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Does anybody know if LibreOffice 6 fixes the bug where portrait documents will only print in landscape mode?

If this is the bug you were talking about, it seems to have been fixed in at least 5.4.4

https://bugs.documentfoundatio...

Microsoft Office is commercial software, if you're not paying them to keep the software up to date, then what are you paying for?

The software is up to date, and much more robust than any open source rinky-dink document editor. If you want zero flaws in a product then you should probably look elsewhere, maybe in an alternate universe.

https://bugs.documentfoundatio...

LOLS, see that green line??

With open source you turn users into beta testers and exploit them for free labor. No thanks. You can't use free as a virtue and then turn it into an obligation.

I'm surprised there isn't a national government somewhere funding open source software.

In the US, the National Endowment for the Arts spends $146 million a year on stuff which most Americans never see or are affected by in any way, and some of which is offensive to large segments of the population ("Piss Christ", nude "performance art, etc.).

Imagine how much quality open source software could be produced with $146 million per year? For comparison, LibreOffice has a budget of under a million euros per year.

Translation: "We added gimmicky crap instead of spending time to fix existing bugs"

Wow, salty, is it supposed to sound cool? Maybe better check your facts.

The link to see it is the very first like in the summary, the 'announced' link: https://blog.documentfoundatio...

There are 4 screenshots of what MUFFIN is, and it appears to basically be 4 types of toolbars, one of which is essentially a ribbon. This isn't really anything revolutionary, they just made up a stupid word to describe maintaining 4 types of UIs for people.

Honest, this is why Linux can't have nice things. Yea I know many people hate the MS ribbon-style stuff, or the OSX menus, but at least it's consistent (for the apps made by the same developers following the rules) and easy to maintain. I can guarantee that this MUFFIN approach will just result in 4 quasi-usable scenarios, each with bugs, rather than 1 well tested scenario that 80% of people like.

There are a few areas they it has advantages in, for example it supports a much wider range of file formats, works on more platforms (does not not limit features by platform (e.g. ms access is not in mac office)), can run from a USB stick, can be scripted in python, can make hybrid PDF files... But then it also misses some features of MS office, so it depends on which of the unique features are more useful for you. https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

If you look at the official release notes impress/presentation is always an afterthought. (Why the hell does slashdot link to a random softpedia article?) This is true for every release. I wish we could get some development/love on impress. I use it for all of my class lectures.

The auto size text to box was broken so long that after 3 years , I had enough and spent a week learning the code so I could fix it. Which ended up adding only a single line of code.

I think you mean 2003, but in all other ways yes. 2003 was the last version before they decided to ditch the menu bar for their precious "ribbon". I think it's because OpenOffice was reaching a point of being a reasonable replacement, almost indistinguishable on the surface, so Microsoft felt like they had to make Office... different.

The sad thing is they took away some really useful advanced features from 2003... like being able to create your own custom buttons with a little pixel editor and assign them to macros you write for automating repetitive tasks. Gone with the coming of the wretched, unbidden ribbon, the solution for a problem that didn't exist. There are some improvements and bug-fixes that come along with 2007 and 2010, but at the cost of having to train employees on a custom ribbon with the collection of buttons they used to rely on on a toolbar (because with the ribbon, you only get one toolbar... just because). If this included a custom button, you're out of luck.

I just can't think of how dumb this is, because all the customization capability of 2003 was effective product lock-in for Microsoft, making OpenOffice a less-than-ideal alternative for shops with a lot of time-saving macros (no, not the kind of macros that travel with documents as malware). Microsoft traded this for a fucking ribbon, because... I don't know, pick one:

1. unless it looks different, nobody will buy it
2. all the pre-ribbon developers were either retired or promoted to management, and new-hire young developers didn't want to read old code
3. some VP wanted to make her mark, droning: out with the old, in with the new, change is good, you see that? I did that! Promote me!
4. some focus group mistook OpenOffice for Microsoft Office, and that's got to stop
5. copyright/trademark the ribbon, thereby put a stop to free software coming up with same-looking turnkey replacements

None of the above have anything to do with creating a better, more useful or productive product for the customer, but with proper focus groups Microsoft can astro-turf their way into promoting the ribbon as an improvement. If there weren't a stack of less-visible but important features in Microsoft Office that Open/LibreOffice still haven't replicated (here's an incomplete list), my organization would have shimmied out of Microsoft's shackles long ago.

Company CTOs or equivalent need to understand the needs of their company before they pick a product. Here's a list that shows the products side by side:
https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

I know you're just a random slashdot poster, and I really shouldn't expect any better, but would it hurt you to look at the list of Document Foundation (the Org behind LibreOffice) and look at the list of supporters:

https://www.documentfoundation...

"Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google, Inc., has commented: "The creation of The Document Foundation is a great step forward in encouraging further development of open source office suites. Having a level playing field for all contributors is fundamental in creating a broad and active community around an open source software project. Google is proud to be a supporter of The Document Foundation and participate in the project".

Hint - supporters mean we fund them. I represent Google on the Board of Directors, and yes, nagging them about getting a full Android port is something I do *every* meeting.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled slashdot poster 2-minute-hate on "Big Corporations".

It's true enough, but honestly, it needs to be prettier. I know it's superficial and stupid

It sure it. I've got no problem with the UI. I *want* it to look like the old MS Office; I hate the new ribbon layout.

What I wish they do is fix a few more fundamental bugs like this one I found when trying to create a macro that inserted fields: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86199&redirected_from=fdo

I wrote about this on reddit only recently ... Link to the discussion there

Copied in full to here:

So back when Sun maintained OpenOffice.org and sold StarOffice they had a Contributor License Agreement that required handing over ownership of patches to them so they could sell the closed source supported suite and license out to IBM for Symphony.

To get around this bureaucracy and to not sign over ownership for patches most distributions used go-oo.org (aka ooo-build) that was the source code of OpenOffice.org with a bunch of patches on top to help compatibility with MS Office and some other things that Sun could or did not want in the upstream oo.org code.

When Oracle bought Sun they left oo.org languishing with no maintenance for months. This was naturally unacceptable to the various linux distros and they didn't want to be beholden to Oracle's whims (for good reason given the state of the various projects that used to be with Sun). Due to this they got together and formed The Document Foundation and took the go-oo.org code (which was basically what this group used and collaborated on anyway) and forked it to LibreOffice.

Fast forward some more time and Oracle decide they don't want anything to do with OpenOffice.org after all and essentially (with IBM's help ... presumably so there would be a sort of maintained base for Symphony) dumped it on the Apache Software Foundation. As per their requirements it went through an incubation process and all the code was relicensed to the Apache Public License. This was months after LibreOffice had been created and worked on and most consider it a pretty petty move rather than giving the brand to TDF to work with.

From that point on it's pretty much been IBM driving Apache OpenOffice (as they renamed oo.org to) although they appear to have stopped caring about it mid to end last year. The amount of development work on AOO is minimal compared to LO and the number of active committers is in the teens (at best) for AOO compared to the hundreds for LO.

Due to the way the licensing works out LO can merge in any fixes (there were some in the early days, not many now as can be seen in the CVE issue I mentioned) but AOO cannot merge in work from LO.

The last release of AOO was August 2014 and if you go look at the changelogs from 3.4 (the first AOO release as opposed to oo.org IIRC... mostly rebranding) up to the 4.1.1 then you'll see there's been minimal work - mostly translations. Anything developed/fixed in AOO is either merged into LO or improved/obsoleted by other work. Compare these to the release notes for each LO release from the forking point of 3.3 and it really is quite significant - the heavy work on clean up and better build systems for LO lower the barrier to entry for LO contribution by the common person too.

The proposed AOO release of 4.1.2 is going forwards at the moment - driven mostly by only a few people Apache OpenOffice Dev mail archives.

To give an idea how bad this has got the no-interaction code execution as privileges of user bug by a special HWP file was announced publicly last April. It was fixed in LibreOffice the same month and users would have had the update notification and been protected. Anyone using Apache OpenOffice is still vulnerable and although there was a disclosure on the security part of the AOO site at the time, the workaround was to 'delete .dll/.so' ... not a release with a fix and unless anyone actively went to check up on this they would not have known the issue.

To add to this (if it's not enough already) AOO can still only read and not write docx/xlsx/pptx (OOXML) files produced by MS Office whereas LibreOffice can

Development of libreoffice on android *is* on the top of the priority list. Betas are available now: https://wiki.documentfoundatio... and the open document foundation awarded a contract to two firms to speed up development in January (http://www.zdnet.com/article/libreoffice-for-android-coming-soon/). The android stable is supposed to be released at the same time as the next major libreoffice release.

The UI looks and feels like Office 2003, that's a major point it's lagging behind in; there seems to be an unwillingness to adopt the slick UI Windows has been evolving its platform into. I remember back in 2007 when everyone was complaining that the changes were all horrible, except they weren't; people just didn't want to have to deal with something new.

It's not that the old classic UI is bad, it's just clunkier than the new UI.

Another major lagging bit is the lack of integration of admin tools. It's really hard to beat MS on this front, especially with how well they meshed it in with their cloud service. I do admit that LO is working on this front.

There's a whole bunch of other differences found here, but it's with fair warning that it may not be totally accurate or very rigorous. In any case, the major differences is that LO supports more file formats and such.

I want to get the point across that I don't mean it's lagging behind in a bad way, I just mean it's lagging behind. I never said that LO was bad (I know you didn't say this, but other posters have falsely assumed I think it is); it's not bad, it's quite good. It's just not as good as O365, especially for the demographic it's aimed for.

So no, it's not lagging behind like Java is lagging behind. More lagging behind like how a 2003 car would compare to a 2013 car.

Looks like the column limit is still an issue. https://bugs.documentfoundatio...
"The tl;dr is: "increasing the column limit will increase the the memory needed for every sheet extremelly" unless we "change the column container to a dynamic container," a change that "might take much more time" than a month."
On the other hand 4.2 made big changes to how data is held in spreadsheets https://wiki.documentfoundatio... so maybe there is some improvement for large sheets if you don't actually hit the the hard limit.

Maybe you could file a bug for the second one.

Looks like the column limit is still an issue. https://bugs.documentfoundatio...
"The tl;dr is: "increasing the column limit will increase the the memory needed for every sheet extremelly" unless we "change the column container to a dynamic container," a change that "might take much more time" than a month."
On the other hand 4.2 made big changes to how data is held in spreadsheets https://wiki.documentfoundatio... so maybe there is some improvement for large sheets if you don't actually hit the the hard limit.

Maybe you could file a bug for the second one.

Far more importantly Libre Office for Android https://wiki.documentfoundatio... is around the corner.

Guys, please write bug reports about such limitations, it might just be the next step to fix.

Agree.

Here's the link to their official bug tracker: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/. Seems to be a quite active place, so one might even have some level of success in getting their issue fixed.

Open source usually comes with the luxury of open bug trackers -- use them!

For those that want to look at the pretty pictures:

https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

I think the ability to theme with firefox color themes is intrigueing.

OpenOffice relies on Java.

IIRC LibreOffice has ripped most of it out so that it's not required, but some "wizards" and other features will be unavailable.

https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

There are potentially more users out there for a LibreOffice version for Android than for users of the Windows, Mac and Linux versions combined. So why's the Android version forever stuck in demoware limbo?

Tomaz shares the following on his blog...

Thanks to Smoose, we are now able to do some real progress with the Android version of LibreOffice. The idea is to first build a LibreOffice document viewer, which is able to display any type of document that is supported by LibreOffice. Afterwards build on that and provide more features and eventually editing. ...
I am really excited with what we have achieved and really looking forward to see where we go from here. By the time of LibreOffice 4.4 we should have a working and polished document viewer application ready. Thanks again to Smoose for funding for the work on this important step!

Per the release plan, LibreOffice 4.4 will arrive early in 2015.

Cheers,
--Robinson

Woo hoo! I finally made it to the front page of Slashdot! I am feeling a bit petrified :-)

A couple of quick announcements:

• LibreOffice has a booth at OSCON (Portland, OR) next week, so if you're around, please stop by and say hi!
• If you'll be in Boston, MA next week, we're having a Summer Hackfest during the July 26-27 weekend. We'd love to have you join us for two days of coding, triaging, and FREE food and T-shirts. (Here's the T-shirt design)

Cheers,

Robinson Tryon
LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald
Senior QA Bug Wrangler
The Document Foundation

Woo hoo! I finally made it to the front page of Slashdot! I am feeling a bit petrified :-)

A couple of quick announcements:

• LibreOffice has a booth at OSCON (Portland, OR) next week, so if you're around, please stop by and say hi!
• If you'll be in Boston, MA next week, we're having a Summer Hackfest during the July 26-27 weekend. We'd love to have you join us for two days of coding, triaging, and FREE food and T-shirts. (Here's the T-shirt design)

Cheers,

Robinson Tryon
LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald
Senior QA Bug Wrangler
The Document Foundation

I've seen postings from others as well that state that OpenOffice is inferior to Microsoft Office. Since Debian switched to LibreOffice a few years ago, I haven't used OpenOffice so I can't comment on the current version of OpenOffice vs. the current version of Microsoft Office.

However, I did a find web site which does publishes a comparison between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office 2013: https://wiki.documentfoundatio... Based on that comparison, I would have to say that Microsoft Office is actually inferior to LibreOffice. Does anyone know of any other published comparisons between the office suites?

You'll probably have to wait a while judging by this: https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

it looks like there is some work on that https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Using_LibreOffice_in_a_Web_Browser

Libreoffice 4.2 (currently in beta) seems like it's going to add significant new functionality to the spreadsheet program (at least lots of Excel functions). https://wiki.documentfoundatio...

I'm too lazy to test this, since I'd have to uninstall Java, but I'm pretty sure you can just shut off the Java stuff in Preferences -> LibreOffice -> Advanced -> Use a Java Runtime Environment.

You can use it without Java but you lose a whole bunch of functionality.

LibreOffice is replacing the shitty HSQLDB database with Firebird, which actually works, is actually maintained, and is not written in Java, so this stuff will not happen any more.

Apache OpenOffice of course is trying to cover up just how shitty Base with HSQLDB is.

Apache OpenOffice like Harmony before - propped up by IBM. LibreOffice has supporters from lots of companies and non-profits. They has 20000 commits per year, under 2000 commits at Apache and is innovating.

http://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/advisory-board/
http://www.documentfoundation.org/supporters/

are any of the LibreOffice bugs filed that are complained about ? those guys need to know them to fix them.

You realize we are talking about office suites on Android, right?

This is libreoffice on android

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/LibreOffice_on_Android

To sum up: we have "a fairly horrific, bolts and all, barely usable (even with keyboard and mouse) office suite on your tablet"

Too bad users use the product and don't gain direct productivity merely from looking at Ohloh stats.

But the stats do paint the picture of the direct benefit to the users...

See all those deleted lines? That's code clean up that is... That means less bugs and easier to maintain and also easier for new people to help with when they get an itch they need to scratch.

It shows that the average AOO contributor makes twice the number of commits as the average LO contributor. And the average AOO commit is far more significant, touching twice the number of files as the average LO commit. Net it out and the average AOO contributor is 4x as productive compared to the average LO contributor!

Way to twist the statistics...

In a way what you say is absolutely true but then that misses the mark but quite an impressive amount. It's almost to the point I feel a need to call you out on this as being literally true so no one can call you a liar but that truth being represented in such a way as to mask the real situation.

The recent libreoffice blog post covers the the growth of committers and includes a brief discussion of "the long tail" with a large number of people in the community submitting small fixes here and there because they can and to scratch a small itch... this is not happening on the AOO code base.

To me that shows a healthier development community of in the LO camp.

Put it this way if a project has 100 people each committing to 2 files over a code base and another project which had 2 people committing to 100 files over another fork which would you say was "more productive" and would you equate that with project healthiness?

Well since they laud the new sidebar so much for better use of widescreen monitors they should love the fact that LibreOffice will have it within a few days...

4.1 is due in a matter of days which has an improved sidebar that's resizeable and not just a static part of the screen.

I really question what the point of AOO is at this juncture given that LO is clearly the more active project and has two years of code clean up and development over AOO due to the way Oracle let it stagnate for so long.

If you want to try 4.1 now it is on the pre-releases page and it's the final RC there ... ie the same that will be released as final GA in a few days.

Well since they laud the new sidebar so much for better use of widescreen monitors they should love the fact that LibreOffice will have it within a few days...

4.1 is due in a matter of days which has an improved sidebar that's resizeable and not just a static part of the screen.

I really question what the point of AOO is at this juncture given that LO is clearly the more active project and has two years of code clean up and development over AOO due to the way Oracle let it stagnate for so long.

If you want to try 4.1 now it is on the pre-releases page and it's the final RC there ... ie the same that will be released as final GA in a few days.

Although this sounds interesting, what would be more useful for me would be OpenOffice/LibreOffice on Android.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/libreoffice-for-android-frustratingly-close-to-release/
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Android
http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/11985/is-libreoffice-4-available-for-android/

According to the feature comparison page LibreOffice has bindings for multiple languages including: LibreOffice Basic, JavaScript, BeanShell and Python.

If you were to explain to OpenOffice users that Oracle laid off all the programmers before handing the trademark to Apache, and their new team is legally unable to accept changes made by LibreOffice, more people would try LO. That disclaimer is currently not on the Apache website. It would also be a useful warning if they listed all the features missing from LibreOffice. The current full list is already mind-blowing (4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3), and they are just getting started (Easy hacks, GSoc).

If you were to explain to OpenOffice users that Oracle laid off all the programmers before handing the trademark to Apache, and their new team is legally unable to accept changes made by LibreOffice, more people would try LO. That disclaimer is currently not on the Apache website. It would also be a useful warning if they listed all the features missing from LibreOffice. The current full list is already mind-blowing (4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3), and they are just getting started (Easy hacks, GSoc).

I can't speak for everyone else, but I was answering questions and testing bugs until 11am. Then I was very tired and got a couple of hours of sleep.

The Infrastructure team was trying to migrate several of the websites over to a new server about the same time as 4.0 was released. After some brief downtime, everything pulled through. Due to a perfect storm of problems during the previous two days, the server upgrades were delayed all the way until release day (oops!)

If you grabbed 3.6.5 this morning, you didn't miss a new release on that branch -- 3.6.5 came out on Jan 30th, and 3.6.6 won't come out until the 2nd week of April. The 4.0.0.3 release is working pretty well, running into a few bugs and issues, but we're working to iron those out as quickly as possible.

Feel free to Ask questions or Report a bug if and when the fancy strikes you.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I was answering questions and testing bugs until 11am. Then I was very tired and got a couple of hours of sleep.

The Infrastructure team was trying to migrate several of the websites over to a new server about the same time as 4.0 was released. After some brief downtime, everything pulled through. Due to a perfect storm of problems during the previous two days, the server upgrades were delayed all the way until release day (oops!)

If you grabbed 3.6.5 this morning, you didn't miss a new release on that branch -- 3.6.5 came out on Jan 30th, and 3.6.6 won't come out until the 2nd week of April. The 4.0.0.3 release is working pretty well, running into a few bugs and issues, but we're working to iron those out as quickly as possible.

Feel free to Ask questions or Report a bug if and when the fancy strikes you.

I thought Chromebooks were just very web oriented. The whole of the internet need not be up to use them. You can connect wirelessly to a local application server. For example, you can start LibreOffice in a web browser (such as a Chromebook) like this. The version of LibreOffice can be on a server in the principal's office, and kids can connect wirelessly to the classroom router, connected to the server. I haven't tried this, but I could see a school completely disconnected from the internet able to use chromebooks in the classroom.

I would have assumed that if they had to use any Office Suite, that they would have chosen LibreOffice over MS Office! My question to Google, is Why Not???

Because LibreOffice doesn't do everything MS Office does?

Google already has an office suite that does a lot of what MS Office does (i.e. Google Docs), why would they add in another office suite that gets them 90% of the way to MS Office functionality when they can just use MS Office and get 100% of what they are looking for.

I'm sure LibreOffice does some things that MS Office can't do, but few people are using those things, but people expect their Office Suite to work like MS Office - at my last job, I couldn't even open the corporate expense reporting spreadsheet in LibreOffice (Finance had macros that would extract the data from approved expense reports and enter into their accounting system). I'm sure if could have been ported over, but it just wasn't worth the effort since MS Office was the "corporate standard".

I would have assumed that if they had to use any Office Suite, that they would have chosen LibreOffice over MS Office! My question to Google, is Why Not???

One of the reasons that I can't dump java is because I still use a bunch of software written in java like, say, apps on Android. And don't forget that there are pieces of software like LibreOffice that still have legacy dependencies on java. Sure, LO is working on rewriting those pieces, but it won't happen overnight.

Even if Oracle loses regarding copyright and patents on the Java language, the Java APIs, etc.., they have shown that they regard the Java language as a business bargaining chip and not as an unrestricted computer programming language. Why take the hassle and risk? Just go use someone else's language like Python or Ruby.

With all of the shit that Apache has gotten from Sun/Oracle re: the JCP, Harmony, and the TCK, I'm surprised that they haven't just said that they're going to fork Java. I guess the problem is that (1) Apache doesn't think that they have enough clout to make their fork dominant (or at least viable), and (2) Oracle could just go after the fork with their patents. At this point, I'm not even sure that Apache could get Google onboard for a fork, as that might hurt all of Google's need-for-compatibility claims in the current litigation.

Why collecting donations, when you can create your own money? The LibreOffice approach is compelling.

LibreOffice, however, has a collection of easier fixes specifically to lure people in. And it works. Every project should do this.

They told everyone about it by mentioning it in both of the first two links in the summary, in addition to the New Features page linked to in another comment.

During the LibreOffice Conference, The Document Foundation has announced:

• LibreOffice Online Prototype: you can watch a demo video at the
  following address:
  http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.webm.
  LibreOffice Online is based on GTK+ framework and HTML5's canvas, and
  has been developed by SUSE's Michael Meeks, built on Gtk+ broadway from
  RedHat's Alex Laarson.
• LibreOffice port project to Android and iOS, based on the voluntary
  work of Tor Lillqvist, a SUSE finnish developer know for having ported
  GIMP to Windows. The LibreOffice Android and iOS port has the objective
  of bringing the office suite to iPads and Android tablets, and
  eventually smaller devices. The user interface work has yet to start in
  earnest but the bulk of the code is compiling.

Please note that these are not products available to end users, but
advanced development projects which will become products sometimes in
late 2012 or early 2013.

• 500.000 desktops, mostly Windows, at several French Government
  entities switching from OpenOffice to LibreOffice (this increases the
  Windows installed base of LibreOffice by 5% in a single move)
• 800.000 USB keys with LibreOffice and other free software distributed
  to students of the Paris Region (Île-de-France)
• Region Île-de-France becoming a member of TDF Advisory Board

blog post: http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10/14/libreoffice-conference-announcements/

> Disclaimer: I still miss WordPerfect 5.1 and Reveal Codes.

I believe that's coming in LibreOffice 3.5 (due out in February):
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.5#Writer

My main question here would be why the hell are you still using OpenOffice.org anyway? I've been on LibreOffice for ages now, and (in Debian at least, as far as I can tell) LibreOffice Calc does not require any sort of Java runtime.

This would make sense given that one of the aims of LibreOffice is to "reduce Java dependency".