The Document Foundation has released LibreOffice 26.2, a maintenance update emphasizing performance enhancements and better compatibility across its office suite. This version includes contributions from Collabora Productivity exceeding 2,000 commits and targets improvements in Writer, Calc, and Impress. Open-source users gain from features like enhanced Excel integration and Markdown support without relying on proprietary AI-driven tools.
LibreOffice 26.2 arrived on February 5, 2026, as a point release from The Document Foundation, reinforcing its role as a privacy-focused alternative to commercial office suites. Governments and organizations increasingly adopt it for cost savings and data security, avoiding AI data-sharing concerns.
In Writer, pagination and tracking see refinements: floating tables now respect keep-with-next settings without splitting paragraph attributes, preventing odd page breaks. The editor supports splitting floating tables for improved DOCX exports, cleans up partly deleted paragraphs in Track Changes to avoid list clutter, and enables auto-captioning for pasted images when configured. New paragraph alignments, "Start" and "End," adapt to text direction, aiding mixed left-to-right and right-to-left documents.
Calc benefits from performance boosts, including BIFF12 clipboard support for smoother pasting from Excel and faster scrolling in sheets with hidden columns. Connector shapes aid diagram creation, while Remove Duplicates and Reject All Changes operations accelerate. XLSX files now default to the Excel 2010-365 format on save.
Impress improves Windows audio and video playback via Microsoft Media Foundation for native codec support. The Layouts panel and Theme dialog adopt IconView widgets for a streamlined interface.
Other updates fix 3D chart performance, enhance Windows Google Drive authentication, and speed up EPUB exports with a progress bar. Markdown import and export now work, supporting clipboard operations and ODT/DOCX templates. Graphics upgrades make Skia rendering standard on Windows and macOS, with faster SVG pattern fills on Linux.
Linux users can install via Flathub or await distro updates; others download from the official site or use tar packages.
