LibreOffice 5.4 Adds More New Features, Improves Office File Format Compatibility (betanews.com)

The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 5.4. Again, it's on time, arriving six months after the release of LibreOffice 5.3. From a report: LibreOffice 5.4 is "the last major release of the LibreOffice 5.x family," and like other point releases is a major one, adding features across all components and incrementally improving compatibility with Microsoft Office document formats. Highlights include a new standard color palette based on the RYB (Red Yellow Blue) color model. File format compatibility improvements include better support for EMF vector images and higher quality rendering of imported PDF files (with support for embedding video in exported PDFs from Writer and Impress). Also added is OpenPGP key support for signing ODF documents in Linux. LibreOffice Writer adds new context menu items for working with sections, footnotes, endnotes and styles. Users can now import AutoText entries from Microsoft Word .dotm templates. The full structure of bulleted and numbered lists is now preserved when pasted as plain text, and users gain the ability to create custom watermarks for their documents via the Format menu.

Comments

LibreOffice Online.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that LibreOffice Online by Collabora never took off.

Too much, too late

[arth1]

Seriously, who gives an airborne copulation about the color scheme? What kills Libreoffice is bloat and feeping creaturitis.
With the new version, can i now type at full speed on a mid-range laptop without the display lagging behind?
Does it still take 3 seconds to paste because it tries to analyze and transform what you paste?
Does it still take 10+ seconds to open a book you write?

Re:Too much, too late

[Hognoxious]

It also lacks an init system, a mail server, a DNS resolver, a process monitor, an ssh client and an init system.

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

It also lacks an init system, a mail server, a DNS resolver, a process monitor, an ssh client and an init system.

I'm fairly certain it can send e-mail already, and I wouldn't be surprised if it offers sshfs support through fuse, or have plans for it in the next release.
Give it time, and it will surely have all of the above. At the expense of being able to do simple work in a timely manner.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to give Lennart a chance. There's only so much he and his sycophant minions can do. systemd will be in 6.0.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

All that... plus it needs an editor

Re:Too much, too late

[EzInKy]

So it's not quite equal to emacs yet?

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You're writing a book? Use a text editor and typesetter or a desktop publishing program. There are free, cross platform options that work even in Windows.

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

Having a thesaurus integrated is a near must for a writer. And most publishing houses don't take typeset - they want to do that part themselves, at least if you're not a famous author with lots of clout.

An ideal writer's program is one that is chapter-oriented and doesn't impose the tyranny of pages. With good support for version control, footnotes, internal notes, syllabus and other indices, a searchable bin to toss snippets and outtakes in, but most of all, one that doesn't lag behind. Libreoffice is probably the most laggy program out there, closely followed by Word. The problem is most manifest whenever you hit the artificial "page" boundary, especially if you edit the start or middle of a book, and it needs to recalculate all following "pages".

Scrivener isn't bad, but it's only for Windows.
I'd pay good money to get something similar for Linux.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The palette for the color picker. Not the color of the app.

Re: Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Scrivener was originally a Mac product, so it's not just for Windows. I'd bet that it wouldn't be difficult to get it running in WINE or a VM of some sort. Even in a VM it might be snappier than LibreOffice.

Re:Too much, too late

[Rob Y.]

Okay, so assuming you're correct and current Libre versions still take 3 seconds to paste (in your use case) and 10 seconds to open the book you're writing. Well, then Libre may not be for you. Or... rather than spend a hundred bucks or so for MSOffice, you could plow that into a higher spec'd machine that runs Libre okay for you. Presumably you have some desire to run it - or you wouldn't be commenting here. Or you have some desire to use Linux, but the lack of MSOffice is holding you back - in which case, I'd suggest using WINE with whatever version of MSOffice runs well under it and meets your requirements (which apparently don't include the latest whiz-bang features, so you're in luck).

But for many of us an open source fully functional office suite is an important thing to support. Presumably color schemes and the like are handled by different developers than the core functionality that we all agree is more important - so both can proceed together. From my perspective, native ports to iOS and Android are more important than either at this point.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, systemd has you covered, along with dhcp, logging, nsa back doors.

Re: Too much, too late

[arth1]

Scrivener was originally a Mac product, so it's not just for Windows. I'd bet that it wouldn't be difficult to get it running in WINE or a VM of some sort. Even in a VM it might be snappier than LibreOffice.

It actually is snappier in a VM than LibreOffice is natively - I use Scrivener in a VMware WIndows guest sometimes. But it'd be nice to have something native, and not have to import/export through the extra pain of VMs. I haven't tried whether it'll work through WINE, but that might be worth trying - good thinking!

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Poettering is taking a serious look at putting this functionality into systemd

Re:Too much, too late

[Tough Love]

What kills Libreoffice is bloat and feeping creaturitis.

Nothing "kills" Libreoffice. It is a staple feature of any Linux installation, widely used on Windows, and a credible threat to Necrosoft's cozy monopoly.

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

Nothing "kills" Libreoffice. It is a staple feature of any Linux installation, widely used on Windows, and a credible threat to Necrosoft's cozy monopoly.

Libreoffice is also cited as the main reason why the city of Munich decided to revert to Microsoft Windows and Office after three years - people who complained about severe issues related to software rose from 15% with Microsoft Office to 18-28% with Libreoffice.
Not that I think that was the right move, but Libreoffice unfortunately isn't a "just works" product for everybody.

Re:Too much, too late

[Archtech]

I don't know why, but I find the parent amusing. Normally I hate irrelevant off-topic nonsense, but this is just so totally surreal.

Hence:

https://www.andysinger.com/ima...

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The lack of an office suite with highly reliable file interchange with MS Office users is one of the main things that keeps me from ditching Windows for Linux.

I've been trying various distros, office suites, photo editors etc. for literally over 20 years. And as much as I detest MS and Windows, I'm still tied to it because the FOSS apps are really nice, but not quite good enough.

Re:Too much, too late

[jon3k]

What kills LibreOffice is that no one uses a desktop office suite anymore. Google Docs does everything 99% of people need and you don't have to worry about where your files are, unless you're some kind of weird basement troll. And even then you can just back them up regularly.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

they should used apache openoffice instead. it is significantly more stable. somehow when libreoffice steals aoo code and copies it into their own repos, they make new bugs... and that's on top of every 'new' feature lo adds having its own bugs, too. aoo is just better.

Re:Too much, too late

[I'm New Around Here]

You should try one on a random story. I've done one or two of them. As AC of course. It's really just a fun tweak of how serious some people are on these topics.

Moooo.

PS. Love the comic.

Re:Too much, too late

[iggymanz]

wrong, most businesses use microsoft office as the main office suite. And more companies use Microsoft's cloud offering than google's, look it up.

Re:Too much, too late

[jon3k]

Who's talking about businesses?

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

> too much, too late.

LOL

Re:Too much, too late

[iggymanz]

let's talk about human beings.

10 million google doc users versus 1.2 billion MS office users.

Re:Too much, too late

[Tough Love]

Microsoft employee = fake news.

Re:Too much, too late

[jon3k]

You seem to be confused. Where did I say more people used Google Docs? Read the thread again, carefully.

Re:Too much, too late

[Tough Love]

as much as I detest MS and Windows, I'm still tied to it because the FOSS apps are really nice, but not quite good enough

Whatever works for you - some people just seem ok with hitting themselves on the head with a hammer. For the vast majority of casual office suite users, Libreoffice is in fact good enough. Actually, Libreoffice is better in many subtle ways. Have you ever noticed how seriously cut and paste sucks in Excel?

Re:Too much, too late

[Oligonicella]

The problem is most manifest whenever you hit the artificial "page" boundary, especially if you edit the start or middle of a book, and it needs to recalculate all following "pages".

Apparently that's changed since OO. I don't have any page numbering lag issues and I'm not one who starts page one and writes to end. I jump all over the place.

Re:Too much, too late

[Oligonicella]

Having a thesaurus integrated is a near must for a writer.

As well as a dictionary and (for OO & LO) secondary dictionaries you get ot populate specific to your writing with auto-correct keyed to them.

Re:Too much, too late

[Oligonicella]

Well, you started with "What kills LibreOffice is that no one uses a desktop office suite anymore." which is factually incorrect. (no one includes businesses) Perhaps you could cite for us which applications are more used.

Re:Too much, too late

[jon3k]

Is English not your first language? Do you think I literally meant that NO ONE uses desktop office suites?

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

English is MY first language, and as a result I can clearly see that you DID in fact SAY 'What kills LibreOffice is that no one uses a desktop office suite anymore.' Direct quote.

You may not have meant that literally, fair enough, but you SAID it, and therefore it's not unreasonable to think that you MEANT it. If you want people to understand your point, try to make it consistent...

Re: Too much, too late

[KGIII]

I was bored and feeling helpful. Winehq gives it gold and platinum ratings, depending on the version.

Re: Too much, too late

[arth1]

Yay, good news.
I don't mind using commercial software when it provides something open source doesn't do. Would I prefer Open Source? Absolutely. But I prefer productivity even more.

Thanks! I can uninstall abiword soon then (or only use it for quick format conversions).

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

Apparently that's changed since OO. I don't have any page numbering lag issues and I'm not one who starts page one and writes to end. I jump all over the place.

If that's improved, it's a good thing! I remember writing in the middle of a "page" and every time I caused a line break, it would push the bottom line off the page and cause a 1+ second delay, and even more if there were plenty of pages until the next hard break.
The lagging of OO.o was pretty much why I switched to abiword back in the days; despite abiword being horrible in many other ways, it was always much more responsive.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You're fucked batman ... stop yammering, kiss azzwhole and sit-down bitch whimpering .

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

> Seriously, who gives an airborne copulation about the color scheme?

This is important for an uniform user experience; of course, desktop environment integration would be better, but let's take one step at a time, shall we?

> What kills Libreoffice is bloat and feeping creaturitis.

a) this is not even closer to MS Office, the champion of bloating; and
b) this is caused by trying to adapt to Office featuritis.

In conclusion, not Libreoffice's fault.

> With the new version, can i now type at full speed on a mid-range laptop without the display lagging behind?

I tested and it matches *my* full speed; don't know about your super human velocity... alas, I haven't seen any speed problem since many decades.

> Does it still take 3 seconds to paste because it tries to analyze and transform what you paste?

It's instant. I didn't see any delay. And I use it daily at home -- even though at work I must use MS. Alas, I own a licensed Office version and still prefer Libreoffice -- such is the lack of any performance difference.

Also, I don't remember it taking 3 seconds for any kind of paste. OK, maybe in Staroffice...

> Does it still take 10+ seconds to open a book you write?

By "book", do you mean literally a book, with hundreds of pages? 10 seconds are kind of an eternity in current technology. I'd suggest an SSD drive if you're facing such problems.

In practice, though, people edit chapters of books, which share a common stylesheet. For books, also, one might want to do final typesetting with more adequate solutions like e.g. LaTeX -- even MS Word is not an adequate tool for such task.

I've downloaded books written with Libreoffice and they load OK. Just did a quick test and load a 40-page chapter. It took about 1 (one) second, maybe less.

This is a 2009 computer, a dual core Intel -- not an i3, i5 or whatever -- with Linux. I wonder what configuration you got?

Seriously, I hope you're just misinformed; in 2017, I wonder whether *any* office suite would have the performance numbers you mention...

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

And a complementary Pwnie as well.

Re:Too much, too late

[Tough Love]

aoo is just better

In September 2016, OpenOffice's project management committee chair Dennis Hamilton began a discussion of possibly discontinuing the project, after the Apache board had put them on monthly reporting due to the project's ongoing problems handling security issues

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

footnotes, internal notes, syllabus and other indices

It would be a nice thing to have a open standard for marking up and defining the such structures within the text files itself which every office package and production system of the publishers would understand and choose their own, preferred method of presentation to the user.

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

>

Does it still take 10+ seconds to open a book you write?

By "book", do you mean literally a book, with hundreds of pages? 10 seconds are kind of an eternity in current technology. I'd suggest an SSD drive if you're facing such problems.

Yeah, book with hundreds of "pages", or in the 100 kword ballpark is typically what I work on.
I just tested it on the latest "stable" libreoffice version for my distro, 5.2.7.2, and it took around 5 seconds to open a plain text file that size, and 8 seconds for a document file, on a i7-4600U laptop with SSD. If it had been on my other laptop with an i5 and HDD, it would have been more than 10 seconds.
The problem is that it continues "loading" and doesn't render the first page (or last edited page) and give control to the user while loading the rest in the background. It appears to want to parse ALL of it before displaying SOME of it, which is a design flaw in my opinion.

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

It would be a nice thing to have a open standard for marking up and defining the such structures within the text files itself which every office package and production system of the publishers would understand and choose their own, preferred method of presentation to the user.

Like SGML, you mean?
Unfortunately, it never caught on due to what seems to be NIH Syndrome for the market leaders at the time, like Word/QuarkExpress/WordPerfect. Can't encourage lock-ins and anti-competitive practice with open standards.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it is time to reinvent the wheel, now that the number of "heres" is reduced significantly and the "innovation curve" for XML is past the interest of the silver bullet pushers.

Re:Too much, too late

[khz6955]

"It also lacks an init system, a mail server, a DNS resolver, a process monitor, an ssh client and an init system."

Haa haaaa .. really funny :)

Re:Too much, too late

[jwhyche]

I don't know, he might have something to bitch about. It took me over a minute to open a 50,805 page document in libreoffice 5.3, 230mb file. Lord knows what I would do if I had to open a serous document ....

Yes, I'm being sarcastic, but on another note. I did just now open a 50,000 page log file. While it did take it over a minute to open and display that file, but 50,000 pages. That is damn impressive.

Re:Too much, too late

[jwhyche]

I turned around and loaded the same document in to Word 2016. Word crashed. :)

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

It also lacks an init system .... and an init system.

Mongo like init systems?

Re:Too much, too late

[jwhyche]

The problem is that it continues "loading" and doesn't render the first page (or last edited page) and give control to the user while loading the rest in the background. It appears to want to parse ALL of it before displaying SOME of it, which is a design flaw in my opinion.

Yes, I can actually see where this could be a design flaw. I just loaded a random log file in to libreoffice to see if it could handle it. The log file was over 50,000 pages long. While I was actually impressed that it could load the file at all, I did notice it took it several more minutes before I could actually do anything with the file. Libreoffice seemed to want to format the tire file in memory before letting me access any of it.

While I don't work on documents every day of even a few 100 pages, I could see where this process could be frustrating if you had to do it all day. It may only add a few seconds to your work time but to a professional that few seconds can add up very quickly.

But at least libreoffice did load and handle the 50,000 page document. After it got through loading and formatting I found that it to be quiet responsive. I was even able to search and replace in the file with a good response time. On the other page Word 2016 loaded the file and I was able to start work in it almost instantly, but promptly crashed when I paged into the file.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the AC you're responding to.

So I found this file with a similar size to yours (Calc Guide, 113kwords) and, indeed, can confirm, it takes approximately the time you described.

Actually, testing in two PCs from different generations, I learned loading is heavily dependent on disk hardware (duh!). Laptops/notebooks are known to use slower 5400RPM HDDs to increase battery use time. You might be happier with a desktop PC (with a 7200RPM disk).

This 5.4 version claims a XML size reduction... you might gain some additional seconds. Saving the file also takes time -- and this has a greater impact than loading, because we usually load just once and save several times to avoid losing edits.

Also, in the most recent version I have, using docx is way slower than odt -- that may also change in 5.4.

I usually don't deal with such big docs, and were I to do it, I'd divide things in chapters. I suppose you cannot do that. Another idea is loading the document once in the morning and then leaving it open during the entire journey.

I was able though to halve the load time by using two settings, as described in https://www.organicweb.com.au/17237/general-technology/libre-office-slow/ . Try and see if it helps.

From the mere fact that there is a Calc Guide of such size, I suppose the Libreoffice doc guys would have a hint or two regarding performance optimization.

Good luck!

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

You were lucky your machine didn't simply catch fire.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Wordpad might be able to handle it.

In other News: Wordpad will be replaced with a free App!

Re:Too much, too late

[arth1]

Saving the file also takes time -- and this has a greater impact than loading, because we usually load just once and save several times to avoid losing edits.

Saving should never be a problem, at least not on any semi-modern system. Any good design would do the actual save in the background at low priority, allowing you to continue working the moment you initiate the save. One shortcut for save and one for committed (foreground) save covers when you want to wait for the save, like when you need to feed the document into something after it has completed saving. It's not uncommon that "Save As" doubles as a committed save.

Backgrounded saving[*] is not hard to implement in this type of program, where there already is a journal of changes to support undo/redo functions and internal version control. Asynchronous error reporting (that preferably doesn't steal focus, like Microsoft programs tend to do) can be the biggest part of extra code.

[*]: Not to be confused with background saving, which alas has come to mean automated saving.

Re:Too much, too late

[ls671]

exactly, use latex.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf would one load a log file into libre office?
Another other TEXT editor that is not notepad or wordpad will open it within seconds. E.g. Atom, notepad++, textpad, vi, emacs etc.

LO is for pretty stuff. Log files are not meant to be pretty.

Re:Too much, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

can i now type at full speed on a mid-range laptop without the display lagging behind?

Well not on a mid-range laptop from 1980. Runs just fine on a Chromebook running Linux. Hell I wrote most of a 390 page book on the thing with no problems. I'm writing another 300+ page book on a little Libiquity notebook and have NO problems. Personally I've never seen any of your problems.

Re:Too much, too late

[samwichse]

To test loading a long-ass file in LibreOffice, like he said?

Re:Too much, too late

[The Wild Norseman]

exactly, use latex.

Yeah, I know that a lot of people throw out LaTeX as a joke, but for me... it's absolutely true.

I honestly love WordPerfect though. It's outperformed MSWord since practically day one and is still worth buying most especially how the design is just functionally better.

But, so far, WP doesn't work with WINE or I think Crossover, I am forced to use a VM which I'd rather not use for one program. So, in the end, for any document I want to work properly and look elegant and professional, I just use LaTeX.

Major release, point release, major release? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Versioning might be contentious, but I usually think of major-dot-minor-dot-teeny.

5 is a major release. 5.4 is a minor release, 5.4.1 and 5.4.2 could be bug fix releases

And yes, there are other ways to do this. We don't need a diatribe about what versions mean or how to do versioning.

But WTF does "... last major release ... like other point releases is a major release..." mean? Is it a major release or a point release?

And I don't pay close attention to their plans. Is 5.4 going to be the last 5.x release, to be followed by 6.0? Or are they just saying it's the latest 5.x release?

I already get Twitler's (#SwampThing) word salad for breakfast. I didn't need a second helping.

incrementally improving compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

"incrementally improving compatibility with Microsoft Office document formats."

it's important, because MS ends support for word viewer and probably others too. without these viewers it might be not possible to install microsoft office compatibility pack.

case of the office can't leave you

[Anonymous Coward]

seems to go to great lengths to avoid uninstallation by gui means? enforced loyalty never works?

Next is 6.0 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, the next release is 6.0 =)

Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[dbIII]

Since I can use it on a eeepc netbook I can't see where your speed complaints are coming from.
It kind of looks like you are making them up unless you are using it on hardware from last century.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[arth1]

Since I can use it on a eeepc netbook I can't see where your speed complaints are coming from.
It kind of looks like you are making them up unless you are using it on hardware from last century.

Ah, the "works for me" fallacy.
Perhaps you just are a slower person.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I can use it on a eeepc netbook I can't see where your speed complaints are coming from.
It kind of looks like you are making them up unless you are using it on hardware from last century.

Ah, the "works for me" fallacy.
Perhaps you just are a slower person.

Exactly. I've seen Priuses accelerate faster than OpenOffice can load or do anything.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

My pc from 2009 opens it in about a second. (linux, one of the first amd hexacores, 8GB ram, and a 60GB ssd.. from 2009)

My dads first generation atom takes about 5 seconds... in what world does this count as slow?

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that's not the "works for me" fallacy at all; it's just scepticism of a claim due to evidence of the contrary.

If LibreOffice were as slow as you say then it follows that it would be unbearable on a low-end system, yet GP's experience that even an Eee it works fine contradicts that. Nobody is doubting that it's slow for you, but your guess as to why it's slow for you is suspect.

You, however, seem to have concluded that if it's slow for you it must necessarily be slow for everyone else even if they think otherwise. That is a fallacy.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[arth1]

My pc from 2009 opens it in about a second.

What's "it"? A 100,000 word book?

My dads first generation atom takes about 5 seconds... in what world does this count as slow?

In the world of computer engineering, the frustration thresholds are usually defined as 0.1, 1 and 10 seconds. 5 seconds is way above the second frustration threshold.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[thegarbz]

Ah, the "works for me" fallacy.

Works for me is not a fallacy, it's an anecdote. It's also an important piece of information for those people who think everything is someone else's fault. Perhaps he doesn't have a computer from the last century. Perhaps he knows how to setup his computer in a way that didn't break it.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm this, I've written two books of around 1400 norm pages each on a 1st generation EEE PC and it worked okay, if not a bit sluggish. However, I'm not a very fast typist. There are many other good reasons why I left LibreOffice, though. It does suck, but it also gets its job done.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Oligonicella]

I just opened a 523 page manuscript and it took less that half a second. I use OO.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Oligonicella]

Well, in my case I use OO 3.1 and the document I referenced in another comment is 186,274 words and opened in less than half a second. That's from no OO running, double clicking an icon for the document until ready to type. That is not slow.

Anyone with a frustration level of 1 second (much less .1) has the problems, not the software.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[GNious]

In the world of computer engineering, the frustration thresholds are usually defined as 0.1, 1 and 10 seconds. 5 seconds is way above the second frustration threshold.

Interesting, I've always taught it as 3 sec = perceived as slow, 7 seconds = people will go do something else.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[arth1]

Interesting, I've always taught it as 3 sec = perceived as slow, 7 seconds = people will go do something else.

It depends on what the operation is. For things like scrolling or rendering a complex menu, 0.1 seconds might be acceptable, but for typing, 0.1 second latency will hit the frustration threshold for many. For other operations, like seeing a web site start to render, or doing a sort, 1 second can be fine. And 10 seconds can be ok to load a level in a game, but if it takes longer, people will start bitching. Yes, there are plenty of games that take longer, and yes, there are plenty of people bitching too.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[dbIII]

The "works for me in a pretty fucking extreme situation" example
You can take your phallusy and stick it.

Re:Are you using it on a 1999 Mac?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the "works for me" fallacy.

It's not a fallacy. It's a counter-example, showing that whatever the issue is, it's not affecting everyone.

A smart person would use this information to investigate further.

Perhaps you just are a slower person.

That's ironic.

Dongle compatiability.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also added is OpenPGP key support for signing ODF documents in Linux.

Be nice if I could plug in my Yubikey, decrypt documents and be done. Instead I have to repeatedly shake a dead chicken to get things to work.

Re:Dongle compatiability.

[I'm New Around Here]

Plucked? or unplucked?

I've had much more luck since I stopped plucking them. The feathers have a vibe of their own I think.

feeling prompted

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

feels better... no?

Or perhaps you are using an outdated version

[Anonymous Coward]

Every version since the first release has been faster than the last for me, so maybe it is an old complaint, although it ain't perfect yet. Also nice insult good to know what sort of person you are.

Re:Or perhaps you are using an outdated version

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha you came back to respond as an AC? Two can play at that game!

Re:Or perhaps you are using an outdated version

[Anonymous Coward]

You imply that everyone who finds the speed of a geek popular product acceptable is stupid(slow) in slashdot, a public forum for geeks so large that it used to be able to collapse other peoples websites just by linking to them. Then you expect no one else to but in!

Quite aside from the fact that insulting an it workers intelligence is like calling a manual worker a clumsy weakling, you should at least mind the difference between insulting the product and insulting the people who use it.

Re: Or perhaps you are using an outdated version

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference is that a manual worker can respond to insults with sheer brawn, while an IT weenie can only suck it up while everybody just shits on him.

Re:Or perhaps you are using an outdated version

[arth1]

Haha you came back to respond as an AC? Two can play at that game!

For the record, two can, but two didn't. The above was not posted by me. (You'll never see me use words like "Haha" or frivolous exclamation marks.)

Re:ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS PRINT AN ENVELOPE!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's an "envelope", and why would you want to print it?

Which version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you actually talking about Open Office or go-OO or the newer Libreofice? or are you trying to conflate a decade old issue to tarnish a modern product?

The original Sun OpenOffice download for a number of reasons (like Sun) was a slower than the patched go-OO version which was used by the major Linux distributions. It had a reputation for being glacial in comparison, and go-OO wasn't fast by any means, Apache have really hardly started fixing this yet.

Go-OO and early Libreofice still had a number of quite significant problems with file loading as well as graphics performance due to Sun's tendency to want to leave working code alone or patch minimally even when it worked poorly or got in the way. The early part of Liberofice 's history involved tearing a lot of cruft out, as such many of the most blatant issues where fixed quite early but many remain. For an example see https://people.gnome.org/~michael/blog/2012-01-09-unused.html , but much used and outdated code was also a problem.

Newer Libreofce is significantly faster, removal and replacement of a lot of old manual timer stuff for GUI events, for example (along with a lot of other work), has made things snappier to use. Performance profiling and upgrading of the input filters has progressed to the point that for my small documents loading is effectively instant and start-up is less than 1 second on my old machine. Despite this speed is still dependant on OS, and the specific document loaded. It is not unusual for the newer versions of Libreofice to be better than Microsoft Office in speed but it is also not unusual to be worse. In addition some windows graphics performance upgrades will have to wait on the deprecation of XP.

Um, have you never used OO or Libre

[rsilvergun]

or _any_ Office suite? They're all boated with features. That's the point. They're crammed with features so you can make complex documents. Go use Abiword & gnumerics if you want something simple.

Type1 fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

How about bringing Type1 font support back? Without that, I've gone back to Apache OpenOffice.

Now if they could only...

[ckatko]

...stop crashing my file explorer in Windows 7 with their crappy API hooks.

Re:Now if they could only...

[antdude]

Did you report this issue to them?

Re:Now if they could only...

[ckatko]

It's been an open and "closed" issue for years. YEARS.

Re:Now if they could only...

[antdude]

Are there many users with this issue or just you? I had an isolated issue in my very old Windows XP Pro SP3 that was never fixed even though the developers tried to help me. :(

Re:ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS PRINT AN ENVELOPE!

[unixisc]

What's the point of typing in a letter, while handwriting the envelope? An envelope, for you millennials out there, is a paper case in which one can put letters, write the destination address on the front, put a stamp on it (which is a Post Office issued marker to indicate that the service has been paid for) and then drop it in a dropbox near your mailbox or take it to the post office and post it there. This is how it was done before email got as widely adapted as it is today

PSA: 64-bit available

[nowsharing]

You can get a 64-bit version of LibreOffice, but you have to select it at the download page. On my system it starts much faster and handles large documents perfectly.

New Feature Request

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear LibreOffice,

Please add the following feature: fixing bugs. Every bug I ever reported is designated "enhancement request." There it sits, for years, decades, centuries, while new features, like emoji creation submodules, aperitif selection menus, and lace curtains are added.

Re:New Feature Request

[CanadianMacFan]

They got the lace curtains I asked for?!?! Awesome!

Re:New Feature Request

[Anonymous Coward]

Please add the following feature:

Get rid of Java! Then your program will be worth something.

Can't write proper documents in Libre

[Anonymous Coward]

It's document paradigm is a "paragraph". In TeX/LaTeX you can structure a document in chapters and sections and subsections. Doesn't work in Libre. In Libre everything is a friggin paragraph. When you try to create a proper document with Libre, it makes you fuss around with low level details that aren't needed in in more intelligent document systems.

Libre is OK for memos and a short articles.

Re:Can't write proper documents in Libre

[taylormc]

I must have missed something here. When did LO start being touted as a competitor to LaTeX? Was it about the same time it started being criticized for not having a thesaurus?

Outline numbering

[peterofoz]

I've been using LIbreOffice and previously OpenOffice for over 5 years now for writing requirements and system documentation. One of the features that is seriously confusing and frustrating is how outline numbering and heading numbering works (or doesn't). Near as I can figure there are 2 subsystems/modules to handle numbering: one for bullet/list numbering, and the other for headings, and they don't play well together.

Re:ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS PRINT AN ENVELOPE!

[Anonymous Coward]

After some googling I finally learned that you have to create a normal document, and then insert an envelope into it.

This sounds -exactly- to me like a case of 'this makes sense to -me- the programmer, so -you- the user should be willing to distort your thinking to match', or perhaps 'doing things this oddball way gives simplifies the code in some obtuse way, so users should just deal', that I feel FOSS suffers from all the time. The end user is never treated as the most important judge of whether things are done properly, and usability takes a nosedive, because volunteer programmers are only motivated to work on what -they- want, and when it makes sense to -them-, they consider the job done.

They are for different purposes

[Anonymous Coward]

Headings divide the document into sections, outline numbering is intended for use within a single section. The outline numbering comes into play when bullets are a bit to simple, eg long multi-step plans, but wont go much beyond that. You can (ab-)use the outline numbering for section headings or have them continue between sections but this is not their intended purpose. Heading numbering just numbers the headings and is septate. Heeding numbering has the tie-ins to the automatic index creation tools(see:insert-->table of contents and index) and the document navigation parts (see:view-->Navigator), you would expect and find useful only for headings. You can also create cross references with the heading numbers (see the insert reference to "Number" for type "Heading" in:insert-->cross-reference) these will act as links within the document when clicked and also auto update as you add and remove sections. None of these features make sense for outline numbering which is much simpler (and hopefully simpler to use too).

Summary of main complaints:

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It sucks.

No, it does not. Working sucks, generally speaking. Libreoffice cannot solve that problem, but it's no worse than any other office suite, too.

2) It's slow.

No, it's not. I've been using for home documents, for personal use or to prepare legal documents, for work documents (on which my job depends), etc. etc. No problem whatsoever. I don't believe my experience is anecdotal.

3) Has compatibility problems with other suites.

All of them have. Even with standard formats like ODT, we're still striving to get perfect compatibility between suites. Deal with that.

4) Has compatibility problems with MS Office.

Read (3) above. And why is that important? Because most people use MS Office? Do you think people go on exchanging documents in MS Office format? Hint: they don't. People use more standard formats like pdf or html -- or even things like txt or csv. Traditional MS formats (e.g. doc) are too bloated for web use and newer ones (e.g. docx) cannot compete with other, more pervasive ones (like html).

It's another problem if one works at an MS-based company. It will then be necessary to use Excel or Word. Even so, in my experience, Libreoffice is enough in 95% of usage cases.

For home use, though, most people don't need to interact with folks which own another office suite. If they need, it will not work -- see (3) above. And for a better homogeneous experience, it's easier for everyone to adopt Libreoffice (which is free) than forcing some folks to buy a paid product (like MS Office).

5) It's ugly or I don't like it.

Oh, please...

6) It has not weird feature x (e.g. automatic Christmas decorations).

MS Word evolved from a Western, usually English-speaking, user base and evolving from there to reach global markets. It cannot even suggest reasonable grammatical corrections in my language. Some features are simply not interesting in some markets -- or have limited application.

Libreoffice is a younger, word-class product. Features are well thought to have wider usability. Even then, some adaptations to particular uses are quicker to be obtained in it than in MS Office (for which changes must be economically justified).

You can also just change the page size

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to the weird "automagic" insert envelope method there is also a simpler method.

Go to the page format dialogue, change the size settings. You can do this by hand but if you are using a named standard size use the drop down changing it from a4 or US Letter to envelope. You might want to do stuff with the margins or landscape/portrait settings while you are there, then just put the text in just like a normal page(or use a text frame). To be honest I have no idea why they keep the old method around it seems to be an attempt to make the task simpler than it actually is, which is an anti-paten that usually makes things harder.

Why so slow, LibreOffice?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the idea of LibreOffice, but when I tried it it was Very slow and sluggish. The LibreOffice executable clocks in at 100Mb, and when you click on something there are long and painful delays to bring up popups like spellcheck.

Word 2000 runs in just 4Mb.

It's a fucking word processor! Why does it need to be that big? Big = Slow.

Make it lightning fast please - and then I'll be back!!!

Link to the source

[Anonymous Coward]

for the love of God, link to the official release notes at https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/5.4 and not to the digested reporting that adds literally nothing to the source

Writer has many old, continuing, problems

[iliketrash]

LibreOffice, after these many years, still has many problems. Here is an example of a very basic one: at least on macOS, it does not properly render text, leaving unevenly-spaced characters within some words—one letter will appear e.g. too far to the right, colliding with the character to the right, while leaving a too-large space to the left. It is ugly and impedes reading.

The Writer component, continues to be essentially worthless for technical writing. Its rendering of inline math leaves giant white space to both the left and right sides of math. It has no idea how to break equations across line breaks of inline math. It does not correctly reduce the height of inline equations. I can't help but notice that the entire 50+page user's guide to the math typesetting function doesn't once display an inline equation. And Write has no ability whatsoever to intelligently place figures and tables—they are treated simply as giant characters.