14 DAY TRIAL // LibreOffice was, is, and will definitely continue to be one of the top alternatives to the more expensive Microsoft Office productivity suite, and the frequent updates released by The Document Foundation makes it quite the right choice for both consumers and enterprises.
This week, TDF rolled out LibreOffice 7.1 Community, a new version specifically aimed at end users and coming with several notable improvements, all of which are detailed in the changelog at the end of the article.
Worth highlighting, however, is the new dialog to select the UI flavor, additional dialogs to search for and install extensions, and an improved search experience for matching printer paper size.
Not aimed at enterprises
While this is a version specifically aimed at users, TDF says too many enterprises download it when, in fact, they should get the suite that is built for their needs.
“Despite this recommendation, an increasing number of enterprises have chosen the version supported by volunteers over the version optimized for their needs. This has had a twofold negative consequence for the project: a poor use of volunteers’ time, as they have to spend their time to solve problems for business that provide nothing in return to the community, and a net loss for ecosystem companies,” the organization explains in a blog post published as part of the LibreOffice 7.1 Community launch.
“This has been a problem for the sustainability of the LibreOffice project, because it has slowed down the evolution of the software. In fact, every line of code developed by ecosystem companies for their customers is shared with the global community, and this improves the product and fosters the growth of the LibreOffice Technology platform.”
The new version is available for download on all supported desktop platforms, namely Windows, Linux, and macOS.