Posted on: February 1, 2017 /
LibreOffice 5.3 was released a few days ago, and it has several new nice features.
Caption 1 LibreOffice 5.3, installed from a snap.
The LibreOffice project provides a tarball for Ubuntu with the new version, that can be downloaded, extracted and then we can run it.
However, we can install a snap with LibreOffice 5.3, which makes it convenient for testing and not messing up our system.
The following apply to Ubuntu 16.04 or newer. It also applies to Ubuntu 14.04 once you follow this tutorial.
Let’s check what snaps are available for LibreOffice.
$ snap info libreoffice name: libreoffice summary: "LibreOffice is a powerful office suite including word processing and creation of spreadsheets, slideshows and databases" publisher: canonical description: | LibreOffice is a powerful office suite – its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most powerful Free and Open Source office suite on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing). channels: stable: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - candidate: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - beta: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - edge: 5.3.0.2 (14) 374MB - $ _
We learn that there are several channels for snaps, and the new version of LibreOffice is currently in the edge channel. This channel is that channel that is less stable than all others. That is, if we go for edge, we are bleeding edge in terms of LibreOffice. And some things may not work due to packaging. By installing this snap, we help in testing the packaging of the LibreOffice snap.
Let’s install LibreOffice from the edge channel:
$ sudo snap install libreoffice --channel=edge libreoffice (edge) 5.3.0.2 from 'canonical' installed $ _
Let’s get some info again from the installed LibreOffice snap.
$ snap info libreoffice name: libreoffice summary: "LibreOffice is a powerful office suite including word processing and creation of spreadsheets, slideshows and databases" publisher: canonical description: | LibreOffice is a powerful office suite – its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice includes several applications that make it the most powerful Free and Open Source office suite on the market: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing). commands: - libreoffice.impress - libreoffice - libreoffice.math - libreoffice.writer - libreoffice.base - libreoffice.calc - libreoffice.draw tracking: edge installed: 5.3.0.2 (14) 374MB - refreshed: 2017-01-19 04:24:50 +0200 EET channels: stable: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - candidate: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - beta: 5.2.3.2 (10) 364MB - edge: 5.3.0.2 (14) 374MB -
We verify that LibreOffice 5.3 was installed and now we know the new commands to run the new version.
Let’s figure out now how to run the new LibreOffice. Because we already have LibreOffice (the stock Ubuntu LibreOffice) installed.
$ whereis libreoffice libreoffice: /usr/bin/libreoffice /usr/lib/libreoffice /etc/libreoffice /usr/share/libreoffice /snap/bin/libreoffice /snap/bin/libreoffice.calc /snap/bin/libreoffice.math /snap/bin/libreoffice.draw /snap/bin/libreoffice.writer /snap/bin/libreoffice.impress /snap/bin/libreoffice.base /usr/share/man/man1/libreoffice.1.gz $ _
The stock LibreOffice is under the /usr tree. The freshly installed LibreOffice is under the /snap tree.
Caption 2 Trying to find “libreoffice” in Dash. It shows both the stock LibreOffice and the snapped LibreOffice.
The icons from both corresponding versions are the same. Empirically, the first for LibreOffice Writer would be the stock LibreOffice, while the second one is the snapped LibreOffice.
We can move the icons on the Launcher and then launch them. If we selected our preferred version, then we are fine. Otherwise, we try with the other same icon.
Here is how LibreOffice 5.3 Writer looks like.