A new version of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, an open-source office suite available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, has been released.
ONLYOFFICE 9.1 adds minor new features, UI tweaks and refinements to each component within the productivity set. Nothing as eye-catching as the AI integrations and theme revamp the ONLYOFFICE 9.0 release added earlier this year, but welcome all the same.
Below I whip through what’s been added in this, the latest stable release.
What’s New in ONLYOFFICE 9.1?
ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors includes a word processor, spreadsheet tool, presentation maker, form creator and a PDF viewing and editing app, and is able to work with Microsoft Office file formats like DOCX, XLSX, PPTX.
Each of those separate components can now handle HEIF images; display charts that use external data sources (embedded file or a source link); and provide colour mode options in the print preview menu — small, welcome improvements.
For those who work collaboratively, sending and receiving files with others, adding and replying to comments as documents take shape, this update provides controls over how/which comments are shown within the commenting side panel.
No-one likes losing work so ONLYOFFICE 9.1 includes a new document recovery mechanism. If the app crashes when a file has unsaved changes, relaunching the app restores the document with edits that had been made but not saved.
Elsewhere, PDF and PPTX files can be converted to TXT; 2D pie and doughnut charts can use an “explosion” layout; chart editor can allows selective enabling of diagram elements (e.g., axis titles, data labels, etc), and cloud templates can be previewed.
PDF Editor Changes
ONLYOFFICE 9.1 debuts with a new Redact tools in the PDF Editor app. This makes it easier for users to scrub out any sensitive details, or even entire pages, from a document they plan to share with others using the ‘Redact’ tab when a document is open in editing mode.
A number of new annotation shapes are now available in the Comment tab, including rectangles, circles, arrows, and connected lines. These make it easier to draw (literally) attention to specific parts of document being worked on – or just to make it look pretty!
Graphics and forms can now be copy and pasted into documents in the PDF Editor, and SmartArt and charts can be inserted into PDFs directly (SmartArt is an ONLYOFFICE feature that lets users turn plain text into organised diagrams with colours and shapes).
Spreadsheet Editor Changes
Spreadsheet Editor in ONLYOFFICE 9.1 picks up a variety of performance improvements. Oft-used lookup functions (such as LOOKUP, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, and XLOOKUP) said to be “up to 4x faster exact and linear searches”.
Formula calculations now consume less memory, and when entering a formula the active argument is highlighted.
It’s now possible to set text direction for cells in a document using the new text direction button in the Home tab. This is a long-standing feature request from ONLYOFFICE users who exchange documents with users who work in languages which aren’t left-to-right.
Beyond that comes better logic when handling mixed data types, plus support for date filters in pivot tables, inserting mathematical formulas from the MathML format, and opening files with content controls like spin buttons, list boxes, scroll bars, and combo boxes.
A new Table Design tab in the toolbar (this only appears when working with a table) is the new location for table formatting options, and users can now rename a sheet by double-clicking on its name without extra windows opening.
Document, Presentation and Forms Editor
Document Editor in ONLYOFFICE 9.1 now allows section breaks within content controls at any nesting level, gains support for viewing HWPML text documents, and includes a new chart editor for working with embedded XLSX files.
Presentation Editor gains a new Master Slider tab (settings that were previously in the Insert tab) and brings an embedded audio/video player to users on macOS. Forms Editor improves the UI around field editing, and renames a couple of buttons.
An important security fix makes it in this release, patching an XSS vulnerability when hyperlinks in documents are processed by the app.
More details can be found in the release announcement, a recent webinar on YouTube (for the hosted Docs version, but the changes are present in the desktop apps too), and in the the ONLYOFFICE 9.1 changelog on GitHub.
Download ONLYOFFICE 9.1
Users on Windows, macOS and Linux can download ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors from the official website, or get an latest installer from the official GitHub releases page (unfurl ‘assets’ at the bottom to find the DEB installer for Ubuntu, Linux Mint, et al).
To receive automatic updates of new versions of ONLYOFFICE when released, Linux users can install the official ONLYOFFICE Snap package or install ONLYOFFICE from Flathub as a Flatpak.