.
Also like the export to pdf feature.
LibreOffice all the way,be it Windows or Linux,Apache OpenOffice is kind of dated for about a year when it belonget to Oracle it stagnated in developement and Microsoft Office it’s kind of expensive and I don’t really need all it’s features!
But I learned that some things in “dated” OpenOffice still work better (and/or faster) that in new LibreOffice 3.6
At home: LibreOffice
At work: MS Office (because I have no choice there)
Google Docs
Waiting for the portable version. I never install applications.