LibreOffice 4.2 released

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....

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.

About The Document Foundation (TDF)

The Document Foundation is an open, independent, self-governing, meritocratic
organization, which builds on ten years of dedicated work by the
OpenOffice.org Community. TDF was created in the belief that the culture born
of an independent foundation brings out the best in corporate and volunteer
contributors, and will deliver the best free office suite ever. TDF is open
to any individual who agrees with its core values and contributes to its
activities, and welcomes corporate participation, e.g. by sponsoring
individuals to work as equals alongside other contributors in the community.
As of January 1, 2014, TDF has over one hundred and ninty members and over
three thousand  volunteers and contributors worldwide.

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Italo Vignoli - The Document Foundation
mobile 348 5653829 - italo@documentfoundation.org
skype italovignoli - gtalk italo.vignoli@gmail.com