LibreOffice 4: A new, better open-source office suite

Some people love Microsoft Office, which just jumped to Office 2013; some like cloud-based office programs such as Google Docs and Office 365; but me, I'm still partial to LibreOffice, the popular open-source office suite. And, at first glance, the latest version, 4.0, looks better than ever.

Want a great old-school, open-source office suite? Then you want LibreOffice.

The Document Foundation, LibreOffice's parent organization, proclaimed that "LibreOffice 4.0 is the first release that reflects the objectives set by the community at the time of the announcement, in September 2010: a cleaner and leaner code base, an improved set of features, better interoperability, and a more diverse and inclusive ecosystem."

While most of LibreOffice 4's changes are under the hood, there are several major changes that make it a worthwhile upgrade to anyone who's already using LibreOffice, or its ancestral parent office suite, OpenOffice or, for that matter, Microsoft Office.

As for the latter, LibreOffice still uses an Office 2007-style fixed menu interface instead of a ribbon. If you, like me, never warmed up to the Office ribbon, LibreOffice is the program you should try.

That aside, the biggest changes in LibreOffice for end-users in the 4.0 release are:

Content Management Interoperability Service (CMIS) Integration:

With CMIS functionality, you can use LibreOffice in document work-flow and storage systems such as Alfresco, IBM FileNet P8, Microsoft Sharepoint 2010, Nuxeo, OpenText, and SAP NetWeaver Cloud Service.

Interface customization with Firefox Personas:

Firefox Personas are easy to use themes you can use to customize Firefox, and, starting with this release, you can use them with LibreOffice as well.

Improved Microsoft Office and application interoperability:

Besides improving interoperability with Microsoft's DOCX and RTF formats, which is par for the course for any LibreOffice release, this new edition also includes the ability to finally import and export comments attached to document text ranges. For users trading edits across documents with co-workers using Microsoft Word this will prove an invaluable update. LibreOffice can also now import Visio and Microsoft Publisher files.

Want to give it a try? It's free. You can download LibreOffice for Linux, Mac OS X (including Tiger on the Power PC), and Windows. Enjoy!

Basic KeyBoard Shortcuts in Windows

Using keyboard shortcuts can greatly increase your productivity, reduce 

repetitive strain, and help keep you focused. For example, highlighting 

text with the keyboard and pressing Ctrl + C is much faster than taking

your hand from the keyboard, highlighting the text using the mouse, 

clicking copy from the file menu, and then putting your hand back in place 

on the keyboard. Below are our top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend 

everyone memorize and use.

Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert

Copy the highlighted text or selected item.

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert

Paste the text or object that's in the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y

Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo 

it. This can also often be pressed multiple times to undo multiple 

changes.Pressing Ctrl + Y would redo the undo.

Ctrl + F

Open the Find in any program. This includes your Internet browser to 

find text on the current page.

Alt + Tab or Alt + Esc

Quickly switch between open programs moving forward.

> Tip: Press Ctrl + Tab to switch between tabs in a program.

> Tip: Adding the Shift key to Alt + Tab or Ctrl + Tab will move 

    backwards. For example, if you are pressing Alt + Tab and pass 

    the program you want to switch to, press Alt + Shift + Tab to move 

    backwards to that program.

> Tip: Windows Vista and 7 users can also press the Windows Key + Tab to 

switch through open programs in a full screenshot of the Window.

Ctrl + Back space and Ctrl + Left or Right arrow

Pressing Ctrl + Backspace will delete a full word at a time instead of 

a single character.

Holding down the Ctrl key while pressing the left or right arrow will 

move the cursor one word at a time instead of one character at a time. 

If you wanted to highlight one word at a time you can hold down Ctrl + 

Shift 

and then press the left or right arrow key to move one word at a 

 

time in that direction while highlighting each word.

Ctrl + S

While working on a document or other file in almost every program 

pressing Ctrl + S will save that file. This shortcut key should be used 

frequently anytime you're working on anything important.

Ctrl + Home or Ctrl + End

Move the cursor to the beginning or end of a document.

Ctrl + P

Print the page being viewed. For example, the document in Microsoft 

Word or the web page in your Internet browser.

Page Up, Space bar, and Page Down

Pressing either the page up or page down key will move that page one 

page at a time in that direction. When browsing the Internet pressing 

the space bar will also move the page down one page at a time. If you 

press Shift and the Space bar the page will go up a page at a time.

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