A new version of ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, the free, open source productivity suite for Linux, macOS and Windows is out.

ONLYOFFICE 9.2 brings its AI agent to all components within the suite, including Document Editor, Spreadsheet Editor, Presentation Editor, and the PDF Editor.

This makes it possible to generate documents from prompts, analyse and ask questions about document contents, fill in PDF forms and, for anyone feeling especially brave, give the AI Agent access to the local file system.

Introduced in ONLYOFFICE 9.1 as a beta plugin, the v9.2 release sees it mature to ‘stable’ status where it’s ready to setup.

To actually use the AI Agent in ONLYOFFICE users need to provide an API key or login details for a cloud-based AI provider of their choice, like ChatGPT, Gemini. Alternatively, the AI Agent can be connected to a local LLM or MCP server runnings via apps like Ollama.

AI Agent setup screenshots taken in ONLYOFFICE 9.2.
AI Agent setup flow in ONLYOFFICE 9.2

But anyone planning to use the AI Agent whilst working with documents that contain confidential, sensitive or personally-identifiable data should probably seek advice as most third-party AI services have data privacy, training, and retention policies.

On the subject of sensitive data, the PDF Editor redaction tool colour can be customised when blanking out text. While there is no real benefit to one colour over another, it allows for a bit more flexibility when sharing – say, red redact in a draft, blue in a final.

Finally on the ‘big features’ front, ONLYOFFICE 9.2 is able to record actions as macros to re-run at a later date.

“Repetitive tasks can slow down your progress. With the new macro recording feature, you can automate these actions,” they say of the feature. “Simply record a sequence of actions, save it as a macro, and run it whenever you need to perform that task again”.

Blue arrows draw attention to new options in ONLYOFFICE 9.2.
Macro recording and customising shortcuts are new in v9.2

Those who work on documents all the time will find the ability to create custom macros tailored for they workflow a major timesaver. The feature is accessed via View > Record macro, apart from the PDF Editor where it’s not available at all.

Other changes in ONLYOFFICE 9.2.0:

  • Keyboard shortcuts can be customised
  • Insert equations from online sources in Presentation & PDF editors
  • Local PDF templates provided for Forms Editor
  • Forms Editor supports text labels on checkboxes and radio buttons
  • Security fixes

That’s pretty much it; more details in the GitHub release page.

Download ONLYOFFICE 9.2

ONLYOFFICE is available for Windows, macOS and Linux, with downloads available on the software’s official website or the GitHub releases page (packages are under ‘assets’, which needs to be expanded to show all available builds).

The ONLYOFFICE DEB installer supports Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and related distributions but does not set up or add an APT repo. To ‘update’ from an earlier build one needs to download and install the new version.

The official ONLYOFFICE Snap and Flatpak build on Flathub offer a more reliable experience with automatic updates.