Download LibreOffice 4.4.0 Beta 1

The Document Foundation has released the first beta release of version 4.4 of LibreOffice. This open source office package originated as a fork 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. Detailed information about the changes in version 4.4.0, which should be available at the end of January if all goes well, can be found on this page are being found. Here are the main ones made in Writer, Calc, Impress, and Draw:

writer

Master Document Templates
Writer has long had Master Documents. A master document lets you manage large documents, such as a book with many chapters. The master document can be seen as a container for individual LibreOffice Writer files. LibreOffice 4.4 introduces Master Document Templates. These Master Document Templates can be added to the Template Manager and creating a new document based on a Master Document Template creates a Master Document with the same initial content as the Template it is based upon.

Shapes can have a TextBox
Writer shapes can now have a Textbox, meaning that it’s possible to have complex Writer content and full drawinglayer geometry for a shape at the same time. fdo#70942 blog entry

Improvements to Track Changes

• The “Accept Change” and “Reject Change” commands now automatically jump to the next change. fdo#83953
• Inclusion of new buttons in the Track Changes toolbar, along with a new set of icons. fdo#83955, fdo#84405
• The track changes menu item in the Edit menu has been renamed from “Changes” to “Track Changes”. fdo#85046
• The keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E has been associated with the recording of track changes. fdo#86183

Style dropdown
The style dropdown now has a split menu to edit or update the selected style. fdo#62081

Line numbering easier to apply for all paragraphs
Line numbering can now be enabled in a single location, in addition to the already existing per-style method. fdo#84504

Status bar improvements

• Page number in the statusbar are more easily understood when page number styles are used. fdo#80617
• Spacing between elements was improved to work better in low-resolution screens and small windows and double-clicking in the blank statusbar field no longer opens the ‘Fields’ dialog. fdo#86018
• Click behavior was unified so that left-click results in an action or dialog appearing and right-click results in the display of a context menu. fdo#82707
• Tooltips were added to all elements of the statusbar. fdo#82708

Toolbar improvements

• The “Standard” and “Formatting” toolbars were reorganized by removing uncommonly used commands and replacing them with frequent features, in order to reduce the need for users to hunt through menus or customize toolbars. Additional buttons have been added to the toolbars, but are hidden by default and can be enabled by using the “Customize” option. fdo#81475

calc

See also: GUI: Tab changes

Direct conversion of formulas into static values
A new feature was added to convert formula cells into static values ​​(via the menu Tools Cell Contents Formula to Value). Previously, you would need to cut the cells and paste them back into place to have the same outcome.

Formula engine

• Added AGGREGATE spreadsheet function for Excel interoperability. fdo#73148

Toolbar improvements

• The “Standard” and “Formatting” toolbars were reorganized by removing uncommonly used commands and replacing them with frequent features, in order to reduce the need for users to hunt through menus or customize toolbars. Additional buttons have been added to the toolbars, but are hidden by default and can be enabled by using the toolbar right-click context menu “Customize Toolbar…” option or Tools ▸ Customize…. fdo#85594

Impress and Draw

See also: GUI: Tab changes

Text of Master View Object Previews

• In Slide Master view, the text of the presentation object previews is now read-only. Changing the text of these previews has never affected the objects based on the styles that the presentation object preview. To add or hide a level to the outline numbering preview, now you can right-click on the last line to display a menu to add/hide another level.
• Toggling bullets on and off in slide master view in the outline preview via “Bullets On/Off” now truly toggles on/off the bullets of the Outline styles. In the past this only affected the preview itself, leaving the outline styles unchanged. Now it correctly affects outline levels in the normal view.

Select and toggle off master elements directly via Delete
In Slide Master view, master elements which Impress allows the user to remove via View ▸ Master ▸ Master elements can now be removed by direct deletion of the matching placeholder in the Master View preview. In other words, to remove a footer, header, slide number or date/time, select the corresponding box in Master View and press Delete.

OpenGL transitions

• Implemented and enabled for Windows.
• Improved implementation based on new OpenGL framework in vcl for Linux, Windows and OS X.

Page Title field
New field: Page Title in Insert Field Page Title. fdo#47302

Inherit current style of cells when inserting New row/column in table
When we have a table in impress, have modified a cell style and then add a new row or column it now inherits the style of the current row/column for the new one instead of using default values. fdo#60712

Password for editing
It is now possible to save an Impress/Draw file read-only and require a password to modify it. fdo#63483

Text background color
Draw supports background color for text in frames and captions. blog entry

Printing: use specified paper size
Draw now uses the paper size specified in page formatting with printing. fdo#63905

Zoom Mode button
Creation of a new zoom mode button that is able to zoom in, zoom out and pan with the use of Ctrl and Shift. fdo#55903 fdo#83572

Toolbar improvements

• The default toolbars were reorganized to bring frequently used features to the toolbars. fdo#84909

Menu bar improvements

• The View menu was reorganized to better unify its items similar to Writer and Calc. fdo#86209