Installing the latest free 3.5rc3 libreoffice productivity tools

The problem with the built-in package system in Ubuntu is that the softwares in the repositories may be one or two or even three versions behind! My old version of libreoffice was at 3.4. It is now at Version 3.5. But the disadvantage of manually installing the latest version is that there will be NO automatic updates!

1. Download the compressed installer
Visit http://www.libreoffice.org/download/ and choose http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/3.5.0/deb/x86_64/LibO_3.5.0_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz for 64 bit systems. Of course, if your system is 32 bit, choose http://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/3.5.0/deb/x86/LibO_3.5.0_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
2. Uncompressed the downloaded file
For Ubuntu, the file will be saved in ~/home/Downloads/ subdirectory. cd to that in the terminal and issue tar xzvvf LibO_3.5.0_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz. This will create a subdirectory LibO_3.5.0rc3_Linux_x86-64_install-deb_en-US/. cd to that directory.
3. Remove old traces of LibreOffice
Now remove any trace of old versions of LibreOffice. If you have installed the old version using synaptic or the software installer of Ubuntu, you can try sudo apt-get remove libreoffice. Then issue sudo apt-get purge. To ensure there are no remaining traces of the old installation, try using locate libreoffice. The directories containing old versions are usually /opt/libreoffice, /opt/libreoffice3.4, /var/libreoffice and some others.
4. Install the downloaded file
Simpy type on the terminal sudo dpkg -i *.deb in the uncompressed directory.
5. Install the desktop integration.
In the same decompressed directory issue

cd desktop-intergration
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Your new LibreOffice installation should now be able to run from the Destkop GUI Applications.

Congratulations on having a free alternative to Microsoft Windows Office Applications in Linux Operating sytem.

Hooray for Libre Office 3.3!

Take a look at the impressive list of new features of the LibreOffice, the opensource and still free fork of the OpenOffice package or OO. OO is now under the control of the new owner of Sun Microsystems and software products and we are glad the fork will develop into a more open and inviting office productivity software.

The impressive list of features and fixes (to the last OO version) is available in
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/new-features-and-fixes/

We are still downloading the software as we write this. Should be able to add more to this blog post.


Update: You dont have to download manually any deb packages if you are using the latest Ubuntu! I wasted time for the downloading and manual install via dpkg -i install command.
Instead the reader should consult https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LibreOffice. LibreOffice is part of the latest Ubuntu OS! The first step is to add the package repository so we would be able to get any latest updates.

Here are the steps:

1. Install the repository for libreoffice.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
2. Next perform an update.
sudo apt-get update
3. Then do the package install
sudo apt-get install libreoffice At this point however libreoffice is not available from the Applications menu! You still have to install the GNOME interface package.
4. sudo apt-get install libreoffice-gnome