Software Update: LibreOffice 5.0.0 RC 2

The development of version 5.0 of LibreOffice is progressing steadily and the second release candidate has now been released. This open source office package originated as an offshoot of OpenOffice and comes with the word processor Writer, spreadsheet program Calc, presentation program Impress, drawing program Draw, database program Base and Formula, an application for making scientific notations.

New in version 5.0 includes getting a 64bit version for Windows and the taskbars new buttons coming from KDE. Detailed information about the changes in version 5.0.0, which if all goes well will be available at the end of July, can be found on this page are being found. In the release candidates only bugs fixed. Here are the main improvements made to Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw:

writer

Word-compatible text highlighting

• Both highlighting and shading are preserved during import / export of Microsoft Word documents. tdf#64490
• New compatibility option to specify how to export LibreOffice character background to Microsoft Office file formats: as highlighting or as shading. tdf#64490
• To use this option, go to Tools > Option > Load/Save > Microsoft Office.
• For more information see this blog post

Crop an image
It is now possible to crop an image with the mouse. Action is accessible through contextual menu entry : Crop image, Format > Image > Crop menu entry and Graphic toolbar. tdf#34555 Standard behavior apply:

• dragging from a center edge crops only vertically or horizontally,
• dragging from a corner crops where the mouse cursor is,
• dragging with Shift pressed forces a crop rectangle proportional to original image size.
• crop is preserved during image resizing,
• crop mode stops when you press Esc or you click anywhere outside the cropped image.

Better calculation of displayed page number
Another issue inherited from OpenOffice.org—which caused Writer’s status bar to display the incorrect page number when scrolling—has been fixed in LibreOffice. Writer will now update the page indicator when less than the 43% of a page is visible on-screen. tdf#90150 i#80672

Table Management

• Inserting rows or columns is affected by a user’s pre-selection, similar to Calc. tdf#90883
• Ability to add rows and columns before the current cursor position through the context menu. tdf#90882

Toolbar improvements Additional improvements have gone into the “Standard”, “Formatting”, “Drawing” and contextual toolbars to provide users with frequently used commands. tdf#81475

calc

• Item labels in Pivot Tables can be repeated now. tdf#87972, Screenshot
• The functions CEILING.MATH and ERROR.TYPE have been added.

Conditional formatting

• UI for Data bars with a solid background. (feature without UI has been available since 3.6) tdf#87356
• UI for Data bars without showing their underlying values. (feature without UI has been available since 3.6) tdf#89199
• Minimum and maximum bar lengths for data bars tdf#90197
• Export of formatting for conditional formatting to XLSX fixed.
• Import of Data bars and Color Scales color values ​​handles theme colors. tdf#90511
• Import and export of custom icon set definitions (including MSO extensions to OOXML) (no UI)
• Additional icon sets: 3 triangles, 3 stars, 5 boxes

Scientific Format and Number Format

• Engineering notation: tdf#30716
  • enable exponent multiple of 3 (or other value) with format ##0.00E+00: set the number of digits (# or 0) before decimal separator.
  • add format ##0.00E+00 to scientific format list in UI dialog
    Format > Cells > Numbers > Scientific for all localizations.
  • replace Thousands separator checkbox with Engineering notation for scientific formats. tdf#90258
• General format using scientific, and default scientific format, keep 2 minimum digits (instead of 3) in exponent for all localizations. tdf#88835
• Trend line equation with 1 minimum digit in exponent (instead of 3). tdf#88835
• Add/remove decimal digits or scientific format:
  • with buttons Add Decimal Place/Delete Decimal Place tdf#88960;
  • with Sidebar: Properties > Number Format > Decimal places tdf#88999;
  • with UI dialog Format > Cells > Numbers > Decimal places. tdf#88999
• Allow variable decimal with format 0.0##E+00 for scientific numbers and 0.0## for numbers (decimal part can contain some 0 and then some #). This format is now correctly saved in ODF files. tdf#90133
• Sign of exponent can be skipped for positive exponent with format 0.00E00 (remove sign after E). This format is now correctly saved in ODF files. tdf#90133

Table structured references

• Table structured references in spreadsheet formula expressions are imported from Excel OOXML spreadsheet documents.
• Usable with defined database ranges, which OOXML tables are imported to.
• Note that the structured references are not written to saved documents yet, but transformed to A1 style reference notation instead. The table context is lost on export.

Crop, change and save an image

• It is now possible from Format > Image menu, from contextual menu and from graphic toolbar, to Crop an Image with the mouse, to Save an image and to Change it by another image from disk.
• These functionalities behave like in Impress or Writer.
• Format menu has been updated accordingly: there is now
  • Format > Object entry with Position and Size, Line, Area, Define Text Attributes and Points,
  • Format > Image entry with Crop, Edit with External Tool, Change Image, Compress Image, Save Image.

Impress and Draw

• Rearrangement of toolbars in Impress tdf#87676
• Rearrangement of toolbars in Draw tdf#90090
• Area fill dropdown is now implemented in the color selector in Impress and Draw. Blog entry