Download LibreOffice 24.2.0 beta 1

The Document Foundation has been developing the next generation of LibreOffice since June and has now released the first beta release. The Document Foundation is moving to a version number that reflects the year and month of release, and since it's scheduled for February next year, it will carry version 24.2. LibreOffice is an open source office package and comes with various applications, including word processor Writer, spreadsheet program Calc, presentation program Impress, drawing program Draw, database program Base and Formula, an application for creating scientific notations. Extensive release notes are available this page Here are the most important changes in brief:

Writer

• “Legal” ordered list numbering: make a given list level use Arabic numbering for all its number parts. tdf#150408
• 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 categorize different types of comments. tdf#103064

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
• Nested Sections can now be collapsed just like Headings. tdf#158103
• In Outline Folding modethe hidden headings are now grayed out in the Navigator instead of not being visible. tdf#156282

Multi-page floating tables

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

• Overlap control, border and footnotes: blog post
• Nesting: blog post
• Wrap on all pages: blog post

Calc

• New search field in the Functions sidebar deck. tdf#122718
• Number format: scientific format now supports and saves to ODF (tdf#153993 and tdf#156449)
  • 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

Impress

• Implemented Small Caps for Impress: details in blog post
• The setting “Show navigation panel” in Slide Show ▸ Slide Show Settings… will now be saved to local configuration. tdf#157788
• 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 core commit 7ca9c5bd
• 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. core commit aee059ff

Core/General

• 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
• Fixed many AutoRecovery limitations and re-enabled AutoSave UI. Added “Place backup in same folder as document” option. tdf#65509 tdf#68565 tdf#57414
• 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
• Added search functionality to Tools ▸ Options. tdf#49895
• 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 eg by default on KDE Plasma. tdf#156894 tdf#149611
• Expert config now shows explanatory text to the config items in a tooltip tdf#157431
• Expert config can now be filtered by modified values. Modified values ​​are displayed in **bold** text. tdf#157432
• Improved editing capabilities in Expert config dialog:
  • Proper input type validation
  • Editing lists in an own dialog