Its support for other suites' files mean that it's worth having LibreOffice installed, even if you primarily use a different office suite. Other tweaked areas include PDF generation, font embedding on macOS, new content controls.

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We chose to leave the status bar on, partly for its handy live word count. If you prefer fewer on-screen fripperies, not only is there a full-screen mode, but all toolbars, rulers and scrollbars can be turned off, leaving a totally uncluttered window. We also found that keyboard navigation of the menus worked perfectly, which has occasionally been a problem in the past. There's improved support for screen-readers, so you can now read bookmarks in documents aloud, search for spreadsheet functions by description as well as by name, check documents for accessibility and more. This puts LibreOffice ahead of rivals such as OnlyOffice, WPS Office, and of course Microsoft Office, all of which give you just the ribbon-type UI whether you like it or not.

As before, there's a choice of UIs: you can have old-style menus and toolbars, or a single context-sensitive toolbar, or a tabbed toolbar (which is to say, a ribbon), if you like that sort of thing, which can be full-size, compact, or moved to a sidebar – especially useful on widescreens. We liked this – frankly they were verging on drab before. This version is a bit prettier than before, with new, much more colorful icons for both the individual modules and their respective documents.

LibreOffice, formerly known as OpenOffice, and before that StarOffice, is the go-to FOSS office suite, but there's always room for improvement. Windows and Mac users can just download it, and for Linux types the new version is already up on Flathub. FOSDEM The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 7.5 with a host of improvements.

Download LibreOffice 7.5.5 free