LibreOffice 5.1 Officially Released

prisoninmate writes: After being in development for the last three months or so, LibreOffice 5.1 comes today to a desktop environment near you with some of the most attractive features you've ever seen in an open-source office suite software product, no matter the operating system used. The release highlights of LibreOffice 5.1 include a redesigned user interface for improved ease of use, better interoperability with OOXML files, support for reading and writing files on cloud servers, enhanced support for the ODF 1.2 file format, as well as additional Spreadsheet functions and features. Yesterday, even with the previous version, I was able to successfully use a moderately complex docx template without a hitch — the kind of thing that would have been a pipe-dream not too long ago.

Comments

What do you mean...

[Nutria]

"redesigned user interface for improved ease of use"?

If it went "ribbon", that'll suck rocks.

Re:What do you mean...

[steveha]

"redesigned user interface for improved ease of use"?

You might try watching the demo videos. They made improvements to the menus, improvements to the context menus, and improvements to toolbars (including a pop-out side panel formatting toolbar thing that I guess is new to the 5.x series).

No ribbon.

Here, have a playlist URL that lets you watch the demo videos directly from YouTube instead of using the embedded videos in TFA.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0pdzjvYW9RHSwdRnZfaxAWICrkBrQl7k

Re: What do you mean...

[AthanasiusKircher]

They're just haters. No modern computer user can honestly say they'd prefer searching through dropdown menus over the ribbon that focuses on putting the most used features at the users fingertips.

*Raises hand*

I dislike the ribbon. But then I'm a keyboard shortcuts guy. I know dozens of them for MS Office, and whenever there's a feature that I use often, I look up a keyboard shortcut if possible.

Which means the ribbon is useless to me. It takes up a bunch of space with buttons I don't need, and on the rare occasions when I need a feature advanced or rare enough that I don't know a shortcut, it's often not even on a ribbon button -- I end up going through advanced feature dialogs anyway. I use a Mac at work, so luckily I still have the drop down menus, which are usually at least twice as fast as wading through a bunch of non-intuitive icons in a half-dozen ribbon tabs with 20 buttons each.

Text was invented for a reason -- it communicates quickly, clearly, and efficiently. So I find it a lot easier to navigate when I'm searching for a feature I don't know -- which is the only time my mouse generally goes up to that part of the screen.

If you actually use the ribbon for common everyday tasks, I can understand how it might be useful for you. I'm not against offering a ribbon interface, but I do think it should be one option rather than the only one. I'm not a "hater." I just work differently and I'm just glad Mac versions of Office still give the menu options.

Re:What do you mean...

[chipschap]

I deal with it just fine, as do most people who care to run Linux.

I pay nothing for Linux. I pay nothing for LibreOffice. I don't complain about having to do a little work, which has the side benefit of allowing me complete control and choice over what I have on my system.

If you want it all done for you, more like if you want it all done to you, stay with Microsoft.

Re:What do you mean...

[chipschap]

Social isolation for Linux geeks is a stereotype which, like most stereotypes, don't apply universally, and in this case (Linux users) I suspect don't apply even to the majority.

Nice try, but you get a fail on this one.

Re:What do you mean...

[Burz]

Oops! From the readme:
--
As a general rule, you are recommended to install LibreOffice via the installation methods recommended by
  your particular Linux distribution (such as the Ubuntu Software Center, in the case of Ubuntu Linux). Th
is is because it is usually the simplest way to obtain an installation that is optimally integrated into
your system. Indeed, LibreOffice may well be already installed by default when you originally install you
r Linux operating system.

This "stand-alone" LibreOffice installer is provided for users in need of previews, having special needs,
  and for out-of-the-ordinary cases.
--

They recommend against direct user installs! Who knew?! And BTW, to most people your 'easy' command line install looks like you had an epileptic seizure at your keyboard.

Oh, almost forgot to mention... You just installed unsigned code.

Re:OpenOffice kind of sucked

[Ol Olsoc]

OpenOffice kind of sucked.

Want to know what sucked and sucked really badly? Having to pay for the mighty flagship Microsoft Office for the PC. Then paying for the mighty flagship Microsoft Office for the Mac. Then when you take a document from one to the other, they hardly resemble each other. If' I'm paying for a program on two computers it might be nice to have the same document look the same on each computer

After standardizing on the supposedly inferior free Office on my Mac's my PC's and My Linux boxes, documents are passed back and forth without an issue. Been several years now, and Microsoft Office is the incompatible one, the outlier.

Re:OpenOffice kind of sucked

[cbiltcliffe]

Want to know what sucked and sucked really badly? Having to pay for the mighty flagship Microsoft Office for the PC. Then paying for the mighty flagship Microsoft Office for the Mac. Then when you take a document from one to the other, they hardly resemble each other. If' I'm paying for a program on two computers it might be nice to have the same document look the same on each computer

It's worse than that. How about setting up a document, getting pagination, margins, font size, etc, all figured out, so it looks perfect. Then, you go to print it, and change the printer from your cheapo inkjet to your good laser, and suddenly your document formatting takes a dump.

Re:My Mac Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, the guy already stated that he's not a communist. So unless someone is paying him for working on submitting his bug reports, he ain't doing squat.