A new community version of LibreOffice 7.5 is here with many new features and Microsoft Office 365 interoperability.
The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the release of the LibreOffice 7.5 community edition today. This release targets early adopters and those who prefer features over stability. In a nutshell, LibreOffice 7.5 is high on features in Writer and Calc. However, little to no changes arrive in the Base (data program) and Math modules.
Let’s give you a brief walkthrough of the major features.
LibreOffice 7.5 – Best Features
Common changes
LibreOffice 7.5 brings stunning brand and application icons. The new icons are more vibrant and dynamic, with rounded corners. They have been chosen based on community feedback. Here’s how they look.
Also, applying the dark mode is now more usable after ironing out several display issues, and the option is available. No more tweaking. You can find it under Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Application Colors > Scheme.
When you first launch LibreOffice, you should see a new filter dropdown in the main window, helping you to filter by the application file type. If your workflow deals with many files, then it’s preety useful.
The “Single Toolbar” interface is now more compact and is accessible under the View menu.
Modules (Calc, Writer, Impress and Draw)
The spreadsheet program Calc gets one of the most requested features, i.e. data table inside charts. It’s one of the common features unavailable in this spreadsheet program. And there you have it.
Also, in Calc, when you are searching for any formula, it now searches in the description alongside the formula name itself. In addition, you can now spell out numbers such as “THOUSANDS” from the format cells dialog.
The bookmark module is revamped extensively in this release in Writer. First, the bookmark display is more interesting with colourful brackets. Also, you can change the bookmark display text using the bookmark manager itself. No need to individually select bookmarks in the Writer canvas one by one. You can view and change them from one single point.
The presentation program Impress and the drawing program Draw get a few table styles that will help you design beautiful tables on the go.
So, that’s about the visual and key changes in this release. Under the hood, a huge set of bug fixes, more compatibility with Office 365, a few macro and API updates landed in LibreOffice 7.5.
You can read the entire change log on this page.
How to Upgrade?
Ubuntu: This version should arrive in the upcoming Ubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster, due on April 2023. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS won’t get this version soon because it follows the enterprise version.
Fedora: Fedora Linux 37 should feature this release planned for March/April- 2023.
However, if you want to upgrade now, use the below guide:
Windows users need to uninstall and re-install this version since there is no upgrade path. Refer to the below guide:
Fresh Download
If you want to download a fresh copy of LibreOffice, visit the official page.
