LibreOffice 3.6 RC1 released for testing and user feedback (PPA available)

LibreOffice 3.6 series has reached a release candidate stage, pre-release version mainly targeted for bug fixes and testing, testing that is to generate user feedback.

The in-progress 3.6 series introduces numerous minor yet relevant visual changes, as well as bug fixes, optimizations and speed improvements.

The first noticeable change is the new green splash screen, green pattern used in the About dialog, too. The change introduces a refreshed look&feel, change landed in LibreOffice after a community public vote.

Users are to easily observe and analyze documents' words number, due to the bottom-bar's word count area, featuring a double-sided functionality, meaning, if there are no word selected, the mentioned area displays the total words number, if there are words selected (like for instance, selecting one third from a full page), the area displays the total words number and the total selected words number.

The PDF Export gained support for watermarks, under LibreOffice Writer-->File-->Export as PDF-->check Sign with Watermark-->type text Sign with Watermark

Along with various line removals, the refreshed rulers (featuring minimalistic, clean, more integrated aspect) bring an overall light, more pleasant-to-the-eye look&feel.

The full list of (in-progress) changes are available on http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.6

User willing to test and report bugs are to install LibreOffice 3.6 RC1 via its official pre-releases PPA (Precise, Quantal).

sudo apt-get purge libreoffice-core
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-prereleases

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libreoffice

Bugs can be reported on https://bugs.launchpad.net/~libreoffice