LibreOffice 7.5 launches with spell checking, dark mode and PDF Export improvements

@Martin Brinkmann:

Jeez! It seems like LibreOffice 7.4.5.1 was released just *yesterday*! (Okay, so I just checked and it was *six* days ago. Still, though! But wait — now that I’m looking at today’s LibreOffice download page, I see that “LibreOffice for Business” (the “LTS” version) is now at 7.4.5, so *that’s* probably why.) Also, on behalf of readers who don’t run an app-update checker a couple of times a day like I do, thanks for this “zero-day” article! Always appreciated!

@John G.:

I regularly run KC Softwares’ SUMo (Software Update Monitor, set to ignore beta releases) to check for available updates to my apps, and it’s been pretty reliable in letting me know when a new final release for LibreOffice is available — and *very promptly* after the release has been posted for downloading at The Document Foundation. Note that I use what was formerly called “LibreOffice Fresh” (the latest final release) and *not* what was formerly called “LibreOffice Still” (an earlier final release that The Document Foundation has selected for longer-term support … now called “LibreOffice for Business”?). LibreOffice Still / LibreOffice for Business has lower version numbers, and I don’t know whether it generates false positives in SUMo.

And yes, updating LibreOffice is a bit of a chore. LibreOffice’s internal updating mechanism didn’t work for so long that I gave up trying to update it that way. Instead, I go to LibreOffice’s download page, scroll down to open the release notes (for “Fresh,” the first version listed) on a new tab, read them, go back to the download tab and open the “info” link for “Help for offline use” in a new tab, copy the SHA256 checksum, go back to the download tab and download the “Help for offline use” installer, verify its checksum, go back to the download tab and scroll up to the main installer section, open the “info” link for *that* in a new tab, copy the SHA256 checksum, go back to the download tab, download the installer, and verify *its* checksum. Then I run the main program installer, and when that’s done, I run the offline help installer. (As a good Netizen and supporter of LibreOffice, I should probably look into downloading via BitTorrent, but I rarely use BitTorrent nowadays, plus … old dogs, new tricks.)

An additional source of hassle is that I archive my LibreOffice installers in a folder tree, first in 4-digit release number folders, and within those, in x64 and x86 subfolders. (It’s an unnecessary complication, but with my poor eyesight, it helps me avoid running the wrong installer.) The thing is, my primary browser, Pale Moon, remembers where previous downloads have been saved on a per-server basis, and LibreOffice’s main program installers and offline help installers are apparently hosted on different servers, so I have to manually change the save-to folder for *both* downloads. Not a *huge* hassle, but an unwelcome additional step. (Brave just remembers the last save-to folder, period, so the problem usually wouldn’t arise in Brave.)

[Why do I archive installers? Well, if you want to file a bug report, you have a *much* greater chance of getting it acted on if you do regression testing, to determine how long the bug has been present. Sometimes bugs are brand-new; sometimes more obscure, esoteric bugs or annoyances go *way, way* back. If you have the installers on hand to make “parallel”/portable installs of older releases to check for the bug in *them*, it’s much less of a hassle than if you had to download them from scratch. Also, if you have to revert to the previous release because of an intolerable bug in a new release — I think I’ve only had to do this *once* (with less-vetted “Fresh,” mind you) in six or seven years, and only with a 64-bit release for Windows; the Linux release was fine — it’s nice to already have the installers on hand for *that* as well.]

@John G. & @m3city:

I think LibreOffice’s Taskbar button gets zapped by the LibreOffice main-program installer’s cleanup routine. Thankfully, I also have LibreOffice pinned to my OpenShell menu, and the cleanup routine doesn’t think to go after *that* shortcut. Two clicks and I’m running LibreOffice and can re-pin its Taskbar button and drag it over to my preferred location. Of all the minor hassles attendant to updating LibreOffice, this is the least annoying one. Is it worth filing a bug report over? ~Maybe.~

@Microsoft Office Users:

Given that LibreOffice is a minor hassle to update, is it worth using?

Well, it’s always free to try (and use and keep), and I’m pretty sure the LibreOffice installer doesn’t steal your MS Office file associations unless you tell it to. You can install it on as many computers and in as many virtual machines as you want without getting dinged for it. You don’t have to subscribe. You don’t have to keep track of a license key in case you have to reinstall it. You can run multiple versions (as “parallel”/portable installs). There’s even a third-party utility that makes it easier to create parallel installs, in Windows at least.

As for privacy and security, no contest. LibreOffice wins hands down.

LAST-SECOND CORRECTION: LibreOffice has added limited/incomplete support for Visual Basic for Applications (MS Office’s “macro language”) since I switched (in the late stages of LibreOffice 3 or the early stages of LibreOffice 4). See, https://help.libreoffice.org/6.2/en-US/text/sbasic/shared/vbasupport.html. VBA code *will* get imported/converted, but you might (will probably?) have to edit it. This actually *does* qualify as a quantum leap in macro conversion/support (even if it isn’t yet perfect), so please keep this in mind when reading my remarks about macros elsewhere in this comment.

As for usability, if you’re a basic user who’s used to the pre-Ribbon, menu-driven interface, no problem. If you’re used to the Ribbon, you might not be happy with any of the LibreOffice equivalents; at a minimum, there would be a learning curve. If you’re an advanced user who’s used to the pre-Ribbon, menu-drive interface, you’ll face a learning curve for some of the more advanced functions, which are often done somewhat differently in LibreOffice. [See, LAST-SECOND CORRECTION, above] If you create and edit macros, you’re probably going to face a *big* learning curve, especially if you’re not a programmer. (I’m not a programmer, and I just record macros and hack away at them until they work the way I want them to. My macros are obviously very basic. But to be fair, ever since MS Office switched from a simple macro language to Visual Basic for Something-or-Other, in the mid-to-late ’90s I think, I’d have to use the same approach in MS Office. Within the confines of the older MS macro language, I made some pretty sophisticated macros, but doing that now is beyond my abilities.) If you use functions that are exclusive to MS Office, or that are much easier to use in MS Office, well, obviously, you’re not going to be happy. (I’m a generally happy LibreOffice user, but I miss Word’s envelope wizard, the one that automatically generated a USPS barcode. I looked into trying to replicate that in LibreOffice a few years back and my brain melted. I’ve been super-busy until very recently and haven’t checked to see whether LibreOffice has caught up in the ensuing years.)

As for customizability, I can’t really say. I’ve customized my own LibreOffice UI a fair amount, with custom toolbar buttons and hotkeys, and my customizations have, with rare exceptions, remained pretty stable from update to update. However, I haven’t regularly used MS Office or attempted to customize its UI in quite some time, so I can’t compare the two. I suspect that LibreOffice is more customizable, like Pale Moon is compared to any chromium-based browser.

As for default keyboard shortcuts, the most common ones are pretty much the same as in MS Office; some of the ones for more sophisticated functions *might* be at least slightly different, though none come to mind. The difference is certainly *markedly* less than between most media players I’ve used. (*Super* annoying, right?) You can always customize differing keyboard shortcuts that annoy you, if any, to be the same as in MS Office. (I’m guessing that someone may have already posted a list of such customizations somewhere on the Net, and maybe even created a macro that assigns them. Well … now that I’ve done a quick websearch, maybe not. But I *did* find a Make Use Of article from 2021 titled “How to Quickly Set Up LibreOffice Writer to Run Like Microsoft Word.” The fact that the article doesn’t recommending changing any of LibreOffice’s default keyboard shortcuts suggests that keyboard shortcuts aren’t an issue for most MS Office users who switch to LibreOffice. I certainly don’t remember having any trouble with keyboard shortcuts when *I* switched. The article links to another 2021 Make Use Of article titled “LibreOffice Writer: The Ultimate Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet,” in case you want to check for yourself.)

As for availability of good-quality, pre-made templates, whether from the publisher or from third parties, well … that’s hard to say. I’m sure you’re going to find a *lot* more of them for MS Office than for LibreOffice. But I’m picky when it comes to templates, and when I use a pre-made template, I almost always customize it, whether in MS Office (previously) or LibreOffice (now). Of course, you can always load an MS Office template in LibreOffice and save it as a LibreOffice template. [See, LAST-SECOND CORRECTION, above.] MAJOR CAVEAT, however: Unless there has been a *quantum leap* in macro conversion that I never heard about, any macros that were in the original template are *not* going to convert, and you’re going to have to recreate them from scratch. Still, though, the layout, text, and formatting are probably going to come through pretty well, saving you at least *that* work.

BOTTOM LINE: It’s only going to cost you a little download hassle, a little drive space, and a little time puttering around, so why not give LibreOffice a try? And if you like it, end up keeping it, and have the ability to, *do* contribute to its development. If you can spare the money, make a donation. If you have more time than money, file high-quality, actionable bug reports and suggestions for improvement. (Many LibreOffice bug-fixers are unpaid volunteers. They *really* appreciate it if you do as much the of background work for them as possible. And if you *do* that background work, your bug report is *much* more likely to be assigned and acted on.) If you’re a coder, consider contributing bug fixes, extensions, or core-program code. An example of a highly useful (I’d say invaluable) extension is Tomas Bilek’s “Alternative Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch).” (If you do anything more than *very basic* searches/search-and-replaces, and you don’t already use “regular expressions” on a *very frequent basis*, you NEED to install this extension.) An example of core-program functionality that could stand to be overhauled is indexing in Writer. (It’s currently split up into two separate functions: creating a new index entry, and editing existing index entries.) [Side Note: I use LibreOffice Calc as well as LibreOffice Writer, but I’ve tackled a major, long-term project in Writer and I haven’t in Calc, so I can’t think of any good extensions for Calc or core-program design deficiencies in Calc off the top of my head. I’m sure they’re out there.] Anyway, please try it, and contribute in some way if you can!