Monthly Archives: March 2015

  • LibreOffice 4.4.1 – a vast improvement

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Open Standards, Tech

    Yesterday my laptop’s install of LibreOffice was upgraded from version 4.3.3.2 (which is the latest version available for Debian Jessie) to the latest available version – LibreOffice 4.4.1.

    As there is no specific Debian repository that I can find for newer versions of LibreOffice, this process had to be done manually.

    The first stage was to download the zipped .deb packages required, i.e. the main installer, followed by the British English user interface. These were then unzipped in preparation for installation.

    However, before installation could take place, the older version of the suite had to be removed. This was done via the command line by opening a terminal and typing (as root):

    apt-get remove --purge libreoffice-core libreoffice-common

    Now the new version could be installed, once again via a terminal opened in the folder to which the main program’s .deb packages had been unzipped. This time the command – once more as root – is again straightforward:

     dpkg -i *

    Once the main program had been installed, the British English user interface could then be installed by running the dpkg command in the folder containing the relevant .deb, substituting the asterisk for the relevant package name.

    And that was it: I now had the latest release running.

    screenshot of LibreOffice About window

    As regards this release itself, The Document Foundation blog reported that over 100 bugs had been fixed compared with version 4.4.0.

    As someone whose days are spent slaving over a word processor and quite often has to use text effects such as subscript and superscript, I’m very pleased to see that these are included as standard on one of LibreOffice Writer’s toolbars.

    screenshot of LibreOffice Writer toolbar

    Putting on my linguist’s hat, another great addition to Writer’s toolbars is the special character menu shown by the capital L bar icon (Ł). This opens up the character selector – in my case kcharselect – for those special characters whose keyboard shortcuts one doesn’t happen to know. 🙂

    toolbar showing the capital L bar icon for special characters

    My overall impression is that LibreOffice 4.4.1 is the best LibreOffice to date. The redesigned toolbars will help make me more productive since I won’t need to go hunting around through menus quite so much, which can slow one down.

    My thanks to The Document Foundation and its developers for a great piece of work.

  • TidyBS5 petition goes live

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    There’s now a petition online calling on Bristol City Council to increase its efforts to get a grip on litter and fly-tipping in its Easton and Lawrence Hill wards (posts passim) and make scenes like the one below of Jane Street in Redfield a thing of the past.

    Jane Street fly-tipping
    Image courtesy of Amy Harrison

    The text of the petition reads as follows:

    We, the undersigned, petition Bristol City Council to enforce penalties for fly-tipping and dropping litter and find lasting solutions to these two problems. Easton and Lawrence Hill wards have for many decades suffered from both litter and fly-tipping. Where communal household waste bins have been installed, residents have found that they are used by people from outside the area for disposing of their waste, as well as local traders abusing them to dispose of trade waste. The fly-tipping sometimes involves hazardous materials. Litter and fly-tipping also encourage the presence of vermin such as rats. In some places the communal bins are also used as a cover for unhygienic actions such as defecating and urinating in the street, making them unsafe for children to play in.

    Templates for collecting signatures on paper have also been sent to local councillors Afzal Shah, Marg Hickman and Hibaq Jama, as well as Up Our Street.

    Sign the petition.

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