[tdf-announce] LibreOffice 25.2, the office suite that meets today’s user needs

The new major release provides a large number of user interface and 
accessibility improvements, plus the usual interoperability features

Berlin, 6 February 2025 - LibreOffice 25.2, the new major release of the 
free, volunteer-supported office suite for Windows (Intel, AMD and ARM), 
macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux is available at 
https://www.libreoffice.org/download. LibreOffice is the best office 
suite for users who want to retain control over their individual 
software and documents, thereby protecting their privacy and digital 
life from the commercial interference and the lock-in strategies of Big 
Tech.

LibreOffice is the only office suite designed to meet the actual needs 
of the user – not just their eyes. It offers a range of interface 
options to suit different user habits, from traditional to modern, and 
makes the most of different screen sizes, optimising the space available 
to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away. It is 
also the only software for creating documents (that may contain personal 
or confidential information) that respects the user's privacy, ensuring 
that the user can decide if and with whom to share the content they 
create, thanks to the standard and open format that is not used as a 
lock-in tool, forcing periodic software updates. All this with a feature 
set that is comparable to the leading software on the market and far 
superior to that of any competitor.

What makes LibreOffice unique is the LibreOffice Technology Platform, 
the only one on the market that allows the consistent development of 
desktop, mobile and cloud versions - including those provided by 
companies in the ecosystem - capable of producing identical and fully 
interoperable documents based on the two available ISO standards: the 
open ODF or Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP) and the proprietary 
Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX). The latter hides a huge number of 
artificial (and unnecessary) lock-in complexities that create problems 
for users convinced they are using a standard format.

End users can get first-level technical support from volunteers on the 
user mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website: 
https://ask.libreoffice.org. LibreOffice Writer Guide can be downloaded 
from https://books.libreoffice.org/en/.

New Features of LibreOffice 25.2

PRIVACY
    • LibreOffice can remove all personal information associated to any 
document (author names and timestamps, editing time, printer name and 
configuration, document template, author and date for comments and 
tracked changes).

CORE/GENERAL
    • LibreOffice 25.2 can read and write ODF version 1.4.
    • Many interoperability improvements with proprietary OOXML documents.
    • It is now possible to automatically sign documents after defining 
a default certificate.
    • Windows 7 and 8/8.1 are deprecated platforms, and support will be 
removed in version 25.8.
    • Extensions and features relying on Python will not work on Windows 7.

WRITER
    • Improvements to Track Changes management, to manage large number 
of changes in long documents.
    • Comments are now tracked in the Navigator when you move the focus 
into comments, while resizing the area containing comments now shows a 
visual guide.
    • Added options to set a default zoom level for opening documents, 
overriding the level stored in documents.
    • It is now possible to delete all content of a content type 
(excluding headings) via the Navigator.

CALC
    • Addition of a "Handle Duplicate Records" dialog to select/remove 
duplicate records in Calc.
    • Both the Function Wizard dialog and Functions Sidebar deck 
received improvements to searching and user experience.
    • Solver models can be saved into spreadsheets and Solver is able 
to provide a sensitivity analysis report.
    • Addition of new sheet protection options related to Pivot Tables, 
Pivot Charts and AutoFilters.

IMPRESS & DRAW
    • Many improvements to all Impress templates, which now have 
visible elements (font colour set to black) in Master Notes and Handout.
    • Objects can be centred on the Impress slide (or Draw page) in one 
single step.
    • Automatic repeating of slides can now be activated in windowed mode.
    • Overflowing text in presenter notes is no longer cut off when 
printing.

USER INTERFACE
    • The list of recently used files has now a checkbox "[x] Current 
Module Only" that allows to filter the list.
    • Object boundaries are now toggled independently of Formatting Marks.
    • The colour of non-printing characters and the background colour 
of comments can be customised.
    • Default items for unordered lists (also known as bullets) have 
been updated.
    • Significant improvements to application themes.

ACCESSIBILITY
    • Improved warning and error levels in the Accessibility Sidebar, 
with option to ignore warnings.
    • User interface elements report an accessible identifier which can 
be used by assistive technologies.
    • Windows: accessibility gets enabled whenever a tool queries 
information on the accessibility level, and accessible relations are 
correctly reported.
    • Linux: positions of UI elements (including on Wayland) are 
correctly reported on the accessibility level.

SCRIPTFORGE LIBRARIES
    • An extensible and robust collection of macro scripting resources 
to be invoked from user Basic or Python scripts.
    • The whole set of services (except when the native native built-in 
function is better) is made available for Python scripts with identical 
syntax and behaviour as in Basic.
    • The English documentation of ScriptForge libraries is now 
partially integrated in the LibreOffice help pages.

Contributors to LibreOffice 25.2

A total of 176 developers contributed to the new features in LibreOffice 
25.2: 47% of the code commits came from 50 developers employed by 
ecosystem companies - Collabora and allotropia - and other 
organisations, 31% from seven developers at The Document Foundation, and 
the remaining 22% from 119 individual volunteer developers.

An additional 189 volunteers have committed 771,263 localized strings in 
160 languages, representing hundreds of people working on translations. 
LibreOffice 25.2 is available in 120 languages, more than any other 
desktop software, making it available to over 5.5 billion people in 
their native language. In addition, over 2.4 billion people speak one of 
these 120 languages as a second language.

LibreOffice for Enterprises

For enterprise-class deployments, TDF strongly recommends the 
LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners - 
for desktop, mobile and cloud - with a wide range of dedicated 
value-added features and other benefits such as SLAs: 
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-in-business/.

Every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for enterprise 
customers is shared with the community on the master code repository and 
improves the LibreOffice Technology platform. Products based on 
LibreOffice Technology are available for all major desktop operating 
systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS), mobile platforms (Android 
and iOS) and the cloud.

Migrations to LibreOffice

The Document Foundation publishes a migration protocol to help companies 
move from proprietary office suites to LibreOffice, based on the 
deployment of an LTS (long-term support) enterprise-optimised version of 
LibreOffice, plus migration consulting and training provided by 
certified professionals who offer value-added solutions consistent with 
proprietary offerings. Reference: 
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/professional-support/.

In fact, LibreOffice's mature code base, rich feature set, strong 
support for open standards, excellent compatibility and LTS options from 
certified partners make it the ideal solution for organisations looking 
to regain control of their data and break free from vendor lock-in.

Availability of LibreOffice 25.2

LibreOffice 25.2 is available at https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. 
Minimum requirements for proprietary operating systems are Microsoft 
Windows 7 SP1 and Apple MacOS 10.15. LibreOffice Technology-based 
products for Android and iOS are listed here: 
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/android-and-ios/.

For users who don't need the latest features and prefer a version that 
has undergone more testing and bug fixing, The Document Foundation still 
maintains the LibreOffice 24.8 family, which includes several months of 
back-ported fixes. The current release is LibreOffice 24.8.4.

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can 
support The Document Foundation with a donation at 
https://www.libreoffice.org/donate.

[1] Release Notes: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/25.2

--
Italo Vignoli - Marketing & PR
The Document Foundation & LibreOffice
email italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org
mobile/signal +39.348.5653829

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