LibreOffice 7.6 Community: Release Notes

    From The Document Foundation Wiki


    Writer

    • Added page number wizard in Insert menu for easy one-step insertion of the page number in the header/footer tdf#86630 (Paris Oplopoios / Justin Luth, Collabora)
      Page Number Wizard dialog

    • The Paragraph Style dropdown (in the Formatting toolbar) now gradually replaces the default list with styles used in the document rather than always showing the full list at the top. tdf#152666 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)
    • Character properties of the paragraph marker from DOCX are now also remembered in ODT. blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
    • Citation handling: added plumbing in Writer to build Zotero-like functionality blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
    • Table of Figures can be generated more flexibly based on a paragraph style, not only by categories or object names. tdf#153090 (Michael Stahl, allotropia)
      Table of Figures based on paragraph style

    • Bibliography entries can now be edited directly from a bibliography table. tdf#72955 (Vojtěch Doležal)
    • Bibliography marks now (by default) hyperlink to matching row in a bibliography table. The click behaviour can be changed to open the "Display URL", open the newly introduced "Target URL", or "None". tdf#153396 (Vojtěch Doležal)
    • Start of multi-page floating tables in Writer commits, blog post 1, blog post 2, blog post 3 blog post 4 blog post 5 blog post 6 (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
      Start of multi-page floating tables in Writer

    • The Accessibility Check has been moved to the sidebar to allow easier usage while editing the document. tdf#142978 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
      The new Accessibility sidebar

    • Now if you have a hidden section in your document and try (possibly accidentally) to delete it, then Writer will show a warning message tdf#130199 (Balazs Varga, allotropia)
    • DOI citation recognition in Tools/AutoCorrect: Create a hyperlink pointing to doi.org for DOI citation tdf#145925 (Baole Fang)
      DOI citation recognition

    • Added highlighting for used Paragraph and Character styles and highlighting for used Direct Formatting in text. tdf#38194, tdf#106556 (Jim Raykowski)
      Spotlight

    • keyboard navigation through forms: tab key now circularly navigates through content controls/fieldmarks. The modern content controls have a tabIndex field, which allows for precise ordering of keyboard navigation. The tabIndex also allows a control to be skipped - which is useful to avoid getting stuck in rich text controls (since the tab key needs to insert a tab character in that case). Form developers can specify the tabIndex via the content control properties UI. tdf#151548 (Justin Luth, Collabora)
      LibreOffice content control properties dialog

    • Tracked tables (László Németh, NISZ)
      • Track table columns (follow-up to tracked table rows) commits
        Tracked table column deletion and insertion
        Tracked table columns in Manage Changes

      • Show tables with change tracking colors within a single text change tdf#155187
        Moved tables (also tables deleted/inserted as part of a bigger text) are highlighted now.

      • Fix lost change tracking of tables within a single text change at table editing tdf#147180 and DOCX export tdf#150824 tdf#155187
    • The position of the cursor within the page is now exposed via accessibility APIs, so screen readers like NVDA can announce it. tdf#136760 Related NVDA change (Michael Weghorn)

    Spell checking

    • Phrase checking: multi-word dictionary items of Hunspell and custom dictionaries are accepted tdf#154499 (László Németh, FSF.hu)
    • New options for proofreading: optional disabling of recognition of possible hyphenated and closed compound words, i.e. rule-based compounding, which allowed to accept also typos in Danish, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish etc., and in the case of hyphenated compound words, English and all the other languages tdf#136306 (László Németh, FSF.hu)
      Accept possible closed/hyphenated compound words


    Calc

    • Fixed conditional border color export to xlsx tdf#152581 (Attila Szűcs, Collabora)
    • Evaluate formula inputs in Validity… tdf#150098 (Balázs Varga, allotropia)
      Formula input in cells are now evaluated before cell value’s validity is checked

    • Number format:
      • ? are now supported on export to ODF to represent an integer digit, replaced by blank if it is a non significant zero tdf#118324 (Laurent Balland)
      • decimals for format in seconds without truncate like [SS].00 are now accepted tdf#150028 (Laurent Balland)
    • Delete Sheet tdf#153709 (Laurent Balland):
      • if Sheet is empty, no confirmation message is displayed
      • confirmation message is adapted to the number of selected sheets
    • Sheet copied to another document now retains a user-defined print range tdf#66613 (Andreas Heinisch)
    • Save solver settings to file tdf#38948 (Rafael Lima)
    • Added support for drawing styles for shapes and comments. This includes a dedicated style for comments that makes it possible to customize the default look and text formatting of new comments. The old workaround involving editing the default cell style was removed. tdf#89369, commits (Maxim Monastirsky)


    • New comment indicator scales with zoom, making it more visible at higher zoom factors. tdf#91415 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)
      Screenshot comparing the Calc comment indicator at 400% zoom level in LibreOffice 7.5 (fixed size red square, left, small and hidden by the active cell cursor) and LibreOffice 7.6 (scaled magenta triangle, right).

    • The color for the text overflow and comment indicators can now be changed via Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Application Colors (labelled "Text Overflow" and "Comment" respectively), which is also where the text overflow indicator can be turned off (moved from Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice Calc ▸ View). tdf#154080 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)
    • Pop-up comments now show authorship metadata. (Not visible when all comments are shown, to preserve layout.) tdf#73537 (Balázs Varga, allotropia)


    • Export all page styles in Calc even if they are not in use tdf#154445 (Andreas Heinisch)
    • Automatic hyperlinks now stand out more in Calc tdf#153880 (Balázs Varga, allotropia)
      Above: Hyperlink in C2 is now more visible

    • Added pivot table compact layout. 2f8d1 (Dennis Francis, Collabora)
    • Add Poisson distribution to Random Number Generators (Sheet ▸ Fill Cells ▸ Fill Random Number...) tdf#154872 (Bartosz Kosiorek)
    • Sorting by color is now possible in AutoFilter tdf#95520 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
      Sort by color in AutoFilter: original unordered data on the left, ordered by color on the right.

    • Filter/sort by color considers colors set by number format tdf#144549 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Import Text dialog (as CSV file or as Unformatted Text) have a new option to not detect number in scientific notation. This option is only available if "Detect special numbers" is off tdf#154131 (Laurent Balland)
      New option to detect numbers in scientific notation

    • add “formula marker” feature like in Quattro Pro tdf#97551 (feature requested by Brolin Empey in 2016, feature added by Grigory A. Mozhaev in 2023)
    • Fix theme background color lost during XLSX export tdf#91332 (Tünde Tóth, NISZ)
    • If you have enabled the 'Protect Size' option for a shape or form control and you see a different size after reopening the document, please do the following:
      If it is a form control, put the form in 'Design Mode'. This is an icon on the 'Form Controls' toolbar. Then right-click on the shape or form control and open the 'Anchor' item in the context menu. If the anchor is set to 'To cell (resize with cell)', you are affected by the following problem.
      The settings 'Protect size' and anchor 'To cell (resize with cell)' contradict each other. Unfortunately, versions prior to 7.6 had this contradiction written to the file in different ways, so an automatic repair is not possible. Version 7.6 automatically writes the 'To Cell' anchor to the file if the shape or form control is size protected.
      To repair your file, set the anchor type to 'To cell'. Then uncheck the 'Protect Size' option and set the shape to the desired size and position. Now you can re-enable the 'Protect size' option. Then save the file. The shape or form control now has an unchanged size on reopening, not only in version 7.6, but also in older versions.
      Possibly the problem was created because the 'Control Properties' dialog contains an 'Anchor' dropdown field with the entry 'To cell', but this is actually the anchor type 'To cell (resize with cell)'.
      Please excuse that we did not detect the problem earlier.

    Impress & Draw

    • Display soft breaks as line breaks at fontwork. tdf#148000 (Attila Szűcs, Collabora)
    • "Show Layer" is now directly available from the right-click menu instead of having to set as "Visible" in Modify Layer... ▸ Properties. tdf#113439 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)
    • Navigation panel for switching slides while viewing a presentation. This option is enabled via checkbox: Slide Show ▸ Slide Show Settings ▸ Show navigation panel. tdf#154839 (Amin Irgaliev, Vladislav Tarakanov)
      The Navigation Panel, displayed over the bottom-left corner of the slide, has three buttons: previous slide, menu, next slide.

    • Objects can now be listed in "front to back" order in the Navigator, showing the top-most object at the top of the list: View ▸ Navigator ▸ Show Shapes ▸ Front to back. tdf#154604 (Jim Raykowski)
    • PDFium import now supports free text annotations, and export now supports ink, free text and polygon/polyline annotations (Jaume Pujantell, Collabora)
    • Added support to open multi image tiff files tdf#155444 (Rashesh Padia, Collabora)
    • Auto fitting text scaling algorithm has been changed so it works similar to MS Office. Text scaling now separates scaling for the spacing scale (paragraph and line spacings) and font scale, where spacing scale can only be 100%, 90% and 80% and font scaling is rounded to the nearest point size. Spacing in the horizontal direction (for example bullet size, various indents) is not scaled anymore. (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)
    • Fix missing diacritics in slideshow animations that work letter-by-letter. tdf#113290 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix squashed display of emojis and glyphs taken from fallback fonts in slideshow on Windows. tdf#147999 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix missing CJK emphasis marks in slideshow on Linux. tdf#43671 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix gaps between justified Arabic letters in slideshow. tdf#155810 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix connectors when importing them as connectors instead of shapes. tdf#149756 tdf#154363 (Tibor Nagy, NISZ)

    Base

    • Bug fixed tdf#43369 PostgreSQL: Specific UI for collecting PostgreSQL connection settings (Nirnay Korde)
    • Added Firebird's DATEDIFF function to the set of functions that can be used in the query designer (without the need to run SQL directly). tdf#104918 (Juan C. Sanz)
    • Added Firebird's DATEADD function to the set of functions that can be used in the query designer (without the need to run SQL directly). tdf#156534 (Juan C. Sanz)
    • Added MariaDB/MySQL functions TIMESTAMPDIFF and TIMESTAMPADD to the set of functions that can be used in the query designer (without the need to run SQL directly) (Juan C. Sanz)


    LibreOffice Help

    LibreOffice Help now 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:


    Core / General

    • Added support for zoom gestures when using touchpads in the main view. (Povilas Kanapickas)
    • Exporting to PDF updates the last printed time in document properties. tdf#134901 (Justin Luth)
    • Added support for document themes (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)
      Document Themes

      • Import and export of theme definition for OOXML format
      • Import and export of theme definition for ODF
      • Changing of the theme in Writer and extended various colors to support theme color definition
      • Added theme colors in the color picker in Writer and Calc
      • Added new Theme dialog to change the currently used theme
        Document Themes Dialog and Sidebar

        • Also added the possibility to define new theme colors for a theme
        • Sidebar theme deck has been adapted to also work
    • Added support for multicolor gradients (Armin Le Grand, allotropia)
    LibreOffice 7.6 has a new feature called "multicolor gradients" (MCGR) implemented by Armin Le Grand. A multicolor gradient still goes from a starting color to final color, but now additional colors are possible in between.
    Although the 'Gradient' tab in the 'Area' dialog has not yet been adapted to the new feature, you can use such gradients. The document File:InfoPresentation MultiColor Gradients LO76.odp lists hints on what you can already do, and the 'Gradient' list in the dialog contains three multicolor gradient examples.
    Presets of Multi-Color Gradients

    You can create and modify multicolor gradients using macros, see the 'Gradient2' struct and the associated 'ColorStop' struct in the SDK API reference https://api.libreoffice.org/docs/idl/ref/index.html. Find more details and some primitive example macros in the file File:MacrosForMCGR.odp.
    Since this is a new feature, you might find errors. In this case, please help improve the feature by reporting the issue in our bug tracking system "Bugzilla" https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Bugzilla. When doing so, mention 'MCGR' in the subject line.
    Some notes:
    LibreOffice versions prior to 7.6 cannot interpret multicolor gradients. They will display a gradient made from the first and last color.
    You need to use "1.3 Extended (recommended)" file format. This is the default setting, so don't worry.
    Some gradient properties in ODF (LibreOffice) and OOXML (Microsoft Office) are basically incompatible. This problem is not solved by multicolor gradients.
    • Each view of a document now can have its language specific accelerator manager (Gökay Şatır, Collabora).
    • Entering a group once again dims the objects that are not included in it. tdf#122735 (Armin Le Grand, allotropia).
    Variety of objects in a Draw document. One group of two shapes is entered, the surrounding objects are dimmed.


    • Fix text layout issues when using qt5/qt6 VCL plugins (as opposed to kf5/kf6 plugins). tdf#151925 tdf#151273 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix overlapping text issue with some Graphite fonts. tdf#137553 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix interaction between complex text fonts and Unicode superscript numbers. tdf#52577 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix font fallback of Unicode character from higher planes inside right-to-left text . tdf#153440 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix issue with misspelling red line covering parts of right-to-left text. tdf#151968 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Compress full width CJK punctuation when punctuation compression is enabled. tdf#129810 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix rendering of Tangut and Khitan Small Script in vertical text. tdf#114432 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Available since 7.6.1
      Fix broken contextual text rendering between Narrow No-Break Space and Mongolian letter. tdf#107612, tdf#112594 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix broken text rendering when mixing higher Unicode planes with other complex text. tdf#139863 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Don’t insert extra space between Indic and non-Indic text. tdf#89288 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Don’t require installing Hunspell spelling dictionary for every Arabic locale, installing only “ar” dictionary will work for all Arabic locales. tdf#64830 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix vertical displacement of vertical text on macOS. tdf#149297 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Don’t use Private Use Area characters for bulleted lists, use the proper Unicode code points. tdf#133089 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Categorized link targets when linking to a presentation. (Szymon Kłos, Collabora)
      Link targets dialog with categories.


    Filters

    General OOXML filters

    • Added support for OOXML files created in zip64 format tdf#82984, tdf#94915 (Attila Szűcs, Collabora)
    • Lots of fixes for frames defined by DOC/X's framePr. Issues fixed include lost frames, combined frames that should be separate, split frames that should be combined, overlapping frames, ignored parent styles, lost relative positioning, wrong absolute positioning, and lost rotation. tdf#154129, tdf#154703 (Justin Luth, Collabora)

    PDF

    • Export to PDF v.1.7 by default. e624e (Michael Stahl, allotropia)
    • Tagged PDF is now produced by default, for improved accessibility. (To further improve your PDF's accessibility, the PDF/UA option is available in the export dialog and will trigger the Accessibility Check tool). tdf#39667 (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)
    • Exporting as a hybrid PDF now stores the original ODF document as a PDF compatible file attachment. e052f (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)
    • Fix glyph size mismatch and overlap when printing of variable fonts. tdf#156151 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix missing or incorrect overline color when exporting to PDF. tdf#48707 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix position of CJK emphasis marks when exporting to PDF. tdf#115321 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix blank text for the default instance of CFF2 variable fonts when exporting to PDF. tdf#155161 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)
    • Fix underline position of Liberation fonts when exporting to PDF. tdf#154235 (Khaled Hosny, TDF)


    EMF/EMF+

    • Implement EMR_POLYDRAW record. tdf#142249 (Bartosz Kosiorek)
    • Add missing EmfPlusDrawCurve implementation. tdf#143877 (Bartosz Kosiorek)
    • Performance boost for EMF+ images containing EmfPlusRecordTypeDrawBeziers records. tdf#154789 (Bartosz Kosiorek)

    SVG


    GUI

    • The recent documents picklist under File ▸ Recent Documents now shows the 5 most recent module-specific items first. The list can be configured using the ShowCurrentModuleOnly expert option to show only files that can be handled by the current module. tdf#56696 (Andreas Heinisch)
    Default Recent documents list
    Recent documents list with ShowCurrentModuleOnly
    • Documents in the Start Center can now be pinned to show them at the beginning of the recently opened document list. To pin a document, hover the corresponding document and click on the pin icon in the top left corner. The selected document will then be shown in a separate line at the beginning of the list, along with already pinned documents. tdf#38742 (Andreas Heinisch)
    Pinned documents in the Start Center
    • Keyboard navigation for the Special Characters dialog (Insert ▸ Special Character...) has been improved and the currently selected character is now correctly announced by screen readers. tdf#153806 tdf#153918 (Michael Weghorn)
    • The title of styles in the Fontwork dialog (Insert ▸ Fontwork...) is now announced by screen readers. tdf#153657 (Michael Weghorn)
    • Insert ▸ Frame ▸ Floating Frame... (in Writer) and Insert ▸ Floating Frame... (elsewhere) was removed from the main menu and toolbars. However, the corresponding command InsertObjectFloatingFrame is still available in Tools ▸ Customize.... tdf#155006 (Caolán McNamara, Red Hat)
    • Sets of "Automatic" application colors can now be chosen independently from the Application Color scheme in Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Application Colors. Pick between "Dark" or "Light" automatic colors, or alternatively follow the system's theme with "System". tdf#152184 (Heiko Tietze, TDF)

    Localization

    • Improved predefined outline styles for en_US (and most locales reference this, so will automatically benefit). MLA/Chicago-compliant choice now available, and Roman numeral levels are now right-aligned. Also fixed indents in the "Numbering IVX" style, and made the "Numbering ivx" style usable. The outline numbering button was also added to the toolbar. tdf#56258 (Justin Luth, Collabora)
      Outline Numbering pop-up from toolbar

    Improvements to proofing tools and language support

    Dictionaries

    • Danish dictionary was updated. (Stavekontrolden)

    New languages/locales with locale data

    Available as default document language and for locale specific formatting.

    • Morisyen {mfe-MU} [0x06B2]. tdf#154832 (Jean-Yves; Eike Rathke, Red Hat)
    • Santali {sat-IN} [0x0646]. tdf#154987 (Prasanta Hembram; Eike Rathke, Red Hat)

    Additional languages in the language list

    Available for text attribution.

    • Saraiki {skr-PK} [0x06B0], CTL, RTL. (Eike Rathke, Red Hat)
    • Rohingya Hanifi {rhg-Rohg-MM} [0x06B1] CTL, RTL. tdf#154031 (Eike Rathke, Red Hat)


    Scripting

    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 31 services each with a bunch of methods and properties.

    New in LibreOffice 7.6:

    • The (new) FormDocument service (a form document is also known as a "Base form", but this is confusing): open (even without first opening the Base document container), close, print, export to PDF, menubar management, access to individual controls.
    • The (new) Toolbar and ToolbarButton services: hide/show built-in or custom toolbars, hide/show individual toolbar buttons, get or set the script or command to execute when clicked.
    • In the Calc service: ranges may be sorted on any number of keys. Also a new RemoveDuplicates method, to clear or to compact ranges, keeping only one copy of identical records.
    • A new Echo method in the Document service to freeze screen updates during scripts or to change the actual mouse pointer.
    • Many improvements on the Dialog and DialogControl services:
      • Support of the Hyperlink control type
      • Dialog controls may be resized. The height and width are expressed in Map AppFont units, like in the Basic IDE.
      • All the On properties (to specify the script to be executed when an event occurs) are now editable.
      • Dialog controls may be created dynamically.
      • Dialog controls may be cloned with the new CloneControl method.
      • A dialog can be created from scratch.
      • Tabulations between controls are defined at once by the new OrderTabs method.

    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 (7.6) is fully integrated in the LibreOffice help pages (https://help.libreoffice.org/7.6/en-US/text/sbasic/shared/03/lib_ScriptForge.html?DbPAR=BASIC). Their translation into other languages is underway. (Alain Romedenne, Rafael Lima)

    Java

    • The property userClassPath in the javasettings_$OS_$ARCH.xml file now supports (non nested) bootstrap variables (allowing to enter relative paths). 7795a (Samuel Mehrbrodt, allotropia)

    VBA Support

    • Added support for ExportAsFixedFormat VBA function to Export As PDF. tdf#149786 (Balázs Varga, allotropia)

    Feature Removal / Deprecation

    • Option for making PDF the default print job format have been removed and PDF is always used. Support for PostScript as a print job format is deprecated and will be removed in a later release. 2a405 and c3a4f
    • Shortcut visibility setting (for context menus) has been removed from Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ View and defaults to the desktop environment's. The expert configuration setting ShortcutsInContextMenus is still available if needed (0 to hide, 1 to show, 2 for default). tdf#152898 (Caolán McNamara, Collabora)

    LOK API

    • Add memory trimming functionality for idle documents (Michael Meeks, Collabora)
    • Avoiding running graphics tests on startup in LOK mode (Michael Meeks, Collabora)
    • Avoid un-necessary slow whole-writer-document off-screen render in some cases (Michael Meeks, Collabora)
    • Swap out compressed graphics in LOK mode as well as de-compressed versions (Michael Meeks, Collabora)
    • Performance improvements for headless cairo rendering, avoiding PDF code-paths (Michael Meeks, Collabora)

    Platform Compatibility

    Mac

    • LibreOffice 7.6 requires macOS 10.15 or newer to run.

    API Changes

    • New Writer UNO command .uno:HighlightCharDF to highlight direct formatting where it is used in the document. (Jim Raykowski) tdf#106556
    • css.qa.XDumper::dump got a kind parameter. 56e17
    • remove .uno:CharBackgroundExt's secondary use to set background color. Instead use .uno:CharBackColor for 7.6+. tdf#85592
    • deprecate .uno:BackColor to set background color in Writer. Instead use the universal .uno:CharBackColor for 7.6+. tdf#85592
    • The C functions rtl_string_newFromStr and rtl_uString_newFromStr, and the C++ constructors for rtl::OString(char const *) and rtl::OUString(sal_Unicode const *) wrapping those functions, no longer support the undocumented behavior of accepting a null pointer string argument and treating it as an empty string. (Such calls had already been diagnosed with std::abort in debug builds since LibreOffice 7.2.) 6028e
    • The Gradient2 struct and the ColorStop struct were added to support multicolor gradients. Search for MCGR to get the related commits. For more about multicolor gradients look at section Core/General.