ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0 Improves Collaboration and Adds New UI for Plugins

ONLYOFFICE is a nice open source alternative to Microsoft Office for Linux that can be self-hosted on a number of different server configurations. It also offers its desktop edition as ONLYOFFICE Desktop.

In a recent announcement, the ONLYOFFICE team has introduced their first major release of 2024 in the form of ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0. So, let's see what it has to offer.

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🆕 ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0: What's New?

As a major update, this release of ONLYOFFICE Docs has plenty to offer, but some key highlights include:

• Better Spreadsheets
• Initial RTL Support
• Improved Collaboration
• Updated Plugins User Interface

Better Spreadsheets

We start with the Spreadsheets app, where a new “Goal Seek” feature enters that automatically lets you know the input value of a formula by entering the results. This can be practical in situations where you know the final answer, and the formula, but were unsure what input values were used to get that.

Then there's a new “Series” feature that allows you to quickly create number sequences and a new “Chart Wizard” feature that will recommend chart types and show a preview of all the types of charts based on the selected data.

Initial RTL Support

Continuing the work on providing RTL support, ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0 has support for bidirectional text in documents and presentations. However, this doesn't mean there's full support for RTL input yet, there are some limitations now, but they are getting there.

If you were not familiar, RTL stands for Right-to-left that is used to write many languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu and more. Many applications have been adding support for RTL in recent times, and ONLYOFFICE Docs now joins them.

Improved Collaboration

On the collaboration front, ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0 comes equipped with the ability to add user avatars to be displayed in the editor across the suite.

This should make it easier to differentiate the users who are editing any particular file. There's also an improved left panel for use with comments in the document editor.

Updated Plugins User Interface

With this release, it is now possible to use multiple plugins side-by-side, with separate buttons being added to the left panel for each active plugin. It is now much simpler to multitask with plugins, and plugins running in the background are now more accessible from the header menu.

You can also check the changelog of each installed plugin in the Plugin Manager for learning what's new with a recently updated plugin.

🛠️ Other Changes and Improvements

Here are some other changes that you should also keep in mind:

• Regional settings in the Indonesian language.
• New translations for Serbian and Arabic in the editors.
• Ability to create fillable PDF forms that can be filled using the desktop and mobile apps.
• It is now possible to set the final color for the color changing effects when applying animations in presentations.
• Creating new files is faster by up to 15%, opening normal files by up to 20%, and opening large files by up to 15%.

For more information, go through the official release blog to learn more about this.

📥 Download ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0

You can grab ONLYOFFICE Docs from the official website. This is the self-hosted version of ONLYOFFICE.

The developers have also noted that the cloud versions of ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.0 will be available at a later date.

The desktop version upgrade should be around the corner.