LibreOffice—the open-source Microsoft Office rival—just released version 24.8, positioning it as the best option “for the privacy-conscious office suite user.”

LibreOffice is one of the best alternatives to Microsoft Office, giving users powerful word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database functionality in a familiar interface. Like most open-source software, LibreOffice already has string privacy features, but this latest release leans in to that even more.

LibreOffice is the only office suite, or if you prefer, the only software for creating documents that may contain personal or confidential information, that respects the privacy of the user – thus ensuring that the user is able to decide if and with whom to share the content they have created. As such, LibreOffice is the best option for the privacy-conscious office suite user, and provides a feature set comparable to the leading product on the market. It also offers a range of interface options to suit different user habits, from traditional to contemporary, and makes the most of different screen sizes by optimising the space available on the desktop to put the maximum number of features just a click or two away.

One of the biggest improvements is to the suite’s handling of personal information.

If the option Tools ▸ Options ▸ LibreOffice ▸ Security ▸ Options ▸ Remove personal information on saving is enabled, then personal information will not be exported (author names and timestamps, editing duration, printer name and config, document template, author and date for comments and tracked changes)

The new version also improves interoperability.

• Support importing and exporting OOXML pivot table (cell) format definitions
• PPTX files with heavy use of custom shapes now open faster

As OpenOffice points out, interoperability is a special challenge, especially when it comes to working with Microsoft’s formats.

The biggest advantage over competing products is the LibreOffice Technology engine, the single software platform on which desktop, mobile and cloud versions of LibreOffice – including those provided by ecosystem companies – are based. This allows LibreOffice to offer a better user experience and to produce identical and perfectly interoperable documents based on the two available ISO standards: the Open Document Format (ODT, ODS and ODP), and the proprietary Microsoft OOXML (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX). The latter hides a large amount of artificial complexity, which may create problems for users who are confident that they are using a true open standard.

LibreOffice has been gaining ground as organizations and governments become increasingly wary of being tied into platforms controlled by Big Tech corporations. For example, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein recently made the decision to migrate 30,000 computers to Linux and LibreOffice.

The new version should go a long way toward improving the experience for users transitioning from Microsoft Office.