New features in LibreOffice 5

New Features in Calc

The interfaces for first sheet and last sheet are gone. These functions are now performed by pressing the control key and clicking on the buttons for previous sheet or next sheet .

The interface for adding a new sheet is now located on the left side, so it is possible to click repeatedly without having to change position each time. As soon as the tabs occupy more space than is available in the area, you can use the mouse wheel to scroll among the tabs.

It is now easier to create references to complete columns or rows in a spreadsheet. This is done according to the schema A:A or 1:1 . Therefore, it is sufficient to type in the formula =MAX(A:A) to determine the maximum value of column A. In the earlier version, it would have been necessary to use a formula like =MAX(A1:A104) .

For references to entire columns or rows, you would need to designate both references in conformance with one another either via absolute or relative references.

Mixed references like A$1:A104 or A1:A$104 have the effect that the range designations remain as specified, because Calc assumes that this is exactly what you want. LibreOffice stores the references in the file using the old representation so that the spreadsheets continue to be compatible with earlier versions of Calc.

Several new functions provide better compatibility with Excel. For example, the developers have fixed the lower limit and upper limit functions and added lower limit.mathematics and upper limits mathematics . Additionally, functions such as Error. type have been added according to the open formula standard [2].

A new option has been added for repeating article references in pivot tables. This is done by double-clicking on the desired field from the row fields list when creating the table. Then, select Options… in the Data field dialog box that opens. This will open yet another dialog box Data field Options , where you should click on repeat article labels . You can then confirm two times with OK .

Until now, LibreOffice drew conditional formatting for data bars as a gradient from one color to white. Now the bars can be represented in just one color.

You also can hide the values and provide for minimal lengths. This is done by highlighting the cells to be formatted and calling Format | Conditional Formatting | data bars . Then, you should click on More Options and set the color as filling: under bar colors .

If you select the value none for Axis position: in the axis section, this will activate the options of the bar lengths section. Afterward, you can set the maximum bar length.

In Figure 6, this is shown as 50 percent. To hide the display of values, you should activate the only show bars option with a checkmark. Clicking twice on OK will assign the conditional formatting to the highlighted cell.

Figure 6: You now have options for showing bars with a color gradient or all in one color or by percent.

What's New in Impress and Draw

The tool bars have been rearranged in Impress and Draw, making for faster access to frequently used functions. The context menus have been reworked such that seldom-used entries are now gone, and frequently used entries have been included.

With respect to text characteristics, the developers have expanded the zoom feature with interfaces for increasing and decreasing zoom. Both applications now have drop-down menus for selecting filler colors for surfaces together with color palettes for changing others. Using symbol bars and side bars, it is also possible to add one or more colors to the character background for text fields (Figure 7).

Figure 7: It is easy to add color to text or parts of text in LibreOffice 5.

Impress offers a large work surface as well as a reorganized sidebar. The developers for Draw have increased the size of the sidebar with formatting tools. LibreOffice now also works with Adobe Swatch Exchange color palettes as long as these use the color ranges CMYK, RGB, or gray tones. The office package does not yet support LAB colors, so they will be imported as black.