LibreOffice 7.2 arrives with a new HUD and greatly improving compatibility with Microsoft Office

After v7.1.5, and after more than six months of development, The Document Foundation has had the pleasure of announce the launch of LibreOffice 7.2. They continue, and will continue, adding the Community tag, since since 7.1 an Enterprise version with improved support is available, but this edition is the LibreOffice that most of us have been using for years. The project presents this update as a strong interoperability, in part by introducing common enhancements.

In each and every release, LibreOffice improves its compatibility with the most popular office suite, and in LibreOffice 7.2, more than 60% of the changes code focus on interoperability with Microsoft proprietary file formats. This work to improve compatibility is something you can't stop doing, and it will still never be perfect. Those who do not want any surprises, well, it is recommended to use Microsoft Office.

LibreOffice 7.2 Highlights

• New command HUD to search and perform actions.
• New dark theme.
• Fonts panel in the sidebar.
• Native support for the Apple M1.
• Improvements in support for EMF / WMF metadata formats.
• Enhancements for OLE bound in documents.
• The backend for Skia-based drawings has been improved.
• Improved drawing speed on large images.
• Writers:
  • Background fills can cover entire pages, beyond the margins.
  • Page styles can now have a margin of separation.
  • The mail merge displays a warning about non-existent data sources.
  • RDF metadata in the Style inspector.
  • Custom colors of metadata fields.
• calculation:
  • Calc can now filter by color in AutoFilter.
  • The HTML tables listed in the External Data dialog now display captions.
  • "Fat cross" cursor available in the options.
  • The type can be selected on the "Moving Average" trend lines.
• Impress and Draw:
  • New templates: Candy, Freshes, Gray Elegant, Growing Liberty, Yellow Idea.
  • Multiple columns can now be used in text boxes.
  • Direct access to the scale factor through the status bar.

LibreOffice 7.2 It is now available for download from official website. The Document Foundation continues to recommend 7.1.5 as a release for production teams.