LibreOffice Timeline
Discover the history of LibreOffice and its predecessors! Here’s a quick summary – and then read on for the details…
1985
Star-Writer I, written by Marco Börries, is released - initially for CP/M on the Amstrad CPC, and later ported to DOS
StarDivision is formed in Lüneburg, northern Germany
1991
StarWriter 5.5 is released, including StarWriter Compact 2.0 (shown below)
1992
StarOffice 1.0 is released, combining StarWriter, StarBase and StarDraw
1994
StarWriter 2.0 is released for Windows, OS/2, Mac OS and Solaris (SPARC)
1995
StarOffice 3.0 is released, running on Windows, OS/2, Solaris and Mac OS
1996
StarOffice 3.1 is released, the first version for Linux i386
1999
Sun Microsystems buys StarDivision for $73.5 million
2000
StarOffice 5.2 is released as a free download for personal use
Sun Microsystems open sources StarOffice to create OpenOffice.org
2001
OpenOffice.org XML, the default file format used by the suite, is contributed to the OASIS consortium - this is later developed into the Open Document Format (ODF)
2002
OpenOffice.org 1.0 is released
2003
OpenOffice.org 1.1 is released, with one-click export to PDF, and the ability to export presentations to Flash (SWF). It also allowed third-party add-ons
2005
OpenOffice.org 2.0 is released, using the Open Document Format (ODF) as default. Improvements include better performance, lower memory usage, and greater scripting capabilities
2008
OpenOffice.org 3.0 is released, with a native interface on Mac OS X, OOXML import, and support for ODF 1.2. Also included is a new Start Center
2009
Oracle buys Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion
2010
The Document Foundation is announced by members of the OpenOffice.org community. It is a non-profit, independent, self-governing and democratic foundation to further the development of open source office software (incorporated in Berlin in 2012). The foundation’s main project is LibreOffice, a fork of OpenOffice.org
2011
LibreOffice 3.3 is released, with unique features including SVG image import, new and improved import filters (Microsoft Word, Lotus Word Pro, WordPerfect, PPTX)
Oracle stops development of OpenOffice.org and contributes the trademarks to the Apache Software Foundation.
In Denmark, 13 hospitals in the Copenhagen region decide to move away from a proprietary office suite and switch to LibreOffice on almost 25,000 PCs
LibreOffice 3.4 is released, with memory usage improvements, code cleanups, improved GTK+ theme integration, and reduced Java dependencies
The first LibreOffice Conference is held in Paris, France
2012
MIMO, France’s inter-ministerial working group on free software, starts installing LibreOffice on nearly all 500,000 desktops of France’s ministries, including Energy, Defense, Interior, Education and Finance
LibreOffice 3.5 is released, with a native PostgreSQL driver, import of Microsoft Visio .vsd files, AES encryption support for ODF file encryption, and the ability to install on Microsoft Windows via a .msi file
LibreOffice 3.6 is released, with support for colour scales and data bars in Calc, a word count in the status bar, and 10 new Impress master pages
The second LibreOffice Conference is held in Berlin, Germany
2013
LibreOffice 4.0 is released, with import/export support for native RTF math expressions, import filter for Microsoft Publisher files, improved XLSX loading times, and CMIS support
The administration of the Spanish region of Valencia completed the migration of all 120,000 PCs, including in schools and courts, to LibreOffice
LibreOffice 4.1 is released, with a new sidebar, gradient backgrounds, embedding fonts in documents, export of charts to ODC files, and text layout via Core Text on macOS and HarfBuzz on Linux
The LibreOffice Conference takes place in Milan, Italy
2014
LibreOffice 4.2 is released, with file lists in the Start Center, Calc performance improvements (including OpenCL for calculations via graphics cards), and import filters for Apple Keynote and AbiWord files
The Document Foundation announces the Document Liberation Project, which develops libraries to help open source applications handle proprietary file formats
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The French city of Toulouse announces that it has saved €1 million by migrating thousands of workstations to LibreOffice
The United Kingdom government formally adopts the Open Document Format (ODF) as the standard for its documents
LibreOffice 4.3 is released, with new drawingML-based DOCX import/export filter for shapes and text frames, improved PDF import, a better default icon set, printable comments in margins, and support for paragraphs of over 65,536 characters in Writer
The LibreOffice Conference is held in Bern, Switzerland
2015
LibreOffice 4.4 is released, with direct connectivity to OneDrive and SharePoint, import of Adobe PageMaker files, digital signing of PDFs, and user interface improvements
LibreOffice 5.0 is released, with style previews in the sidebar, emoji support in 22 languages, the ability to crop images in Writer, Microsoft Word-compatible text highlighting and shading, and a UI for controlling conditional formatting in Calc
The Italian Ministry of Defence announces that it will install LibreOffice on 120,000 PCs
The fifth LibreOffice Conference takes place in Aarhus, Denmark
The administration of the city of Nantes, France, announces that it has switched 5,000 PCs to LibreOffice, lowering the city’s IT costs by EUR 1.6 million
Yi-Lan County in Taiwan migrates 9,000 PCs to LibreOffice
2016
LibreOffice 5.1 is released, with an improved and reorganised user interface, more document import filters, a hide whitespace option in Writer, and the ability to equalise object sizes in Impress
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Lithuania’s police department switches to LibreOffice on 8,000 PCs
Certified developers begin combining LibreOffice Online with open source file sharing solutions to offer cloud-based versions of the suite
LibreOffice 5.2 is released, with new drawing tools in Writer and Calc, single toolbar modes, extensive function tooltips in Calc, and import of Microsoft Word for DOS files
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The LibreOffice Conference is held in Brno, Czech Republic
2017
LibreOffice 5.3 is released, with table styles in Writer, new options for merging non-empty cells in Calc, improvements to colour and gradient management, better templates in Impress, and an experimental Notebookbar interface option. This is also the first full source code release of LibreOffice Online
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LibreOffice 5.4 is released, with better document compatibility, pivot charts in Calc, custom watermarks in Writer, and transparent OpenPGP support for signing documents on Linux
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The first LibreOffice certification interview in Asia was held in Taipei
The LibreOffice Conference is held in Rome, Italy with over 200 attendees
2018
LibreOffice 6.0 is released, with major improvements in the desktop, cloud (LibreOffice online) and mobile versions. Document compatibility is improved, the user interface has been refined, and the help system has been updated
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LibreOffice 6.1 is released, with new icon themes, improved EPUB export, a revamped image handling engine, sorting of images anchored to cells in Calc, and updates to LibreOffice Online
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The LibreOffice Conference 2018 takes place in Tirana, Albania. Here’s a quick video recap:
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The Municipality of Tirana moves to open source software and open standards by migrating to LibreOffice
2019
LibreOffice 6.2 is released, with a new (but optional) user interface design called the NotebookBar, along with performance and compatibility improvements
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LibreOffice 6.3 is released - it includes further updates to the NotebookBar, better compatibility, and performance improvements
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The LibreOffice Conference 2019 took place in Almeria, Spain - check out this video recap:
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2020
LibreOffice 6.4 is released, with many features: the ability to export whole spreadsheets as a single PDF page; text box consolidation in Draw; improved handling of comments; and better Microsoft Office compatibility
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LibreOffice 7.0 is released, with many improvements to compatibility, performance and usability - plus plenty of new features to explore!
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The joint OpenSUSE + LibreOffice Conference 2020 takes place online this year, due to the pandemic. Check out all the talks and presentations!
2021
LibreOffice 7.1 is released, with physics-based animations in Impress, a Styles Inspector in Writer, ScriptForge macro resources, and more:
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The LibreOffice Conference 2021 also takes place online - check out the schedule and the talks!
LibreOffice 7.2 is released, with many new features, compatibility improvements and extra templates:
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2022
LibreOffice 7.3 is released, with improved change tracking features and much more:
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The LibreOffice Conference 2022 takes place in Milan, Italy
LibreOffice 7.4 is released, with support for 16,384 columns in spreadsheets, support for WebP images and EMZ/WMZ files, and new typographic settings for hyphenation:
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2023
LibreOffice 7.5 is released, with dark mode improvements and much more:
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The LibreOffice Conference 2023 takes place in Bucharest, Romania
LibreOffice 7.6 is released, with document themes, a navigation panel in Impress slideshows, and many other improvements:
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2024
LibreOffice 24.2 is released, with a new “year.month” version number scheme, styles for comments, row and column highlighting in Calc, a search field in the Options dialog box, and much more:
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And next?
That’s the story so far – but there’s so much more to come. Join us and be a part of it!