I took 5+ years off from Libre, returning last year. It's come a long way and has fully replaced my need for Google Docs and MS Office. If you were turned off in the past, it might be worth revisiting.
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Same, I had tried Openoffice/LibreOffice in the past and had many problems. Since I got a personal MS Office License very cheap from my employer I used that and didn't really feel the need that much to look for alternatives.
Then about a year ago, I reworked some deployments of my self hosted things and added Collabora to my Nextcloud "just for fun". And I was pleasantly surprised by it. Since that is based on libre office, I had the urge to check that out and realized that it should have everything I usually need. Also I was already dual booting for a while but still hadn't really switched many "workflows" to Linux, because I was lazy to search for alternatives. This now meant that there was less friction to use Linux as a bonus.
Whatβs New in LibreOffice 26.2
Markdown import and export features. Improved performance and responsiveness across the suite, making large documents open, edit, and save more smoothly. Enhanced compatibility with documents created in proprietary and open core office software, reducing formatting issues and surprises. Refined user interface behavior for a cleaner, more consistent experience. Expanded support for open standards, reinforcing long-term access to documents. Hundreds of bug fixes and stability improvements contributed by the global LibreOffice community.
See the Release Notes for the full list of new features.
Also, I'm curious about the UI refinement.
In the release notes you've linked, there's a heading called User Interface. It's a fair number of small QOL improvements.
I see nothing about making the scroll bar static, with buttons, which is impossible to have on Linux--for an application designed around scrolling pages.
This strikes me as an odd comment. Did you have a specific reason to expect that 26.2 would include this, such as an enhancement request that you'd logged (or had been following) via their community channels?
Um, no. But word processors are centered around scrolling, and all that's available is a mobile scroll, which auto-hides and has no up and down buttons. I cannot possibly be the only person who finds this problematic. Hard pass.
If you're using KDE, apparently changing your system application style might help - Breeze, for example, has an option for visible scroll arrows. Link.
In any case, it's a GTK thing, not a LibreOffice thing.
It looks way better on macos in my opinion. Resolution is higher and the app is generally more smooth.
This project has never been more relevant in light of the recent acceleration of enshitification over at Microslop. Might be time to donate a few bucks.
LibreOffice is now needed the most in terms of digital independence. And it seems to do well!
Great news! Markdown has been one of the most requested features
The only weak point LibreOffice still has is collaboration with people who abuse proprietary software (which violates its own published filetype "standard") to do things it was never designed for.
i'd be interested to learn about this
Microsoft Word defaults to saving in its own file format .docx, instead of the ISO standard for word processing (.odt)
To allow others to collaborate, Microsoft publishes documentation on how Word builds and opens .docx files.
So LibreOffice would have no trouble opening .docx files with all formatting perfectly intact.
If Microsoft actually followed their own documentation when building Word. Which they don't.
The other issue is that people use Word files to share documents with extensive formatting and embedded images in the first place, instead of converting them to PDF or using typesetting software.
It's a dilemma. MS might be breaking shit but they're still the biggest player. It was mostly thru the fact people can open docx that people are willing to try LibreOffice in the first place.
Hopefully now that they have large players behind them, they can start shifting the terrain.
The other upside is that Google Docs aren't entirely compatible either. So people are already used to imperfect versions and needing to pass around PDF's if output matters.
The biggest problem I see is Microsoft can only cleanly collaborate with Micrososft and Google with Google. The second you open that docx in Google, all bets are off.
The real downer is the libre's lack of supported online collab, that's pretty much a requirement for business these days.
OH! i misinterpreted your thread starter. i thoughtβ¦ never mind what i thought. nevermind π€£
yes.
this is something that makes me wish more casual document writers would migrate away from MS office
Good to see focus on performance and responsiveness. On cachyOS I have laggy scrolling through text documents. Will have to test later
I also had it, any chance that the last poi here In the troubleshooting fixes it for you as well?
Tested new update. Seems a little better. Will check out your links, thanks!
Same via NixOS, I use high-resolution scrolling but Libreoffice seems worse than normal scrolling. I think it's using XWayland for some reason but I really don't have time to unearth what the difference is between the libreoffice and libreoffice-qt-fresh packages and if any of them can actually use Wayland.
Actually, chance is that it's not using XWayland. See here:
It's at least what worked for me.
Yeah, have been wondering about that qt-fresh package as well...
I use Libreoffice for all of my business admin, from invoices to pricing models. It's fantastic software.
no, too much bloat. better off using latex which beats it by far.
Or Typst. I don't want to learn Typst, but it looks way better than Latex.
I used to maintain my resume in latex. I switched to typist. I vastly prefer it. The syntax is much easier to deal with. It really, to me, feels like a worthy successor
For sure, that's what I see. I'm just 'locked in' with Latex since all my colleagues use it and I'm used to a lot of packages there. At some point I'd like to try Typst out but now is not a good time.
For sure. The cost of switching is high since youβre already embedded in its ecosystem with a team. I last wrote serious latex in college and then just maintained my resume in it out of habit.
I had the same idea to write my CV in Latex, but then realized it's not such a great idea. I wanted to keep it down to 2 pages, so I ended up having to do a lot of manual formatting (font size, margins, spacing), and the whole point of Latex is that you're supposed to let the typesetter do the formatting for you. So I switched back to Libreoffice.
But if I had a long-form CV, ie. an academic-style CV where you list all publications, conference talks, etc. with no regard to length, then Latex would be ideal for that.
Does it perform as well as (la)tex? Like proper typography and all that nice things
Yes it does. But I would guess it's not yet as powerful as LaTeX, either, but I couldn't cite you specific examples.
Actually started using this at work too now, as the entire file menu part of Word 365 is an utter garbage fire.
Does Linux get a damn normal scroll bar yet?
What scroll bar?