LibreOffice 6.0

My old version of LibreOffice is 5.4.3.2 and the latest version is 6.0.4. LibreOffice 6.0 appears to have many small improvements. Here is the result of the upgrade.

Improvements

There are not many problems in 5.4 for the work I perform. The few annoying things about LibreOffice 5.4 are trivial compared to the problems with Microsoft Office. There are many small improvements in LibreOffice 6.0, compared to 5.4, and none of them leap out as important for my use.

There are many improvements for things I do not use which means I will not test those changes. The improved startup time is probably the most useful for me as I often work with LibreOffice closed then need a fast startup to document something.

The two real annoyances with LibreOffice 5.4 were the slow application startup and the frequent disappearance of the paste unformatted text function in Writer. Both are fixed in LibreOffice 6.0.

Donations

Donations to the LibreOffice project are tax deductible in some countries. Only America and Germany are listed. In some other countries, a local tax deductible open source charity might accept a donation and pass it on to LibreOffice. I could not find anything for Australia.

Download

The LibreOffice 5.4.3.2 download was 281 megabytes and expanded to 285 MB on disk. The 6.0.4 download is only 214 MB and expands to only 217 MB on disk. Most packages are about the same size while the top six big packages from 5.4 are dramatically smaller in 6.0. The improvement looks like a major change, something like removing the last of the Java code.

The installation log is at the bottom of this page.

Speed

The LibreOffice Writer startup speed is improved. You would expect an improvement just from the decrease in code size. I did not measure the actual difference. Overall the application startup went from being one of the few slow application startups on my computer to being in the middle of the pack. I will probably not notice the startup time now.

Opening an existing file in LibreOffice Writer might be slightly faster but too small a difference to worry about. The file open speed is dependent mostly on the size and type of content.

Conclusion

LibreOffice beats everything else for desktop office work. LibreOffice 6.0 is one of many recent refinements where everything is a little bit better. There is no rush to upgrade if you do not have problems with your current version.

LibreOffice install in Linux Mint 18.3

This is the log from the installation of LibreOffice 6.0 on Linux Mint 18.3 using the downloaded LibreOffice_6.0.4.2_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz file expanded out into the Downloads directory.

$ cd Downloads
~/Downloads $ cd LibreOffice_6.0.4.2_Linux_x86-64_deb
~/Downloads/LibreOffice_6.0.4.2_Linux_x86-64_deb $ cd DEBS
~/Downloads/LibreOffice_6.0.4.2_Linux_x86-64_deb/DEBS $ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
[sudo] password:
Selecting previously unselected package libobasis6.0-base.
(Reading database ... 338392 files and directories currently installed.)
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Unpacking libreoffice6.0-writer (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-debian-menus (6.0.4-2) ...
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
/usr/bin/gtk-update-icon-cache
gtk-update-icon-cache: Cache file created successfully.
Setting up libreoffice6.0-ure (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-core (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-draw (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-en-us (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-beanshell-script-provider (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-javascript-script-provider (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-mediawiki-publisher (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-nlpsolver (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-pdf-import (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-extension-report-builder (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-firebird (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-gnome-integration (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-graphicfilter (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-images (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-impress (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-kde-integration (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-math (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-ogltrans (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-onlineupdate (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-ooofonts (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-ooolinguistic (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-python-script-provider (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-pyuno (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-writer (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-xsltfilter (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0 (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-dict-en (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-dict-es (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-dict-fr (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-draw (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-en-us (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-impress (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-math (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-writer (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-base (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-calc (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-librelogo (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libobasis6.0-postgresql-sdbc (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-base (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Setting up libreoffice6.0-calc (6.0.4.2-2) ...
Processing triggers for menu (2.1.47ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.5-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Unknown media type in type 'all/all'
Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles'
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22+linuxmint1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-icon-theme (3.12.0-1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.15-0ubuntu1) ...