[libreoffice-users] Fwd: [tdf-announce] LibreOffice 4.2

Hi :)
We have had a few threads lately about improving interoperability with
a certain format.

Sadly that format, or at least the various different implementations
of it, seems to show that it's designed to decrease interoperability
between systems as part of a marketing strategy (or something).  if
their format doesn't work in other systems then your only real choice
is to buy from them and do so in the full knowledge that you will soon
have to buy from them again (and in the knowledge that documents
created now might not be viewable in a few years).

However it seems the new 4.2.0 HAS put a LOT of work into increasing
interoperability with the newer implementations of the format and have
managed to do so without losing interoperability with MS's older
implementations of that format.

So, once again, it might be the LibreOffice users who are the only
people in their companies who are able to read almost all documents
from almost anyone while MS Office users might be having problems
reading stuff from other versions of MS Office.


Luckily the interoperability issue is apparently a loooong way off
from consuming ALL our resources and the new 4.2.0 seems to have
substantial advantages over previous branches.

The cutest one (imo) is now being able to use iThings (phones and pads
etc) as a remote-control device for Impress Presentations.  It seems
really recent that the functionality was written for Androids.  It
feels like porting from Android to iOS is easier than the other way
around or maybe it's something else that our devs are doing right and
that other companies struggle with.

The more substantial changes, to accessibility, to Calc, and to the
Windows port of LO are all fantastic but so huge that it's easier to
focus on the cute chunks.


Many congrats to the Devs and to QA and everyone else involved!!
Many thanks and regards from
Tom :)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Italo Vignoli <italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org>
Date: 30 January 2014 12:05
Subject: [tdf-announce] LibreOffice 4.2
To: announce@documentfoundation.org


LibreOffice 4.2: focusing on performance and interoperability,
and improving the integration with Microsoft Windows

Berlin, January 30, 2014 - The Document Foundation announces LibreOffice
4.2, a new major release targeted to early adopters and another
significant step forward for the best free office suite ever.
LibreOffice 4.2 features a large number of performance and
interoperability improvements targeted to users of all kinds, but
particularly appealing for power and enterprise users. In addition, it
is better integrated with Microsoft Windows.

Calc has gone through the largest code refactoring ever, giving major
performance wins for big data (especially when calculating cell values,
and importing large and complex XLSX spreadsheets), while an optional
new formula interpreter enables massively parallel calculation of
formula cells using the GPU via OpenCL. The latter works best with a
Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) such as the new AMD Kaveri APU.
Round-trip interoperability with Microsoft OOXML, particularly for DOCX,
as well as legacy RTF, has also improved considerably. Also, new import
filters for Abiword documents and Apple Keynote presentations have been
added.

LibreOffice 4.2 offers two Windows specific improvements for business
users: a simplified custom install dialog to avoid potential mistakes,
and the ability to centrally manage and lock-down the configuration with
Group Policy Objects via Active Directory. All users benefit from better
integration with Windows 7 and 8, with thumbnails of open documents now
grouped by application and a list of recent documents, both showing on
the task bar.

Power users on all platforms will like the flexibility of the Expert
Configuration window, which has been added to the Advanced Options tab.
This feature can be easily turned off, for large deployments and basic
users.

LibreOffice 4.2 offers a new Start screen, with a cleaner layout that
makes better use of the available space - even on small screens - and
shows a preview of the last documents.

On the mobile side, LibreOffice now supports an Impress Remote Control
for iOS - in addition to the already available Impress Remote Control
for Android - which allows visual management of presentation delivery on
the laptop using the screen of an iPhone or iPad. The app is currently
waiting for review from Apple, and will be announced as soon as it is
available on iTunes Store.

LibreOffice 4.2 is the first open source suite to ship a new Windows
(IAccessible2 based) accessibility feature developed by IBM. This is
considered experimental for this release, but will replace legacy Java
based accessibility in the next major release.

The LibreOffice User Interface continues to undergo significant cleanup
with 70% of our dialogs now refreshed and many distributed UI tweaks.
This release also includes a beautiful new "flat" icon theme - Sifr -
and an updated set of default document styles.

All new and improved features of LibreOffice 4.2, including those not
listed here, are summarized in this webpage:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/4-2-new-features-and-fixes/.

Meet the community

In early February, the LibreOffice community will gather at FOSDEM 2014
in Brussels, where developers will present at the Open Document Editors
DevRoom the latest and greatest technologies integrated by LibreOffice,
and other volunteers will meet free software advocates at the
LibreOffice booth.

In early March, The Document Foundation will exhibit at CeBIT in
Hannover to showcase LibreOffice 4.2: Hall 6, Booth H14.

Downloading LibreOffice

LibreOffice 4.2 is immediately available for download from the following
link: http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. Extensions for LibreOffice
are available from the following link:
http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center.

Support The Document Foundation

LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members can
support The Document Foundation with a donation at
http://donate.libreoffice.org. Money collected will be used to grow the
infrastructure, and support marketing activities to increase the
awareness of the project, both at global and local level.

Thanks to the efforts of several native language projects and
volunteers, this press release is also available in Arabic, Czech,
Dutch, French, Galician, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian
Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish and Turkish from this page:
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice-4-2/. We will add other
languages in the future.

Short link to The Document Foundation blog: http://wp.me/p1byPE-sG.

--
Italo Vignoli - Director
italo.vignoli@documentfoundation.org
mob +39.348.5653829 - sip italo@libreoffice.org
The Document Foundation
Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, Germany
Rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
Legal Details: www.documentfoundation.org/imprint

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