The free Office alternative has a new marketplace that's designed to make it easier to add functionality to the software suite.
The Document Foundation has released a major overhaul of the extensions and templates marketplace for its open source LibreOffice productivity suite.
LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office and Google Docs, and includes replacement applications for Word (Writer), Excel (Calc) and PowerPoint (Impress). The productivity suite is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux, and can downloaded from the LibreOffice website.
The marketplace currently contains 304 extensions that add additional functionality to the office suite, along with 339 ready-to-use document templates.
Among the most popular extensions currently on offer are a clip art gallery of danger signs, a spreadsheet feature to copy only visible cells, a multilingual proofreading tool (pictured above) and a tool for inserting mathematical equations into documents.
Popular templates include a personal budget spreadsheet, a simple invoice layout, a curriculum vitae template and a bundle of presentation designs.
“Two of LibreOffice’s most distinctive characteristics are the possibility of adding features through extensions, and improving quality and consistency of documents thanks to templates”, Document Foundation deputy board member Andreas Mantke said.
“[The refresh will] make it easier for developers to upload their files, and for end users to search and download them. I’d love to see an increasing number of contributors uploading extensions and templates.”
The overhaul follows the launch of similar download marketplaces from commercial software vendors such as Xero and Facebook in recent months.
It also comes after Google last month released a new feature allowing custom templates to be created across Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms.
