On February 14, the newest release of LibreOffice (version 3.5), was released. LibreOffice is the fork of OpenOffice, a longtime open-source office suite for Mac, Windows and Linux, that has become popular with most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. The problem for Ubuntu users wanting the newest version is that the installable copy of LibreOffice offered in Ubuntu's repositories is 3.4.3, which isn't even the newest version in the 3.4 series (3.4.5 was released on January 16).
For Ubuntu users wanting the latest and greatest, a LibreOffice PPA (personal package archive) is avaialble, but as of now, that PPA still doesn't have the 3.5 series. What to do? Thankfully, it's a simple enough process to install the individual packages available directly from the LibreOffice website. Here's how to do it in Ubuntu.
First, head to the LibreOffice downloads page, located here.
Then scroll down to see the available packages. You'll see the newest – version 3.5 – as well as the 3.4.5 packages. Ubuntu users will need to click the menu (shown below), and select the proper download for their system. Both 32-bit and 64-bit options are available.
Now download both the help files as well as the main installer package. The first should be less than 10 MB in size, while the full installation should be close to 150 MB.
When finished, you should see two tar.gz files on your Desktop (or whatever your download directory is).
Now, right-click and extract the two archives.
Next we'll open up the Terminal. The rest of our work will take place there.
If you still have the Ubuntu version of LibreOffice, we'll need to delete it. To do that, type sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-core –purge (which will remove that package as well as all packages that rely on it, and its configuratio files).
Next, use the 'cd' command to switch to the DEB folder inside the main installer folder.
Once here, type sudo dpkg -i *.deb into the Terminal. This command will install all files ending in ".deb" located in the same directory, which in this case includes all the files necessary to install LibreOffice.
Once this is complete, type 'cd' and then hit the space bar, which will change your working directory to the desktop-integration folder, which contains one more package, necessary for adding LibreOffice to Debian-based menu systems.
Now run the same command as before (sudo dpkg -i *.deb) to install this package.
Now type 'cd' by itself to change your working directory to your home folder, then use the 'cd' command once more to change your working directory to the DEB folder inside the help system folder.
Finally, use the same sudo dpkg -i *.deb to install the help files.
When this is finished, you should find LibreOffice in your menu system, completely up-to-date and ready to use!
At this point, should a newer version appear (either in the standard Ubuntu repositories or the LibreOffice PPA), the version on your computer will not be upgraded, as it uses different names for some of the underlying libraries. Waiting for up-to-date versions to show up in official software channels might be simplest, but installing it by hand works quite well, if you just can't wait.
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