Chapter 1 Introducing LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a freely available open source office productivity suite that is compatible with other major office suites (for example Microsoft Office Suite) and is available on a variety of platforms. LibreOffice is a compendium of business applications that are targeted at solving key productivity challenges within an organization. The business applications consist of six modules namely Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Maths and Draw. The table below briefly summarises the key functionality of each module.
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| Writer | This is a word processor, a feature-rich tool for creating letters, books, reports, newsletters, brochures, and other documents. Writer can export files to HTML, XHTML, XML, Portable Document Format (PDF), and EPUB; and it can save files in many formats, including several versions of Microsoft Word files. |
| Calc | This is a spreadsheet and has all of the advanced analysis, charting, and decision making features expected from a high-end spreadsheet. You can also open and work with Microsoft Excel workbooks and save them in Excel format. Calc can also export spreadsheets in several formats, including for example comma separated value (CSV), AdobePDF and HTML formats. |
| Impress | This is for presentations and provides all the common multimedia presentation tools, such as special effects, animation, and drawing tools. Impress can open, edit, and save Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and can also save your work in numerous graphics formats. |
| Base | This is a database engine andc provides tools for day-to-day database work within a simple interface. It can create and edit forms, reports, queries, tables, views, and relations, so that managing a relational database is much the same as in other popular database applications. Base incorporates two relational database engines, HSQLDB and Firebird. It can also use PostgreSQL, dBASE, Microsoft Access, MySQL, Oracle, or any ODBC compliant or JDBC compliant database. |
| Math | This is a formula or equation editor which can be used to create complex equations that include symbols or characters not available in standard font sets. |
| Draw | This is a vector graphics drawing tool that can produce everything from simple diagrams or flowcharts to 3D artwork. |
As suggested by the title, this book is dedicated to LibreOffice Draw the vector drawing tool.
1.1 A short history of LibreOffice
The LibreOffice suite owes its lineage to a solution called “The OpenOffice.org” project which began when Sun Microsystems released the source code (“blueprints”) for its StarOffice® software to the open source community on October 13, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0, the product, was released on April 30, 2002. Major updates to OpenOffice.org included version 2.0 in October 2005 and version 3.0 in October 2008. On January 26, 2010, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems.
On September 28, 2010, the community of volunteers who develop and promote OpenOffice.org announced a major change in project structure. After ten years’ successful growth with Sun Microsystems as founding and principle sponsor, the project launched an independent foundation called The Document Foundation, to fulfill the promise of independence written in the original charter. This foundation is the cornerstone of a new ecosystem where individuals and organizations can contribute to and benefit from the availability of a truly free office suite.
Unable to acquire the trademarked OpenOffice.org name from Oracle Corporation, The Document Foundation named its product LibreOffice. Continuing the version numbers from OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice 3.3 was released in January 2011 and version 7.0 was released in August 2020.
1.2 Free and Open Source Software
LibreOffice is thus Free and Open Source Software and is available for everyone to use, share and modify; it is produced by a worldwide community of hundreds of developers. The four essential rights of open-source software are embodied within the Free Software Foundation’s family of the GNU General Public License (GPL):
- The right to use the software for any purpose.
- Freedom to redistribute the software for free or for a fee.
- Access to the complete source code of the program.
- The right to modify any part of the source, or use portions of it in other programs.
1.3 Zooming in on LibreOffice Draw
Now that we know a bit about LibreOffice and also know that LibreOffice Draw is part of the LibreOffice suite of applications and also know that LibreOffice Draw is a vector drawing tool, you may be wondering: “what is a vector drawing?” If it’s not a vector drawing, what is it?
In answering the question, please think of the images typically stored in a computer. Most of the images are stored in a format called emph{rasters} or emph{bitmaps}. A raster image is a primitive representation of an image using a lattice of small rectangular areas called emph{pixels}. These pixels stores information such as the colour of each pixel (sometimes transparency as well). Whilst one could change the colour of pixels from say green to red, this is not an exercise for the faint hearted.
Some of the key advantages of working with vector images are:
- Vector images are scalable meaning that when you view a drawing at any resolution, you will never see any jaggedness, pixelation or undesired blurring.
- Vector images are always editable which ensures that, whatever the level of complexity of the drawing, you can always pick out any object in the drawing and edit it.
So what is actually stored in a vector drawing? The most common vector object type is a path; a path is simply an instruction that says “draw a straight line from here to there”; another path may be an instruction that says “draw a smooth curve around a particular point; further, the path itself may have a particular type of fill and a particular type of stroke.
1.4 LibreOffice Draw and its competition
Draw has competing solutions both from the private sector as well as from the open source sector. From the private sector, the indisputable leader is Adobe Illustrator (https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator.html). Another competing solution in the private sector is CorelDRAW (https://www.coreldraw.com/en/?link=wm). Then there are online vector editors such as Xara (https://www.xara.com/).
In the open source space, a solution that stands prominently has to be InkScape (https://inkscape.org/).
However, Draw holds its ground and boasts sound functionality expected from a vector drawing application. These include drawing basic shapes, combining multiple objects, editing images, working with 3D objects, flowcharts and organizational charts, adding and formatting text and finally printing, emailing and exporting your work of art.