ReleaseNotes/24.2

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    Writer

    • Compatibility: width of the non-breaking space (NBSP U+00A0) can stretch in justified paragraphs as normal spaces. This function can be accessed by: Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice Writer ▸ Compatibility ▸ Render non-breaking spaces (NBSP) as standard-space-width (off for fixed size). (Vojtěch Doležal) tdf#41652
    • Possibility of display non-breaking spaces (NBSP) as fixed-width or flexible-width.

      Possibility of display non-breaking spaces (NBSP) as fixed-width or flexible-width.

    • "Legal" ordered list numbering: make a given list level use Arabic numbering for all its number parts. tdf#150408 (Mike Kaganski, Collabora)
    • Comments can now use styles, the "Comment" paragraph style being the default one. This makes it easier to modify the formatting of all comments at once, or to visually categorise different types of comments. tdf#103064 (Maxim Monastirsky)
    • Screenshot of Writer document with two comments, one styled with an orange background and focusing on content, the other with a blue background and focusing on formatting.

      Two comments with two different paragraph styles

    ‎

    • Improve first page headers/footers OOXML import: Use first page property in the existing page style instead of creating a new page style just for the first page. tdf#136472 (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)
    • 24.2.2
      A new paragraph can be inserted before a Table of Contents with Alt + ↵ Enter (as for tables). tdf#146356 (Oliver Specht, CIB)
    • 24.2.5
      Opening documents with embedded fonts is no longer slow on macOS. (Patrick Luby) tdf#155212

    Navigator

    • Linkable elements can now be drag-and-dropped from the Navigator onto a text selection to use the selection as the hyperlink text. tdf#156111 (Jim Raykowski)
    • Nested Sections can now be collapsed just like Headings (tdf#158103) and can be hidden or made visible from their context menu (tdf#157681). (Jim Raykowski)
    • Screenshot of Navigator sidebar deck showing subsection both collapsed and expanded.

      Collapsible subsections in the Navigator.

    ‎

    • Screenshot of Navigator with two headings greyed out in the middle of visible headings.

      Greyed-out hidden headings in Outline Folding mode

    ‎

    • Comments in a thread are now grouped in the Navigator. tdf#157729 (Jim Raykowski)
    • Screenshot of a document with 3 comments. In the Navigator, the two replies to the first comment are grouped and can be collapsed.

      Two replies are grouped under the main comment.

    ‎


    Multi-page floating tables

    Support for multi-page floating tables was improved in various aspects:

    • Overlap control, border and footnotes: blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
    • Nesting: blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
    • Wrap on all pages: blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
    • UI improvements: blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)

    Templates

    • Templates with the required settings for Japanese text added to the Localization category. This increases interoperability with Microsoft Word for Japanese users. tdf#86483, feeb3a46 (Jun Nogata)
    • Screenshot comparing LibreOffice Writer and Microsoft Word

      Comparing LibreOffice Writer (left) and Microsoft Word (right)

    ‎

    New line break algorithm for interoperability

    Since 2013, the non-proprietary, metric-compatible alternative fonts are no longer guaranteed the same paragraph layout, because MS Word 2013 and later introduced a new default line breaking algorithm for justified text. To fix the lost interoperability, the same algorithm has been implemented in Writer to reduce spaces within justified lines by up to 20%. tdf#119908 blog post (László Németh, donor: NLnet).

    For example, the 2-page test document in Writer has been reduced to one page, just like in MS Word, as visible on the following composite image (red text typeset by MS Word, which covered by the black text typeset by LibreOffice Writer). After the development, the red MS Word text is visible only at high magnification next to the black Writer letters, as the line breaks are already exactly the same:

    Composite pages typeset by Writer (black) and MS Word (red): 2-page Lorem text in Writer has been reduced to one page, just like in MS Word.

    Note: used only for DOCX interoperability at the moment (including for ODT files which are converted from new DOCX files with space shrinking), but planned to be the default justification algorithm of the next major versions of LibreOffice.


    Calc

    • Functions sidebar deck:
      • Pressing F1 with a function selected opens the corresponding help page. tdf#156378 (Rafael Lima)
      • New search field in the Functions sidebar deck. tdf#122718 (Rafael Lima)
    • Screenshot of the new feature in action, with the search string "avera" listing all the average-related functions.

      Search in Functions sidebar deck

    ‎

    • Number format: scientific format now supports and saves to ODF the following codes (tdf#153993 and tdf#156449 Laurent Balland):
      • embedded text, with number format such as ###.000 E0
      • lower case for exponent, with number format such as ###.000e0
      • exponent with blank '?' instead of '0', with number format such as 0.00E+?0
    • Font is live-previewed again: it is temporarily applied on the selected cell(s) by hovering or navigating in the font dropdown (sidebar or toolbar). tdf#158320 (Caolán McNamara, Collabora)
    • Shortcuts to switch sheets now work to cycle from last to first (Ctrl + Tab ↹ or Ctrl + Page Down; ⌘ Cmd + Tab ↹ or ⌘ Cmd + Page Down) and vice versa (Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + Tab ↹ or Ctrl + Page Up; ⌘ Cmd + ⇧ Shift + Tab ↹ or ⌘ Cmd + Page Up;). tdf#156311 (Denis Sorotnik)
    • Column/Row Highlighting for Active Cell (Sahil Gautam) tdf#33201
      • Accessible through Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice Calc ▸ View, or through the menu entry View ▸ Column/Row Highlighting
        Screenshot of entire Row and Column highlight of active cell
        ‎
    • When copying formulas made visible with View ▸ Show Formula (shortcut: Ctrl + `), pasting them in a plain text editor will show the formulas (instead of the results). They can also be pasted into Writer using Edit ▸ Paste Special ▸ Unformatted Text. (Heiko Tietze, TDF) tdf#156357
    • Share cell content with text editors; the formula appears instead of the calculated values

      Share cell content with text editors; the formula appears instead of the calculated values

    ‎

    • Easier conditional formatting dialog by Format ▸ Conditional ▸ Condition ▸ Greater than/Less than/Equals etc. (Paris Oplopoios) tdf#157930
    • Easier conditional formatting

      Easier conditional formatting

    ‎

    • 24.2.5
      Functions SUMIF and AVERAGEIF now always operate correctly on a query array (without needing to use the third optional parameter). tdf#158789 (Eike Rathke, Red Hat)
    • 24.2.4
      XLS files with many conditional formatting rules are now faster to open. (Noel Grandin, Collabora) tdf#160706


    Impress

    • Implemented Small Caps for Impress: details in blog post. tdf#98367 (Caolán McNamara, Collabora)
    • Screenshot of the new feature in action, with the string "Small Caps" demonstrating the feature.

      Small Caps in Impress

    ‎

    Slide Show Settings

    • The setting "Show navigation panel" in Slide Show ▸ Slide Show Settings... will now be saved to local configuration. tdf#157788 (Amin Irgaliev, Vladislav Tarakanov)
    • Moved Presenter console and Remote control settings from Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice Impress to Slide Show ▸ Slide Show Settings.... Additionally, the labels and dialog layout has been improved. tdf#135089 7ca9c5bd (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Additionally, there is a new check box so that the Bluetooth Remote control server can be enabled without also enabling the (currently insecure) WiFi server. aee059ff (Michael Stahl, allotropia)
    • Slide Show settings dialog highlighting the new settings

      Slide Show settings in Impress

    ‎

    Templates

    • Fixed Impress templates where incorrect fonts were selected for CJK and CTL. 3adf0 (Jun Nogata)
    • Impress template comparison between versions 7.6.4 and 24.2

      Impress template comparison

    ‎


    Draw

    • Draw now imports multi-page TIFF files (i.e. a TIFF file with several subfiles) placing one image per page. tdf#155444 (Rashesh Padia, Collabora)
    • 24.2.7
      Support was added for MS Visio Template format with .vstx extension (Bartosz Kosiorek) tdf#163170


    Base

    • Automatically added primary key (e.g., when user accepts Wizard's suggestion to add a missing primary key on exit) now enables AutoValue tdf#108057. (Mike Kaganski, Collabora)
    • Support for generic/unknown embedded databases in new database wizard (e.g. in File ▸ New ▸ Database ▸ Create a new database). tdf#156471 (Pierre Vacher)


    Chart

    Math

    • Support setting and rendering a formula's Right-to-Left direction. tdf#134193 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
      Math with two Arabic math equations following two different typesetting conventions

    • Support Arabic and Persian operators and symbols. tdf#111705 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • The Math font can now be changed in Format ▸ Fonts... (default is OpenSymbol). tdf#101174 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
      Math font set to Nagwa TK Math font, variables and other fonts set to Nagwa TK Text font.

    • Tools ▸ Special Character... is now available in the Formula editor. tdf#32418 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Inline (Visual) formula editing mode is now enabled by default, graduated from experimental mode feature 2d47c824 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • 24.2.5
      Patch adding backslash "\" before parentheses "(" and ")" to ensure proper display of unpaired parentheses in formula in DOCX, PPTX and XLSX documents. tdf#158023, tdf#68997 (Amin Irgaliev)
    • Since 24.2.5, LibreOffice will always display parentheses, regardless of whether they are paired or unpaired in OOXML files.

      Since 24.2.5, LibreOffice will always display parentheses, regardless of whether they are paired or unpaired in OOXML files.


    Core / General

    • A new calendar-based numbering scheme (YY.M.Patch) is introduced since this release. This will help users to more easily see how current their installed version of LibreOffice is.
    • Changes in automatic saving of documents: "Save AutoRecovery information" is turned on by default, as well as "Always create backup copies". Backup copies accumulate in the folder specified by Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Paths. Both settings can be turned off in Tools ▸ Options ▸ Load/Save ▸ General ▸ Save. tdf#152463 (Bogdan Buzea)
    • Fixed many AutoRecovery limitations and re-enabled AutoSave UI. Added "Place backup in same folder as document" option. tdf#65509 tdf#68565 tdf#57414 (Mike Kaganski / Justin Luth, Collabora)
    • Fixed various Notebookbar paper cuts: lots of menu improvements, better print preview support, proper reset of customized layout, better use of radio buttons, less "jumps" back to Home tab, no longer broken after file reload or print preview or master view. tdf#126006 tdf#125504 tdf#122270 tdf#141136 tdf#148121 (Justin Luth)
    • Help ▸ Search Commands now also matches submenu names to return more relevant results. tdf#157114 (Dung Saga)
    • Added search functionality to Tools ▸ Options. tdf#49895 (Bayram Çiçek)
    • Search field in Options dialog

      Search field in Options dialog

    ‎

    • Automatically switching to dark app colors and a dark icon theme when a dark color scheme is configured in the desktop settings now also works for the Qt-based UI variants used e.g. by default on KDE Plasma. tdf#156894 tdf#149611 (Michael Weghorn)
    • Expert config now shows explanatory text to the config items in a tooltip tdf#157431 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Tooltip shown in Expert config

      Tooltip shown in Expert config

    ‎

    • Expert config can now be filtered by modified values. Modified values are displayed in bold text. tdf#157432 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Improved editing capabilities in Expert config dialog: (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
      • Proper input type validation
      • Editing lists in an own dialog
    • Sometimes spell checker algorithms send 2 lists for the same part of the sentence. One of the lists is sometimes empty. Now the non-empty list is shown on right click. (Gökay Şatır, Collabora Productivity)
    • Null pointer issue in password-dialog / libreofficeKit is fixed. (Gökay Şatır, Collabora Productivity)
    • Duden corrector encoded text issue is fixed. (Gökay Şatır, Collabora Productivity)
    • In experimental mode, made the MAR-based automatic update available on TDF Windows 64-bit builds, see Tools ▸ Options ▸ Online Update ▸ Automatic Update. (Stephan Bergmann, allotropia)
    • On Windows, Alt + NumPad codes support had been enhanced to allow full Unicode range. Note that this interferes with shortcut handling; Alt + Number shortcuts now only work with main keyboard area numbers on Windows, not with NumPad numbers. Also note, that this enhancement does not include Windows' EnableHexNumpad registry setting support. tdf#156443 (Mike Kaganski, Collabora)
    • Introduced additional editable metadata fields Contributor, Coverage, Identifier, Publisher, Relation, Rights, Source, Type. See File ▸ Properties... ▸ Description. tdf#138792 (Sarper Akdemir, allotropia)
    Properties dialog


    LibreOffice Help

    Continuation of LibreOffice Help to describe access to commands from several interfaces: Menus, tabbed interface, keyboard, toolbars, status bar and more.

    Help pages describe several ways to access commands


    Help contents updates and fixes:


    Filters

    Orcus-based filters

    The following improvements derive primarily from the 0.19 release of the orcus library (Kohei Yoshida, allotropia).

    • Overhauled the Gnumeric import filter to fix bugs and add missing features. Most notable feature additions are:
      • cell styles
      • rich-text strings
      • named ranges
      • row heights and column widths
      • merged cells
    • Added support for importing rich-text strings in the Excel 2003 XML format.

    Import of "Drawing Canvas" from docx-documents

    Word has an object called "Drawing Canvas" where you draw shapes on it. They are combined into one object, similar as grouping them. This drawing canvas has to be used in Word, if the drawing contains connector shapes. Word writes this object in two flavors to the file. One is the original drawing canvas in DrawingML markup and the other is a fallback with reduced properties in VML markup. Previous LibreOffice versions could only read the VML fallback. Now the DrawingML is read. That gives you these new import features:

    • The drawing canvas background is imported.
    • Connectors are no longer imported as simple shapes but as true connectors, attached to the start and end shape.
    • Primitive shapes like ellipses are imported as ooxml-shape and thus text inside the shape can wrap now.
    • Shapes can use multicolor gradients, theme colors and glow effects.

    (Regina)

    ODF Wholesome Encryption

    A new mode of password-based ODF encryption has been implemented, with the following advantages:

    • more performant due to deriving a key only once per package
    • more tamper-resistant with authenticated encryption (AES-GCM)
    • better hiding of metadata to reduce information leaks
    • higher resistance to brute forcing using memory-hard Argon2id key derivation function
    Warning.svg

    Warning:
    You will need LibreOffice 24.2 to open these encrypted files. For this reason, by default the pre-existing standard ODF encryption is used.

    This is available if Experimental Features are enabled in Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Advanced. tdf#105844 (Michael Stahl, allotropia)


    SVG support

    • 24.2.2
      Support for SVG styles parameters: style="overflow:notset", ...:hidden" and ...:visible". (Xisco Fauli, TDF) tdf#159968
    • View of SVG rendering before and after implementation of SVG overflow parameters: notset, hidden and visible.

      View of SVG rendering before and after implementation of SVG overflow parameters: notset, hidden and visible.

    ‎

    • 24.2.3
      Translations stored in <switch> elements are now selected based on the system locale's language tag. (Xisco Fauli, TDF) tdf#160386
    • All translations overlapped in 24.2 (left); English translation picked on en_AU system in 24.8 (right)

      All translations overlapped in 24.2 (left); English translation picked on en_AU system in 24.8 (right)

    ‎

    • context-fill (arrow head) and context-stroke (bottom circles). Left is without support, middle is with support, right is reference (Firefox 126.0).

      context-fill (arrow head) and context-stroke (bottom circles). Left is without support, middle is with support, right is reference (Firefox 126.0).

    ‎

    OOXML SVG support

    • Support SVG OOXML extension (http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/drawing/2016/SVG/main namespace)
    • Import the SVG image (svgBlip element) instead of the fallback PNG.
    • Export the SVG image in addition to fallback PNG image, which is used if the svgBlip element is not supported (older MS Office versions). tdf#51510, tdf#126084 (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)
    • Two screenshots of Writer placed side-by-side. And two screenshots of 7-zip archive manager above them witch corresponding content to those Writer files. Left showing LibreOffice 7.6 with blurred graphics caused by missing SVG attachement in OOXML archive (there is only PNG file in .docx archive). Right showing LibreOffice 24.2 with sharp rendered graphics because of properly saved both PNG and SVG attachement in OOXML archive.

      Starting with LibreOffice 24.2, SVG is finally embedded in OOXML formats properly.

    ‎


    WMF

    • Fix displaying images with size of EOF other than 3. tdf#155887 (Bartosz Kosiorek)


    GUI

    • The Insert Special Characters dropdown now shows a character description for the selected character (and in tooltip on hovering). tdf#156538 (Jim Raykowski)
    • Screenshot of the Special Character dropdown showing the earth ground character selected, with its description "⏚ EARTH GROUND U+23DA" underneath.

      The Special Character dropdown shows a description of the selected character in the Recent and Favourite lists.

    ‎

    • The save with password dialog now features a password strength meter that utilizes zxcvbn-c to determine the password strength. tdf#157518 (Sarper Akdemir, allotropia)
    • Screenshot of Password Strength Meter on GNU/Linux with GTK backend.

      Screenshot of Password Strength Meter on GNU/Linux with GTK backend.

    • Screenshot of Password Strength Meter under macOS.

      Screenshot of Password Strength Meter under macOS.

    ‎

    • Turn Security Warnings popup windows into infobars to avoid annoying blocker warning dialogs. tdf#157482 (Balázs Varga, allotropia) - In the previous implementation, if the appropriate configuration options are enabled, a warning was issued and/or the personal information have been removed each time the document is saved. These Security Warnings popup windows have been turned into individual infobar warnings at the top of the page. The infobar can be displayed both for hidden and for personal information. In this way, the user receives a hint without significantly disrupting the workflow. A button on the banner could additionally open a dialog in which individual pieces of information can be removed.
    • Screenshot of Security Infobar warning and new security option settings

      Screenshot of Security Infobar warning and new security option settings

    ‎

    • Options dialog pages behaved inconsistently when options are locked down. Several of the UI elements do not reflect this by becoming disabled and displaying a lock icon on their left. By the end all the Options pages will work consistently when options are locked down. tdf#157698 (Balázs Varga, allotropia)
    • Options Print page with readonly options

      Options Print page with readonly options

    ‎

    • Clarify the options dialog text around macro security settings, to specify exactly what is permitted, and what is prevented. tdf#157588 (Gábor Kelemen, allotropia)
    • Options Macro security page with highlighted changes

      Options Macro security page

    ‎

    • It is now possible to reset the cropping for an image. tdf#86628 (Andrea Rosetti)

    Accessibility

    • Tree views like the one in the Expert Configuration Dialog (reachable via Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Advanced ▸ Open Expert Configuration) are now correctly exposed via accessibility APIs, so the table content is announced by screen readers. tdf#99609 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • A system setting to reduce/disable animations is now honoured by LibreOffice to disable the "marching ants" animation when copying cells in Calc. (This is new in LibreOffice 24.2 for Windows and Linux; for macOS, this is already included in LibreOffice 7.6.) tdf#155414 (Patrick Luby; Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Issues in the handling of mouse positions in the Windows-specific accessibility implementation were fixed, so that the NVDA screen reader can announce the text of a Calc cell under the mouse pointer correctly. tdf#156679 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Various popup menus like the border line style control (e.g. used in Writer: Format ▸ Paragraph ▸ Borders ▸ Line ▸ Style) or the font color chooser (e.g. used in Writer: Format ▸ Character ▸ Font Effect ▸ Font Color) are now correctly announced by the NVDA screen reader on Windows. tdf#101886 tdf#141101 tdf#156561 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The UNO grid control is now properly exposed to the accessibility layer and can therefore be announced by the NVDA screen reader. tdf#156473 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The multi line edit (e.g. used in the Help ▸ Check for Updates...) dialog now supports the accessible Text interface, which allows screen readers to announce its text content. tdf#104833 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • An active-descendant-changed accessible events no longer gets incorrectly sent when a combobox value changes without the combobox being focused, which was causing confusing behavior with the NVDA screen reader in the print dialog. tdf#157137 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • On Windows, the IAccessible2 role is now reported for frames, instead of reporting them as dialogs. dd0a0ecb839df1289693d4b2f862e3942a80345d (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Status bars in dialogs are now reported with the correct accessible role, so screen readers can find and report them accordingly. tdf#157639 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The content of the Tools ▸ Word Count... dialog is now announced by the NVDA screen reader on Windows when the dialog opens. tdf#157633 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • On Windows, text attributes are now reported on the accessibility layer according to the IAccessible2 text attributes and object attributes specifications, no longer by using custom attribute names and values. Invalid spelling is now also reported via the corresponding text attribute. Together with a corresponding change in version 2024.1 of the NVDA screen reader, this makes announcement of misspelled words work when reading a line of text in Writer. tdf#157696 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • On Windows, text alignment is now reported via the corresponding IAccessible2 object attribute, which makes it possible for assistive technology like the NVDA screen reader to announce it. tdf#135922 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Checkboxes in the spelling dialog can now be toggled using the space key tdf#135921 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Writer paragraphs using the "Block Quotation" paragraph style now also use the block quote accessibility role, which makes it possible for screen readers to announce them as block quotes. tdf#135586 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The VoiceOver screen reader on macOS no longer unhelpfully says "collapsed" when a Writer paragraph or toolbar button receives focus. 64d7bb1917c38ad8e256a482778df647904f5502 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Toggle buttons can now be toggled using the corresponding accessible action, which e.g. allows screen readers to do so. tdf#112661 tdf#112662 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The label for row and column headers in Calc is now reported via the "rowindextext" and "colindextext" object attributes as specified in the ARIA specification. The Orca screen reader makes use of these for the announcement of cells. tdf#158030 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • The Orca screen reader on Linux now announces the current status of the underline toolbar button, i.e. it indicates whether underlining is currently active or not. tdf#123864 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)

    Changes in UI strings

    • Language settings was changed to Languages and Locales in options. tdf#157716 (Aswath T)
    • Decimal separator key was changed to Decimal key on the numpad in options. tdf#113478 (Adoche Onaji)
    • Modify was changed to Assign in Customize dialog. tdf#155214 (Aswath T)
    • Scale was changed to As percentage of the parent in Area dialog tdf#154019. (Heiko Tietze, TDF)
    • Description was changed to Alt Text. tdf#155044 (Heiko Tietze / Ilmari Lauhakangas, TDF)
    • Evaluate up to level was changed to Include up to level in index dialog. tdf#157908 (Seth Chaiklin)
    • Add paragraph and table spacing at tops of pages was changed to Add paragraph and table spacing at top of first page and page breaks in options. tdf#141676 (Seth Chaiklin)
    • AutoUpdate changed to Automatic update from document in the Organize tab of Style dialog. tdf#149796 (Seth Chaiklin)
    • Instead of Widow and Orphan controls, the Text Flow tab of Paragraph Style dialog now talks about paragraph splitting. tdf#156795 tdf#156109 Samuel Mehrbrodt (allotropia)


    Localization

    • LibreOffice is now available in Armenian.

    Armenian is an Indo-European language, spoken by 5–7 million people in the Republic of Armenia and elsewhere in the world. The translation of LibreOffice’s user interface was largely done by Tigran Zargaryan. Read more about this in our blog

    • screenshot showing the LibreOffice UI translated to Armenian

      LibreOffice in Armenian

    ‎

    Improvements to proofing tools and language support

    Dictionaries

    • Slovenian thesaurus was updated (Martin Srebotnjak, OdprtiTezaver).


    Scripting

    BASIC

    • CCur now respects system locale. tdf#128122 (Jonathan Clark)

    The ScriptForge libraries

    An extensible and robust collection of macro scripting resources for LibreOffice to be invoked from user Basic or Python scripts. (Jean-Pierre Ledure)

    The libraries expose a total of 32 services each with a bunch of methods and properties.

    New in LibreOffice 24.2:

    • The (new) Dataset service helps browsing through the data collected with tables, queries or SQL SELECT statements. Getting and updating records data is made easy with the use of dictionaries field name => field value. Binary fields can be extracted to files or updated with the content of files.
    • The Database service supports the transaction mode with in particular the Commit() and Rollback() methods.
    • Use the new filesystem property of the Document service to navigate through the internal file structure of documents like in usual folders and files.
    • The Files() and Subfolders() methods in the FileSystem service provide the list of files and folders present in a folder. They accept now an additional IncludeSubfolders boolean argument.
    • The UserData property of the Platform service gives access to the content of the equivalent page in the Tools/Options dialog.
    • The Documents service is enriched with a set of functions to manage styles. E.g. suppressing all unused styles can be done in a few lines of code.

    The whole set of services (except when better done by native built-in functions) is made available for Python scripts with identical syntax and behaviour as in Basic.

    The English version of the documentation of the ScriptForge libraries (24.2) is fully integrated in the LibreOffice help pages (https://help.libreoffice.org/24.2/en-US/text/sbasic/shared/03/lib_ScriptForge.html?DbPAR=BASIC). Their translation into other languages is underway. (Alain Romedenne, Rafael Lima)

    Feature Removal / Deprecation

    • Drop Impress/Draw's HTML Export wizard. Exporting to HTML from the UI behaves now the same way as using --convert-to html:"impress_html_Export" from the command line, the slides being exported as a single document. tdf#105303 (Xisco Fauli, TDF)
    • Removed FTP protocol support from LibreOffice, following browser vendors and general industry trends. tdf#146386, 4a26dcac (Michael Stahl, allotropia)
    • The following fonts are no longer bundled by default. tdf#159752 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
      • NotoMono-Regular.ttf
      • NotoNaskhArabicUI-Bold.ttf
      • NotoNaskhArabicUI-Regular.ttf
      • NotoSans-Condensed.ttf
      • NotoSans-CondensedBold.ttf
      • NotoSans-CondensedBoldItalic.ttf
      • NotoSans-CondensedItalic.ttf
      • NotoSans-Light.ttf
      • NotoSans-LightItalic.ttf
      • NotoSansArabicUI-Bold.ttf
      • NotoSansArabicUI-Regular.ttf
      • NotoSerif-Condensed.ttf
      • NotoSerif-CondensedBold.ttf
      • NotoSerif-CondensedBoldItalic.ttf
      • NotoSerif-CondensedItalic.ttf
      • NotoSerif-Light.ttf
      • NotoSerif-LightItalic.ttf


    Platform Compatibility

    • On Windows, text attributes are now reported on the accessibility layer according to the IAccessible2 text attributes and object attributes specifications, no longer by using custom attribute names and values. Assistive Technology that currently only supports the custom LibreOffice attributes needs to be adapted to support attributes according to the IAccessible2 specifications. For the NVDA screen reader, this has been implemented for the upcoming version 2024.1. tdf#157696
    • The minimum requirements for building and running LibreOffice on Linux have been raised from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7/CentOS 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8/CentOS 8 (or equivalent). This also means that Qt 5.15 is the minimum supported Qt version for the Qt 5 based "VCL plugins" (qt5/kf5). 02f48a32
    • libxml2 and libxslt are now required to be installed on the system for TDF release builds b20f17ce.


    API Changes

    • The constant group com.sun.star.sheet.NamedRangeFlag now supports the HIDDEN flag, which allows to hide named ranges from the UI. MSO compatibility with hidden named ranges is now supported as well. tdf#154449 (Rafael Lima)
    • New UNO commands for Writer:
      • .uno:SpotlightParaStyles and .uno:SpotlightCharStyles for the Spotlight feature on Paragraph and Character styles respectively. They are now available in the menu: Format ▸ Spotlight tdf#156114 (Jim Raykowski)
      • .uno:InsertDateFieldVar and .uno:InsertTimeFieldVar for variable date and variable time fields respectively. This allows assigning shortcuts to both fixed and variable variants of the date and time fields. Both variants are now available from the menu: Insert ▸ Field. 6c073a18 (Xisco Fauli, TDF)
    Screenshot of menu that includes the fixed and variable variants of Date and Time fields.


    Configuration Changes

    • A new setting can be used to disable insecure network protocols (such as unencrypted HTTP, SMTP, and TLS versions older than 1.2). If disabled, the WebDAV UCP will automatically attempt to connect via HTTPS instead, while other services will refuse to connect. 5365daf6 8e46dd95 8b0b453e
      • org.openoffice.Office.Security/Net/AllowInsecureProtocols
    • A new setting can be used to disable soffice --accept ec3ffe62
      • org.openoffice.Office.Security/Net/AllowInsecureUNORemoteProtocol
    • The following configuration keys have been deprecated:
      • org.openoffice.Office.Inet::Settings::ooInetFTPProxyName tdf#146386
      • org.openoffice.Office.Inet::Settings::ooInetFTPProxyPort tdf#146386
    • The following deprecated configuration keys have been removed:
      • org.openoffice.Office.Common/InternalMSExport/UseOldExport tdf#154077 (Gabor Kelemen, allotropia)
      • org.openoffice.Office.Histories/HistoryItem/Password (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
      • org.openoffice.Office.Linguistic/SpellChecking/IsSpellCapitalization (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Customization of start center colors StartCenterThumbnailsHighlightColor and StartCenterThumbnailsHighlightTextColor removed in favor of system defaults tdf#158084 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)


    Android Viewer

    • Initial dark theme support was added tdf#124480 (Michael Weghorn, TDF)
    • Thanks to many translators, support for more user interface languages was added
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