The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 25.2, the latest iteration of its popular open-source office suite. The biggest change might be that support for Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 is now deprecated.

The update brings a slew of new features and improvements across Writer, Calc, Impress, and other components, but perhaps the biggest change here is the fact that Windows 7 and 8/8.1 are now officially deprecated, with support set to be completely removed in version 25.8, scheduled for release later this year. You can technically still install this specific version on those older operating systems, but it will be the last one. If you want to continue using this software with the latest updates, you’ll want to download at least Windows 10—which, by the way, is also on its way to reach end-of-life (EOD) later this year, so maybe look into Windows 11 or desktop Linux instead.

While Windows 7 and 8.1 both served users well for years, they are now really old, unsupported operating systems. Microsoft itself ended mainstream support for Windows 7 in 2020, and Windows 8.1 also reached that stage back in 2023. These older systems lack the latest security updates and increasingly struggle to run modern software efficiently, and most of the software we use daily has either ended support for these operating systems or is about to remove support for them. LibreOffice is at least giving you a heads-up and not killing support immediately.

LibreOffice 25.2 also includes support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.4 update, which Microsoft Office added a while ago. There’s a new “personal information removal” feature, which is a major privacy enhancement that allows users to strip all personal data from documents, including author names, timestamps, edit history, and more. Additionally, you can now automatically sign documents after setting up a default certificate. Like most LibreOffice updates, this has many small changes that all add up to a better experience.

You can check out the full changelog at the Document Foundation’s website, and you can download LibreOffice from the official website. Also, if you’re still on an older version of Windows, LibreOffice is far from the only reason to upgrade.

Source: LibreOffice