Hey guys. I hope you are doing great!
I had to interrupt my weekly plan to bring this awesome update! LibreOffice 4.4 is out!
LibreOffice is an OpenOffice fork developed by the Document foundation that started after Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle in January 2010 Source Changing it’s name to Apache OpenOffice and the license to Apache License
Since the acquire development was overtaken by Oracle and it wasn’t that frequent. In fact it took them 11 months to update from 3.4.0 to 4.0.0. Check out my blog post mocking it!
Unlike Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice is rapidly developed, having new versions all the time! And it’s being maintained as the truly open source word processing suit.
What are the new features this update brings?
First of all: A lot of improvements has been made “under the hood” regarding the source code.
Another important thing is the use of open fonts to solve the compatibility issues facing documents.
Turns out it has a lot to do with the compatibility. As the default fonts cannot be used without installing MS Office.
Also they did a lot of improvements to the program interface. Making it the “The most beautiful LibreOffice ever”
You can digitally sign documents while exporting them to PDF!
And added support for OpenGl transitions in Windows.
New templates have been created, and included in the default installation and can be viewed from the start center!
(Thanks for Jay Philips @jphilipz for pointing it out for me 🙂 )
You can check the full list of features from here
It’s not a final version, it’s marked under fresh in the website. And if you are looking for a more stable version. You need to check version 4.3.5
What’s next?
They will continue to improve the product and fix some bugs as they go. They will release a 4.4.x every month building up to 4.5
The GPL license on LibreOffice ensures it gets the best of benefits and all the features while the Apache license hinders the development of Apache OpenOffice.
Of course if you have one of them installed you can install the other without effecting the other! I will give it a try and let you know! Also noted that it will ship with Ubuntu 15.04 coming later this year ..
I’m also happy to add that there is an android application to view documents! Check it out on the Google Play store
Download
You can download it from here for your system. If you feel like you want to play it safe here is the more stable 4.3.5 download link
With a redesigned interface, compatibility issues improvements and an android application. This version really stands out and sets a mark in the industry! How will Microsoft face this challenge? And will Apache OpenOffice come with something to keep the loyal fans on board? Only time will tell 😉
This has been my revision of LibreOffice 4.4.0. I will post when I download it and give it a try.
Hope you guys enjoyed this piece. Can’t wait to read your comments!