The Document Foundation has released version 4.0 of LibreOffice, saying the release constitutes "the free office suite the community has been dreaming of since 2001". Even though the office package has not changed much visually from the 3.6.x release series, it includes several underlying improvements such as API changes, support for the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard, and better import and export of native file formats used by Microsoft Office programs.

LibreOffice 4 also includes changes to the user interface, especially in the way the dialog boxes are rendered, and support for Firefox Personas themes. Updates to Writer introduce the ability to attach comments to text ranges and let the word processor also act as an interpreter for the Logo programming language. An Android application that lets users control the Impress presentation tool is ready to be used with some Linux versions of the office suite and is expected to be released soon. The developers are also working on bringing the feature to the other Linux, Windows and Mac OS X versions of the office suite.

LibreOffice 4.0 is available for all three platforms from the LibreOffice web site. Further details on the changes in the release are listed in the release notes.

For a closer look at the most important improvements in LibreOffice 4, see:

Highlights of LibreOffice 4.0, a feature on The H.

(fab)