// OMG! UBUNTU! — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
LibreOffice 26.8 released with paragraph layout changes, draft view + more
The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 26.8, a major new version of the open-source office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Among the changes is a new Paragraph Composer. This improves the way Writer handles justified text. In many word processors, justified text is stretched to create straight edge on both sides of the page, but this can look uneven. Some lines packed tight, others gappy.
But with LibreOffice 26.8’s new Paragraph Composer, spacing gets balanced several lines at once, rather than one at a time, which can result in a better overall look:
Other typography changes in LibreOffice 26.8 include native support for variable OpenType fonts, letting you tweak “axes that adjust letterform contrast and proportion to the size at which text is set”. Baseline grid alignment was added for text in frames too.
Right to left, such as LibreOffice now detects the direction of a document automatically when it is opened or pasted in, rather than requiring the user to set it manually, and Calc, the suite’s spreadsheet tool, sets cell text direction automatically if right-to-left text is entered.
And there’s better support for other kinds of languages, including those written right to left, such as Arabic and Hebrew, through the suite:
“None of this work has a commercial market”, The Document Foundation said, noting it did it because it have to justify features based on return. A circular argument, somewhat, but the sentiment hold: FOSS can focus on what matters, more than what pays.
LibreOffice 26.8 adds the colourful Notebookbar background options I reported on in June. These are intended to make it easier to tell apps apart, but it also looks fresher in my opinion.
Changing theme colours no longer requires an application restart, which is a big timesaver when you fancy exploring the customisation options.
Interoperability (boring word) is always a hungry area of improvement. People may opt for LibreOffice but still need to share files with colleagues and collaborators who use Microsoft Office, and vice versa.