ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, the free and open-source offline use office suite, released new 7.4 version a few days ago.

The new releases feature a “Plugin Manager“, allows to easily install external functions support, such as ChatGPT, YouTube, OCR, and more. User can of course submit its own plugin to the market place for other user use.

ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors 7.4 also added a “Draw” tab with a few drawing tools. So far, the tools include ‘Pen‘, ‘Highlighter‘, and ‘Eraser‘. The ‘Print’ page is improved with more options, such as page range, number of copies, and printing on both sides.

Other changes in the release include:

• Ability to copy style between graphic objects
• Support for Radar charts
• Support opening new formats: MHTML, SXC, ET, ETT, SXI, DPS, DPT, SXW, STW, WPS, WPT
• Ability to merge documents
• Export document, spreadsheet to PNG/JPG.
• New spreadsheet functions: SEQUENCE, XMATCH, EXPAND, FILTER, ARRAYTOTEXT, SORT

There are as well many other changes, improvements, and bug-fixes, see the Changelog page for details.

How to Install OnlyOffice Desktop Editor 7.4

For Ubuntu user, the office suite is available to install as official Snap package. Just open Ubuntu Software, then search for and install ‘onlyoffice-desktopeditors’.

NOTE: The snap is at v7.3.3 at the moment of writing. You can just install the package and wait it’s automatically been updated to v7.4.

ONLYOFFICE Snap in Ubuntu Software

For other packages, such as Flatpak, AppImage, and Windows EXE, macOS DMG, go to this download page.

OnlyOffice announced the new 7.3.0 release for its desktop editors office suite one day ago.

For Linux users, the new release now use native dialog windows (e.g., file manager and print). And, it adds support for xdg-desktop-portal in the file dialog window, meaning better desktop integration for application installed as Flatpak and/or Snap packages.

This release also add a Quick Print button right beside the original print button. Instead of bringing to the print configuration page, it will directly send your entire document to the last selected or default printer.

For the Spreadsheet Editor, there’s new Watch Window under Formula tab, as well as new functions include TEXTBEFORE, TEXTAFTER, TEXTSPLIT, VSTACK, HSTACK, TOROW, TOCOL, WRAPROWS, WRAPCOLS, TAKE, DROP, CHOOSEROWS, CHOOSECOLS.

Other changes in OnlyOffice 7.3.0 include:

• Advanced forms via Forms tab in DOCXF files -> Available fields and Manage Roles menu
• SmartArt (e.g., List, Process, Cycle, Hierarchy, Matrix) under Insert tab.
• Ability to password protect document while allowing filling forms, commenting, or tracking changes.
• Ability to add links between several spreadsheets
• New Date and time, Zip Code, Credit Card for creating forms.
• Support for creating math equations in both Unicode and LaTeX syntax.
• Show/hide left and right panel.
• Ability to insert data from the XML Spreadsheet 2003 file

How to Install OnlyOffice Desktop Editors 7.3:

The office suite is available to install in Ubuntu Linux in 3 different package formats: Snap, Deb, and Flatpak. Choose either one that you prefer.

1. Snap

Snap is an universal package format that runs in sandbox. Ubuntu 20.04 and higher users can simply search for and install OnlyOffice as Snap from Ubuntu Software.

The snap automatically receive updates, though the package at the moment of writing is still at version 7.2.1.

ONLYOFFICE Snap in Ubuntu Software

2. Deb

Deb is the native package format for Debian/Ubuntu and their based Linux systems. OnlyOffice provides the .deb package along with RPM, EXE, MSI, and DMG packages for downloading at the github releases page:

Just select download the “onlyoffice-desktopeditors_amd64.deb” package, then click in file manager to open with Software Install and install it.

3. Flatpak

Linux Mint user may prefer the Flatpak package a bit more, since it’s available to install directly from the Software Manager.

It’s another universal package format runs in sandbox. Ubuntu user can install ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors as Flatpak by following the steps below one by one:

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open a terminal window. When it opens, run command to install the Flatpak daemon:

sudo apt install flatpak

Then, install the office suite via:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.onlyoffice.desktopeditors.flatpakref

The Flatpak package is also in v7.2.1 at the moment, use the command flatpak update org.onlyoffice.desktopeditors to update the package once new version published.

Uninstall ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editor

Depends on which package you installed, choose to run either command below in a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) window to remove the office suite.

For the Snap package, remove it either via Ubuntu Software or by running the command below:

snap remove --purge onlyoffice-desktopeditors

For the native deb package, run command to remove it:

sudo apt remove onlyoffice-desktopeditors --autoremove

And to remove the package installed as Flatpak, run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.onlyoffice.desktopeditors

Also clear useless runtime libraries via flatpak uninstall --unused command.

Ubuntu’s default LibreOffice office suite got a big updates! See what’s new and how to install guide.

LibreOffice finally added WebP image format support by releasing the 7.4 release. As well, this release features new remote grammar checker: LanguageTool API; Calc now supports sparklines and uses 16,384 columns in spreadsheets; Show Changes mode does no longer count deleted list items, instead it now shows changes in numbering correctly.

Other changes in LibreOffice 7.4 include:

• New optional hyphenation settings to adjust paragraph-level text flow.
• EMZ/WMZ files support.
• Impress now has the start of document theme support
• Writer now supports clearing breaks from Word.
• Experimental dark mode support for Windows 10/11
• Help pages for the ScriptForge scripting library
• See release note for more.

How to Install LibreOffice 7.4 in Ubuntu:

There are a few ways to get the most recent LibreOffice package for Ubuntu Linux, including:

• Flatpak package – universal Linux package runs in sandbox.
• Snap package – available in Ubuntu Software and run in sandbox.
• Native DEB packages – but not well integrated with Ubuntu desktop.
• AppImage – no installation required, just click to run.

Except the non-install AppImage package, all others will install another copy along side the system pre-installed version. Meaning you’ll have duplicated shortcut icons.

So, the LibreOffice PPA is highly recommended. Which will update the stock packages to the latest and keep it up-to-date.

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add PPA for all current Ubuntu releases:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

2. Next, either open “Update Manager” to install updates, or run the command below in terminal:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

NOTE: This PPA at the moment is not updated with LibreOffice 7.4.0 package. Maintainers need time to build and test the new packages, especially for major releases.

How to Restore:

To remove the PPA as well as downgrading the office packages to stock version, run command in terminal to install ppa-purge tool and purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa

Ubuntu’s default office suite LibreOffice released new major version 7.3.0 today. Here’s what’s new and how to install it in all current Ubuntu editions.

LibreOffice 7.3 provided a large number of improvements to Microsoft Office file formats support. It now loads large DOCX and XLSX/XLSM files and some complex documents faster! Also, there are many improvements to DOC, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX import/export filter, including:

• greatly improved list/numbering import
• Hyperlinks attached to shapes now imported/exported
• Fix editing permissions.
• Make slide footers get exported to PPTX
• better XLSX support.

The release also extended theScriptForge libraries with various features, including:

• New Chart service to define chart documents stored in Calc sheets.
• New PopupMenu service to describe the menu to be displayed after a mouse event (typically a right-click).
• Management of printers: list of fonts and printers, printer options, printing documents.
• export documents to PDF with full management of PDF options

Other changes in LibreOffice 7.3 include:

• Writer now has the start of linked character and paragraph styles, as well as list level support.
• Add visualization and Manage Changes support for tracked deletion and insertion of tables and table rows.
• Performance improvements for exporting PDF and loading large RTL documents
• Calc now lists HTML tables in the ‘Link to External Data’ dialog.
• Implement neumaier summation algorithm for using modern SIMD CPU instructions like AVX2
• Implement bash like autocompletion for Calc autoinput.
• Standard filter supports filtering by colors
• Add PowerPoint-compatible screen sizes
• Ability to generate one-dimensional barcodes in addition to QR codes.
• New WebDAV/HTTP UCP based on libcurl.
• Border line widths have been unified throughout LibreOffice.

See What’s New in LibreOffice 7.3 via short video:

How to Install LibreOffice 7.3 in Ubuntu:

It’s HIGHLY recommended to install LibreOffice in Ubuntu using its official PPA, since it updates the pre-installed package.

Though, LibreOffice is also available as Flatpak and Snap packages. The latter can be directly installed from Ubuntu Software. However, they co-exist with the pre-installed .deb package, which mean you’ll have duplicated LibreOffice shortcut icons.

The PPA provides the packages for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and also the next Ubuntu 22.04.

1. Add LibreOffice PPA

First open terminal from your system start menu (click top-left corner ‘Activities’, search for and open terminal). When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

So far, the PPA supports for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and Linux Mint 20.

2. Install / upgrade LibreOffice:

Next, you can upgrade the office suite using Software Updater (Update Manager) utility.

How to Restore:

Purge the Ubuntu PPA will restore the office suite to the pre-installed version. To do so, run the command below in terminal:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:libreoffice/ppa

The LibreOffice office suite 7.2 was released with many new features and improvements. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, and Ubuntu 21.10.

LibreOffice is the default office suite available in Ubuntu as well as many other Linux Distributions out-of-the-box. It’s made up of a Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, and database management tools, and supports the file formats of MicroSoft Office.

What’s new in Libreoffice 7.2

LibreOffice 7.2 was released as the latest major release with new command popup HUD (“Heads-up display”). By going to “Help -> Search Commands” or pressing Shift+Esc on keyboard, it brings up the command box allows to search for and execute actions.

The release introduced a Dark color scheme, so the app window can be set to fully dark for working at night. Also, it added new scrollable style picker in Notebookbar, fontwork panel in sidebar. And the templates dialog got a list view, the global toolbar lock can now switched off via “View -> Toolbars”.

For Libreoffice Writer, Impress & Draw, all background fills can now be set to either cover the page inside the margins or the entire page.

Other changes in LibreOffice 7.2 include:

• Writer:
  • Show various indexes and the mouse-over tooltip for a hyperlink to a document index entry mark.
  • Page styles now have a gutter margin
  • Added label and business card paper: A-One, Hisago, Sanwa Supply, Daiso.
  • Improved font caching to speed up text rendering.
  • Reduced opening time for some DOCX file.
• Calc:
  • Added traditional Japanese month names, Japanese era name.
  • Implemented the Kahan summation algorithm.
  • Introduced ‘fat-cross’ cursor.
  • Redesigned Paste Special dialog.
• IMPRESS & Draw:
  • Added Candy, Freshes, Grey Elegant, Growing Liberty, Yellow Idea templates.
  • Removed Alizarin, Bright Blue, Classy Red, Impress, Lush Green.
  • PDF signature verification is now based on PDFium
  • Multiple columns layout in LibreOffice text boxes.
  • Performance improvements for loading large images, and faster drawing of semi-transparent images.

How to Install LibreOffice 7.2 in Ubuntu:

There are a few ways to get the packages installed in Ubuntu, though the official PPA is highly recommended (see method 3)!

Method 1: LibreOffice Appimage

Without installing the software package, the Appimage is an universal Linux package format that can be run directly to launch the office suite.

Just grab the “Fresh” version from the link button above. Then add executable permission, and right-click to run it:

Method 2: LibreOffice Snap:

Snap is the easiest way to install the office suite in Ubuntu. It’s official and updates automatically! Just search for ‘LibreOffice’ in Ubuntu Software and install the one from ‘snapcraft.io’:

NOTE: since the pre-installed one is native DEB package. You’ll have duplicated LibreOffice icons in ‘Activities’ overview search result after installed the Snap package.

Method 3: Install LibreOffice via Ubuntu PPA (RECOMMEND)

The official PPA is always preferred and recommended. It will upgrade the pre-installed LibreOffice packages to the latest and integrate well into Ubuntu desktop.

I put it as the last method because the PPA is not updated for the release at the moment. The maintainer has been building and testing the packages. And, now it’s ready for all current Ubuntu releases.

1. Add LibreOffice PPA

First open terminal from your system start menu (click top-left corner ‘Activities’, search for and open terminal). When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

So far, the PPA supports for Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and Linux Mint 20.

Next, you can upgrade the office suite using Software Updater (Update Manager) utility.