[tdf-announce] LibreOffice 4.2

[Tom_Davies1]

Hi
We have had a few threads lately about improving interoperability with
a certain format.

Sadly that format, or at least the various different implementations
of it, seems to show that it's designed to decrease interoperability
between systems as part of a marketing strategy (or something). if
their format doesn't work in other systems then your only real choice
is to buy from them and do so in the full knowledge that you will soon
have to buy from them again (and in the knowledge that documents
created now might not be viewable in a few years).

However it seems the new 4.2.0 HAS put a LOT of work into increasing
interoperability with the newer implementations of the format and have
managed to do so without losing interoperability with MS's older
implementations of that format.

So, once again, it might be the LibreOffice users who are the only
people in their companies who are able to read almost all documents
from almost anyone while MS Office users might be having problems
reading stuff from other versions of MS Office.

Luckily the interoperability issue is apparently a loooong way off
from consuming ALL our resources and the new 4.2.0 seems to have
substantial advantages over previous branches.

The cutest one (imo) is now being able to use iThings (phones and pads
etc) as a remote-control device for Impress Presentations. It seems
really recent that the functionality was written for Androids. It
feels like porting from Android to iOS is easier than the other way
around or maybe it's something else that our devs are doing right and
that other companies struggle with.

The more substantial changes, to accessibility, to Calc, and to the
Windows port of LO are all fantastic but so huge that it's easier to
focus on the cute chunks.

Many congrats to the Devs and to QA and everyone else involved!!
Many thanks and regards from
Tom