
LibreOffice is a popular free and open-source office suite, with free alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. LibreOffice 7.4 has just been released and has some great new features.
LibreOffice 7.4 is a major update, with contributions from 147 developers and support for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The Document Foundation, the organization that manages the development of LibreOffice, also emphasized its extensive language support. “LibreOffice 7.4 Community is released in 120 different language versions, more than any other free or proprietary software,” the group said.
Like almost every LibreOffice update, version 7.4 improves compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. LibreOffice Writer has improved support for borders and erasing breaks in Word documents, and LibreOffice Impress has solutions for embedded media and shapes from PowerPoint files. There are a few other ways to open (and even edit) Microsoft Office files without giving Microsoft your money, but the new update keeps LibreOffice one of the best tools for the job.
There are also some other improvements. The entire suite now supports WebP graphics and new options are available for the ScriptForge script library (LibreOffice’s equivalent of Office macros). Writer has improved change tracking and new hyphenation settings, and Impress now supports document themes. Calc, the spreadsheet application, can now use sheets with 16,384 columns.

The update also includes initial support for dark mode on Windows 10 and 11. You can find the option at Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Advanced > “Enable experimental feature (possibly unstable).” This changes the application interface to a dark theme, but the document area remains untouched. If you also want the documents to look dark, you should also go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Application Colors > LibreOffice Dark. Hopefully, all of that will be automatic (or at least more easily accessible) in future releases.
LibreOffice 7.4 is available for Linux, Windows 7 SP1 and later, and macOS 10.12 and later. It is available to download from the official site. If you like it, consider donating to the Document Foundation so it can keep pumping out LibreOffice updates.
Source: Document Foundation Blog, Official Changelog
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