LibreOffice Brandon Werner Screen Reader Specialist, University of Michigan brwern@umich.edu

Summary of Presentation Introduction to LibreOffice and some of its uses Demonstration of LibreOffice features Discussion regarding accessibility improvements and challenges that still remain.

Introduction LibreOffice is an office suite similar to Microsoft Office. With this software, it is possible to create documents with advanced formatting, do work involving spreadsheets, create presentations, and work with databases. The software can be downloaded from www.libreoffice.org.

Introduction (2) The software is available for multiple operating system platforms including Windows, Macintosh, and Unix-like systems. This software is also available free of charge making it more affordable than other office suites currently in use. LibreOffice requires less disk space and requires less RAM and CPU power to provide a pleasant operating experience than some other popular office suites. Assistive technology already requires a lot of disk space and memory to operate so this is an advantage.

Accessibility of LibreOffice LibreOffice is a large piece of software and large portions can be used by screen reader users very successfully. There are still some shortcomings in the software related to accessibility, however, rapid development is taken place since the fork from OpenOffice and one of the areas of focused development has been accessibility. The main programs I have used in LibreOffice are Writer which is used to create documents, Calc which is used to prepare spreadsheets, and Impress which is used for presentations. During this presentation, I will demonstrate the Writer and Calc Applications with the NVDA screen reader.

Compatibility with Microsoft Office LibreOffice saves documents by default in the open document format which is an open standard. It can also save documents in the binary Microsoft formats that are compatible with Microsoft Office 2003 and older It saves documents in the XML based formats as well which are compatible with Office 2007 and newer. The advantage of the wide range of format support is that it provides an avenue for collaborating with users using a wide range of Microsoft software which is currently the most popular office suite in use.

Startup Wizard The Startup Wizard provides information on recently opened files. It also gives a list of templates that can be chosen for new projects. Within the startup wizard, there are also buttons that allow opening each of the applications that are included in LibreOffice. Demonstration

Commonalities Among Applications All applications include the work area specific to that application. Examples: document area for Writer, spreadsheet for Calc. Toolbars, menu bars, and a sidebar are also included in each application.

Keyboard Commands Press Alt plus a quick key to go to one of the menus in the menu bar. Use F6 and Shift+F6 to move between the work area, menu bar, toolbars, and sidebar. When in the Sidebar, or toolbars, the Tab and Shift+Tab keys can be used to move between items. The Up and Down arrow keys can be used to move between items in a menu or main categories in the sidebar. The Left and Right arrow keys can be used to move between menus in the menu bar.

Writer Demonstration Write and Navigate content. Formatting features. Spell check Headers and footers. Navigator Table Accessibility

Calc Demonstration Many similarities exist between all of the LibreOffice applications. Typing data in cells and navigating Function dialog and insertion. Demonstrate statistical functions that were a recent addition to Calc.

Accessibility Challenges There are still some parts of LibreOffice that are inaccessible. Examples: charts and text boxes. Managing comments (track changes) can also be difficult. It is important to remember that this suite of programs is rapidly being developed and accessibility issues are frequently fixed as they are reported. Any accessibility issues found can be reported at bugs.documentfoundation.org.

Conclusion With recent developments, LibreOffice has become a very usable alternative to Microsoft Office for performing many tasks. However, it is important to analyze all tools to determine which tool will best perform the task at hand. One nice thing about both LibreOffice and Microsoft Office is that they can be installed on the same computer with no conflicts and can actually be used at the same time. I personally use this software quite a lot and I think other users will find it a worthwhile addition to the toolbox of software they already use.

Questions

Demonstrations if Extra Time Pivot tables in Calc. Styles and formatting in the sidebar of all applications.