ReleaseNotes/6.4

Writer

 * Added option to mark comments as resolved in Writer (Scott Clarke, Codethink)


 * ResolvedComment.png || CommentMenuResolved.png || ViewMenuOn.png || ViewMenuOff.png
 * }
 * }


 * Fix missing change tracking layout of numbers and bullets of lists (László Németh, NISZ)


 * The btLr text direction is now available in Writer Text Frames as well blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)


 * It is now possible to comment on Writer images and charts blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)


 * It is now possible to automatically avoid overlapping shapes with a new wrap option blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)
 * Add proposal for anchored object overlapping to OASIS ODF draft
 * Make it possible to set anchored object to overlap


 * Improved performance when importing files with many bookmarks (Michael Stahl, CIB)


 * Selection of drawing objects anchored at-paragraph works more consistently and user-friendly now (Michael Stahl, CIB)

Tables
Important improvements in table handling (László Németh, NISZ):


 * Fast table moving & deletion: Cut command cuts the selected table instead of removing its text content
 * Fast table row/column moving & deletion
 * Cut command cuts the selected table rows or columns, if they are selected by enhanced table selection (clicking in front of them)
 * After that, paste command inserts the removed table part before the actual row/column
 * New Paste Special menu options for pasting table data into tables (in table popup menu and Writer’s Edit menu)
 * Paste Special menu option "Paste as Nested Table"
 * Paste Special menu options "Paste as Rows Above" and "Paste as Columns Before"


 * Improved drag & drop mouse operations to move table data
 * move the selected table instead of duplicate it
 * move rows and columns (selected by enhanced table selection) and wholly selected tables by inserting new table rows above or columns before instead of overwriting cells of the target table. In the case of moving (not copying, i.e. without using the key Ctrl during drag & drop), the selected rows and columns are removed completely, instead of emptying their cells.

Calc

 * Improved selecting cells which contain hyperlinks (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)


 * On  or   or   or   pre-formatted cells a two digit groups input like 12:34 is now accepted as minutes:seconds value instead of the usual hours:minutes:00 value; to force the usual hours:minutes:seconds input on such cells enter three digit groups like 12:34:00.  (Eike Rathke (Red Hat, Inc.))


 * Improved scalability of formula-groups computation on CPUs with large number of cores by potentially threading multiple independent formula-groups together. (Dennis Francis, Collabora)


 * Implemented a parallelized version of super scalar sample sort algorithm (read the paper here) to speed up sorting. This is now used in pivot-table creation where some sorting is required. (Dennis Francis, Collabora)


 * Shading of columns/rows headers is removed; the headers are drawn flat now. (Heiko Tietze)


 * Deleted a 15 symbols limit to password length for XLSX files (Eike Rathke, Red Hat)

Performance improvements

 * speed up opening of XLSX file with lots of comments (Noel Grandin, Collabora)
 * speed up loading Calc documents with lots of COUNTIF (Noel Grandin, Collabora)
 * speed up saving XLS with lots of styles (Noel Grandin, Collabora)
 * speed up loading of change-tracking ODS files (Noel Grandin, Collabora)
 * speed up copy operation with lots of comments in Calc (Noel Grandin, Collabora)

Whole sheet export
Thanks to the new Whole Sheet Export setting of the PDF export options, it is now possible to export your files in Calc to PDF with all pages on a sheet as one page in the PDF. This allows the users to see the full content of a spreadsheet document in a pdf form, without the usual slicing of the sheets into printable pages. official blog post blog post with dev notes    (Muhammet Kara, Collabora)

How to use it?

 * Open your spreadsheet document in LibreOffice Calc
 * From the menu, select
 * On the General tab of the PDF Options dialog, check the option named Full-Sheet Previews (since version 6.4.1 renamed to Whole sheet export)
 * Click the Export button, and choose a location for your preview pdf
 * Enjoy your pdf file of full sheet previews



Available in the Online API
The new full-sheet preview feature has also been added to the Online REST API. The command below can be used to get a full-sheet preview output of a spreadsheet document in the PDF format:

Please note that using the  option is only needed while testing the feature on a local setup, and we recommended against using it for non-testing cases.

XML Source

 * XML structure containing nested repeat elements can now be imported. (Kohei Yoshida)
 * It is no longer an experimental feature, and is enabled by default without having to enable experimental features. (Kohei Yoshida)
 * Improved stability and fixed some rare-occurring crashes. (Stephan Bergmann, Kohei Yoshida)

Impress & Draw

 * Added 'Remove Hyperlink' to context menu in Impress (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Added 'Consolidate Text' which combines multiple selected textboxes into one (primarily to simplify editing fragmented content from imported PDFs). (Justin Luth, SIL)


 * Interaction now only executed in presentation mode (when clicking on an object). For edit mode, a context menu "Execute interaction" was added. (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Image Maps now respect the setting to require to follow the hyperlink (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Hyperlink in Image Maps now work in Slideshow too (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)

Performance improvements

 * Speed up opening of some PPT files (Noel Grandin, Collabora)
 * Speed up: Long operation during typing in list with animations (Serge Krot, CIB)

Base
Access2Base callable from Python: The Access2Base API for Base users can from the 6.4 release on be invoked either from Basic (as usual) or from Python. In the latter case, the Python process may be running from inside or outside (via sockets) the LibreOffice process. Basic and Python may be mixed in the same application.

Example: run from a Python console (or from a Python script) from access2base import * db = Application.OpenDatabase('C:\...\... .odb') rs = db.OpenRecordset('SELECT * FROM [EXPENSES]') data = rs.GetRows(1000)  # data contains a tuple of (max 1000) Expenses records More to read on the documentation page (Jean-Pierre Ledure).

Firebird embedded database creation put back experimental considering the number of bugs.

BASIC

 * Macros: When converting Hex strings of negative value, treat the high-order bit always as sign bit, e.g., &H8000 = -2^15, &HFFFF = -1, and &H7FFFFFFF = 2^31-1. Behaviour is identical in either modes, i.e., LibO Basic, with Option Compatible, and Option VBA Support 0/1. (Andreas Heinisch)


 * Implement Save As Word 2000 and Save As for Word.VBA-document  (Tor Lillqvist, Collabora)


 * Fix handling for function that does not has closing parenthesis. (Pierre Lepage; Mike Kaganski, Collabora)

Core / General

 * Internal Paths are now displayed in the UI (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Add checkbox to enable/disable sending crash reports to TDF (Gabor Kelemen)
 * Hyperlink context menus were unified. Every hyperlink now has the following context menu entries: (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Open Hyperlink
 * Edit Hyperlink
 * Copy Hyperlink location
 * Remove Hyperlink


 * Generate QR Code feature is added in LO (Shubham Goyal, GSoC; mentors: Thorsten Behrens, Samuel Mehrbrodt)
 * To generate a QR code in LO apps (Impress, Draw, Writer or Calc), go to
 * The QR code generator takes 3 inputs:
 * URL/Text: For which QR code is to be made.
 * Correction: Select the complexity of QR code. More complex QR can recover better if destroyed. "Low" is preferable for long URLs.
 * Border: A border around the generated QR code.


 * Extend redaction feature with Autoredaction blog post (Muhammet Kara, Collabora)


 * Speed up compiling, (Luboš Luňák, Collabora)

LibreOffice Help

 * Help pages for Calc's FOURIER function and Fourier analysis. commit (Olivier Hallot)
 * Help (online version) has now a local search engine xapian-omega with faster and more precise search results. (Olivier Hallot)


 * Many Help pages have now localized screenshots for a better user experience. For example, here, here and here. (Olivier Hallot)

Improvements of Excel 2003 XML import filter:
NOTE: The core functionality of importing Excel 2003 XML files is provided by the orcus library.


 * Fixed issues with importing files encoded with UTF-16. (Kohei Yoshida)
 * Fixed issues with importing files containing named color values.  (Kohei Yoshida)
 * Fixed several XML parsing issues that affected importing of certain files. (Kohei Yoshida)

Improvements of DOC and DOCX import/export filter:

 * Fix character formatting in combination of table and paragraph styles in docx import (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)


 * Subscript/Superscript (escapement): many improvements preventing position creep on every save, allowing escapement in character styles, more accurate placement of "automatic" escapement, and support for greater than 100% escapement.  (NISZ and SIL)


 * The DOCX VML import now supports tbRl text direction for Writer Text Frames (used for e.g. Japanese text) blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)


 * Word-style continuous endnotes (not on separate page) are now supported and used for DOC files blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)


 * Improved import/export of DOCX abstract numbering (Michael Stahl, CIB)


 * Improved import/export of DOCX list label formatting (Michael Stahl, CIB)


 * Improved handling of Word text fields, including working Undo/Redo and a configuration option  to round-trip even nested fields in RTF and DOCX (Michael Stahl, CIB)


 * Improved import of DOCX continuous section breaks with different headers (Michael Stahl, CIB)


 * Export of indexes to RTF is now possible (Michael Stahl, CIB)

Improvements of PPT and PPTX import/export filter:

 * SmartArt improving import and export,  (Grzegorz Araminowicz, Collabora)


 * Make gradient as slide background in Powerpoint PPTX roundtrip correctly (Tamás Zolnai, Collabora)


 * Math objects from PPTX are now handled better, ignoring their replacement image blog post (Miklos Vajna, Collabora)

Document Signatures

 * Keep ODF macro signatures when modifying a document or creating a document from a signed template without changing macro code (, Jan-Marek Glogowski, CIB)

General Improvements

 * Document thumbnails at the start center have now an icon overlaid to indicate the module (Heiko Tietze, TDF)

Sidebar

 * Added Table panel to Writer's Sidebar, (Tamás Zolnai, Collabora)
 * Table panel now has more tools (Roman Kuznetsov)
 * The Navigator now grays out the content categories that are not applicable to the currently opened document, reducing visual busyness. (Jim Raykowski)

Icon Theme

 * Breeze & Sifr icon themes got SVG variant of dark version. (Luca Carlon & Rizal Muttaqin)
 * Sifr icon theme got extra large 32px*32px support. (Rizal Muttaqin)

Online and Mobile

 * Make Impress side-bar available on iOS (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)


 * Use the iOS Spelling function on Mac (Tor Lillqvist, Collabora)


 * Table properties in Writer - one of the many new features in LibreOffice online 6.4.0. multiple commits, e.g.. (Szymon Kłos, Ashod Nakashian, Pedro Pinto Silva, .. Collabora)


 * Add Table Resize Handles for iOS/Mobile (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)


 * In Writer online you have now full control over the Table of Contents multiple commits, e.g.. (Andras Timar, .. Collabora)


 * In addition to conditional formatting on the toolbar, there is now an (improved) Conditional Formatting dialog for iOS/Online (Mert Tümer, Collabora)


 * Make it possible to move graphic elements to front or backwards on iOS/Mobile (Tomaž Vajngerl, Collabora)


 * The sidebar now provides a wide range of features for selected charts. multiple commits, e.g.. (Ashod Nakashian, Henry Castro, Pranav Kant, .. Collabora)


 * Color picker for text and background in presentations, lines in spreadsheets and presentations, text and background for floating frames in text documents. multiple commits, e.g.. (Szymon Kłos, Pranav Kant, Marco Cecchetti, .. Collabora)


 * You can now use the full Function wizard in Calc online. multiple commits, e.g.. (Pedro Pinto Silva, Michael Meeks, Muhammet Kara, .. Collabora)


 * In Calc online you can now choose your favourite zoom percentage between 33% and 200%. commit (Michael Meeks, Collabora)


 * More improvements ... (Michael Meeks, Tor Lillqvist, Tomaž Vajngerl, Dennis Francis, Andras Timar, Muhammet Kara, Miklos Vajna, Ashod,  Jan Holesovsky, Ashod Nakashian, Mike Kaganski, Collabora)

Menu
An option to hide the ruler has been added (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)

Status bar
A dropdown has been added to the statusbar to allow quick document language switching (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)

Customization
The following PostMessage method has been added to allow UI customization: (Samuel Mehrbodt, CIB)
 * to remove an element from the statusbar

Localization

 * Slovenian thesaurus updated (now contains more than 20.000 words) & icon and description added to sl dictionary extension. commit, commit (Martin Srebotnjak)
 * AutoText in Writer: Complete all translated user interfaces with Formula Numbering and Lorem Ipsum dummy text   (Laurent BP)

Python
The bundled CPython has been upgraded to release 3.7.6 (Michael Stahl, CIB)

Java
Support for Java 6 and 7 has been removed. Java 8 is now the oldest supported version.

GTK+2 VCL plugin
The GTK+2 VCL backend has been removed.

Windows

 * Allow setting a process memory limit for soffice.bin. (Jan-Marek Glogowski, CIB)
 * This can be activated by editing the  file. For more information read the comments at https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/#/c/78819/

[Win32] LimitMaximumMemoryInMB=0 ExcludeChildProcessesFromLimit=true


 * Don't rely on Windows own recent-folder handling in the native file picker (, Jan-Marek Glogowski, CIB)
 * LibreOffice already saves and restores its recent folder, and Windows handling interferes with file pickers used from scripting languages.

Kf5 + Qt5 (KDE 5 libraries)
Kf5/Qt5 VCL plugin continues to close the functionality gap w.r.t. other VCL backends. Independent from fixed bugs, the most user visible improvements and changes are:


 * Renaming the VCL plugin from kde5 to kf5
 * Fixed touchpad scrolling
 * Fixed primary selection and other clipboard related problems by implementing a lazy clipboard
 * Better support for modifier handling during drag-and-drop operations
 * Correct grouping of LibreOffice module windows and dialogs in task bars
 * Qt theming of tabbed widgets

(Jan-Marek Glogowski (CIB), Michael Weghorn (LHM), Katarina Behrens (CIB))

The full list of bugs fixed in 6.4 and its maintanance releases can be found here. Further bugs and missing features are tracked via the KDE meta bug.

General

 * and have been updated from conformance to obsolete RFC 2396 to conformance to RFC 3986.


 * The behavior of  upon erroneous input has been changed slightly, see  for details.


 * The following new properties have been added to MediaDescriptor. They allow locking down certain aspects per document (Samuel Mehrbrodt, Serge Krot - CIB):
 * : Forbids copying/dragging any text from the respective document to another document or application
 * : Prevents exporting document content to any file
 * : Disables all print functions
 * : Disables the save function
 * : Disables switching to edit mode from read-only mode

Infobar
Infobar now has a UNO API (XInfobarProvider). You can add, update and remove Infobars via the API. (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)
 * Example for Basic Macro in the commit message:

Writer

 * The behaviour of the XText::insertTextContent implementation in Writer with regard to what text formatting is applied to the inserted content has changed in order to restore the behaviour that was in effect before an accidental change in LO 6.1/6.0.4 (Michael Stahl, CIB)

Configuration changes

 * Improved the  setting. When setting that option to true, any macro execution is forbidden (even in Basic/Javascript/Beanshell Editor). Also the corresponding menu entries are disabled now. (Samuel Mehrbrodt, CIB)