A brand new version of the free, open-source office suite LibreOffice is now available for download.
The follow-up to last year’s LibreOffice 7.6, called LibreOffice 24.2, marks a significant change as it’s the first edition to use a calendar-based version number. The ’24’ stands for 2024, and ‘2’ for the month of February, similar to the versioning system for Ubuntu.
The adoption of a date-based version number enables LibreOffice users to determine how updated their version is, a data point that was ambiguous with the previous versioning system.
LibreOffice 24.2 brings six months worth of developments summarised in 5098 commits. This includes everything from bug fixes and security enhancements to UI adjustments, new features, and essential interoperability improvements.
Start exploring the new version by downloading it here: LibreOffice 24.2.
I expect you’re keen to learn more, so read on to find out what’s new in LibreOffice 24.2!
LibreOffice 24.2: New features
We all know we should save our work often (true for anything, not just documents) but if something major happens before we can, automatic recovery is there to help.
LibreOffice 24.2 Writer running in Ubuntu 23.10
LibreOffice 24.2 enables AutoRecovery by default for new installations. The feature isn’t new but the default setting is. If you use an older version of LO stop reading and go enable it!
Users of the Notebook bar layout (not enabled by default) will notice lots of buffs, including menu tweaks, better print preview, proper reset of customized layouts, and fewer “jumps” back to the Home tab.
Informative tooltips were added to the “Insert special character drop-down” (the one in the toolbar, not the dialog version accessed from the insert menu). This displays character descriptions on hover.
KDE Plasma users will be pleased to know that with this release, the LibreOffice UI qt5/kf5/VCL plugin will automatically shift to dark mode for all UI components (app, web, and icons) when the desktop settings have been set to the dark color scheme.
Features included in LibreOffice 24.2 Writer include:
- Support for ‘Legal’ ordered list numbering
- Stylable comments to visually distinguish different types of comments
- Enhanced support for multi-page floating tables
- Improved interoperability with Microsoft Word for Japanese users
- New line break algorithm for
DOCX interoperability (only available at the moment)
New features in LibreOffice 24.1 Impress & Draw apps:
- Small caps support (read more about that)
- Presenter Console moved to Slide Show > Slide Show Settings
- Bluetooth Remote control server can be turned on without Wi-Fi server
- Impress template fixes, including using correct fonts for CJK and CTL
- Draw now imports multi-page TIFF files, one image per page
LibreOffice 24.2 Calc adds (pun, sorry):
- Functions sidebar deck now has a search bar
- Scientific number format supported and saved in ODF
- Highlight Row and Column relevant to active cell
Other changes worth knowing about:
- Accessibility buffs to improve using LibreOffice with screen readers
- ‘Save with Password’ prompt now shows password strength meter
- New password-based ODF encryption is more resistant to brute force
- Search field added to Tools > Options
- Settings to show Security Warnings window as in-app infobars
- More editable metadata fields, including Contributor, Publisher, Rights, Source
- FTP protocol support removed from LibreOffice entirely
- Armenian language support
For more details on the changes above, plus lots more, read the LibreOffice 24.2 release notes. Those are detailed, contain lots of screenshots, and provide links to various bug reports, code commits, and developer blog posts that shine more light on to specific changes.
Microsoft Office Compatibility Fixes
Password strength meter
LibreOffice’s interoperability with Microsoft Office documents is one of its finest features.
The Document Foundation observed that each new version of LibreOffice brings impressive progress, with version 24.2 following this trend.
In particular, Writer in LibreOffice 24.2 has improved its capability of importing ‘drawing canvas’ elements from DOCX documents. It now imports connectors as true connectors, converts primitive shapes like ellipses into OOXML shapes, and adds support for multicolour gradients, theme colours and glow effects for shapes.
The SVG OOXML extension is also enhanced to import an SVG image (from svgBlip element) over the fallback PNG as well as to export an SVG image along with a fallback PNG for older MS Office versions. Furthermore, first page headers/footers import in Writer is now more intelligent.
Download LibreOffice 24.2
You can download LibreOffice 24.2 for Windows, macOS, and Linux directly from the LibreOffice website.
If you’re on Ubuntu you may prefer to get this update from the LibreOffice PPA, via Flathub, or from the Canonical Snap Store — though keep in mind that those avenues might not update to the latest release immediately, but it’s rarely more than a day or two post-release.
While the new features in LibreOffice 24.2 are worth upgrading for, don’t feel obligated to if you don’t think you’ll use them. The LibreOffice 7.6 series (including Ubuntu 23.10) is maintained by The Document Foundation and continues to get back-ported fixes.