How to upgrade to Libre Office 7.0 on Linux
Libre Office 7.0 came out recently, but for some reason, a lot of Linux operating systems haven’t yet given users the newest version. If you’re dying to try out the latest Libre Office features on your Linux PC, follow along with the instructions below!
Ubuntu instructions
On Ubuntu Linux, the best way to upgrade from the current release of Libre Office available (6.4) to the newly minted 7.0, is via the official Libre Office PPA. The reason that the PPA is the way to go is that the developers behind Ubuntu don’t currently have plans to give users access to 7.0 quite yet.
To use the PPA, launch a terminal window on the Ubuntu desktop. Once the terminal window is open and ready to go, you can enable the new Libre Office PPA using the add-apt-repository command. The repo has all of the latest Libre Office packages.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/libreoffice-7-0
With the Libre Office PPA set up on your computer, it is time to run the update command. The update command isn’t always required, as Ubuntu often automatically updates after a new PPA is added. However, just to be safe, run the update command so that Ubuntu can see the new Libre Office PPA.
sudo apt update
After running the update command, you will need to run an upgrade. This upgrade will take all of the new Libre Office 7.0 packages from the PPA and replace them with the current Libre Office packages provided by Ubuntu. To do this, run the full-upgrade command. Keep in mind that Libre Office has quite a lot of packages, so this could take a few minutes to complete, depending on disk speed and internet connectivity.
sudo apt full-upgrade
With all of the packages installed via the PPA on Ubuntu, you should now be fully upgraded to Libre Office 7.0. However, if you would like to check to make sure, run the following command in a terminal. You’ll know you’re on 7.0 if the version number says 7.0 in the output.
libreoffice --version
Debian instructions
On Debian, getting to version 7.0 is a little trickier than on Ubuntu, even though the operating systems are incredibly similar. There aren’t any software repositories out there for Debian users to get the latest Libre Office. However, you can still get the latest version by downloading the DEB packages straight from the Libre Office website.
Note: you can also upgrade to Libre Office 7.0 on Debian by following the Flatpak or Snap instructions.
To get the Libre Office 7.0 DEBs for your Debian PC, launch a terminal window on the Debian desktop. Once the terminal window is open, use the CD command to move the command-line session into the “Downloads” directory on your PC. Then, run the wget command to grab the latest Libre Office DEB release.
wget https://mirror.sjc02.svwh.net/tdf/libreoffice/stable/7.0.1/deb/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.0.1_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz
After downloading the latest Libre Office DEB release to your computer, use the tar xvf command to decompress the TarGZ archive. This archive has all of the DEB packages required for the upgrade.
tar xvf LibreOffice_7.0.1_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz
With the archive file extracted, use the CD command to move into the “DEBS” folder, where all of the Libre Office “DEBS” files are, which we need to install to upgrade Libre Office on Debian.
cd LibreOffice_7.0.1.2_Linux_x86-64_deb/DEBS/
Install all of the packages on your Debian Linux PC using the following command below.
sudo apt install ./*.deb
Once everything is installed on Debian, run the version command to determine if everything is up to date.
libreoffice --version
Arch Linux instructions
To get version 7.0 of Libre Office on Arch Linux, you won’t need to enable any third-party software repositories or download packages from the Libre Office website. Instead, you need only install the libreoffice-fresh package. This package provides the absolute latest features for Libre Office.
To install libreoffice-fresh on your Arch Linux PC, enter the following pacman commands in a terminal window.
sudo pacman -R libreoffice-still sudo pacman -S libreoffice-fresh
Once both commands finish running, you will have version 7.0 of Libre Office on your Arch Linux PC!
Fedora/OpenSUSE instructions
Getting Libre Office 7.0 on Fedora Linux and OpenSUSE is done in the same way: download the latest RPM package files from the web and install them. So, we’ve combined the instructions into one. To start the process on your Fedora or OpenSUSE PC, use the wget command to download the Libre Office 7.0 RPM package files.
wget https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/7.0.1/rpm/x86_64/LibreOffice_7.0.1_Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar.gz
After downloading the Libre Office 7.0 archive to your PC, extract it using the tar command. The archive must be extracted; otherwise, the RPM package files will not be able to be installed.
tar xvf LibreOffice_7.0.1_Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar.gz
Move into the RPMS folder using the CD command.
cd LibreOffice_7.0.1.2_Linux_x86-64_rpm/RPMS/
Once inside of the RPM folder, you can install version 7.0 of Libre Office onto your Fedora Linux or OpenSUSE system using the commands below.
Fedora
sudo dnf install *.rpm -y
OpenSUSE
sudo zypper install *.rpm
Flatpak instructions
Libre Office 7.0 is available as a Flatpak. This method of installation is excellent, especially for Linux users with operating systems that don’t offer an easy way of upgrading to the latest release of Libre Office. To start the installation, make sure you have the Flatpak runtime setup on your Linux PC. Then, enter the two commands below to get Libre Office 7.0.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo flatpak install org.libreoffice.LibreOffice
Snap package instructions
Users can install Libre Office 7.0 from the Ubuntu Snap Store. Much like Flatpak, having Libre Office available as a Snap package is excellent, making getting the newest release of Libre Office easy. To start the installation, set up the Snapd runtime on your PC by following this guide. Then, enter the following snap install command.
sudo snap install libreoffice
