Collabora Online 6.4.6 makes it easier to produce professionally printed materials and at the same time more fun to work with. The two new features responsible for this are the Gutter Margins, currently only available in Online, the newly added Fontwork objects and more fixes. These features, first released in CODE 6.4.6, have been tested extensively and are now also available in the business-hardened version of Collabora Online. You can find additional information on GitHub and inside the Collabora Online 6.4 release notes.
Professional page formatting with Gutter Margins
Writer now features improved support for gutter margins. This is often requested for government documentation and really popular among our users in Asian countries. Mind that this new feature is not yet available for Writer on desktop. You can test it on desktop though, with the unstable snapshot of our supported Collabora Office version. This work is of course also being committed to the next LibreOffice release.
How to use the new gutter margins
This margin type can be specified explicitly, and it is also possible to select whether the gutter should be located on the left or at the top. The feature works with mirrored margins as well and is very useful for printed publications. To utilize this feature, access the Page Style dialog through the Layout tab. In the Page dialog you will find a new Gutter option below the Margin settings. On the right-hand side there is a drop-down menu that lets you choose the Gutter position (left or top). The small page icon in the dialog renders a preview of the margin size.
Microsoft Word also includes a gutter margin option, so this feature is also an interoperability improvement. When importing or exporting documents, this feature is now supported with DOCX, DOC, ODP, and RTF formats. While the feature has been primarily developed for Collabora Online, it is also available in the desktop version. If you are interested in more, and technical, details of this implementation, please take a look at the blog by developer Miklos Vajna.
Fontwork – graphical text art for your documents
Fontwork objects are fun to work with and are a good way to add some visual highlights to your documents. Using them in Collabora Online is very straightforward. After choosing a Fontwork object from the gallery, double-click the object to update the text. When selected, the colour, transparency, and the orientation of the graphical text can be adjusted through the Sidebar. The new Fontwork panel makes it easy to work with the characters’ height, or change the alignment and the character spacing. If you are using Collabora Online via your mobile phone’s browser you will benefit from the mobile-friendly interface, as shown in these images.
The main colour of the Fontwork object is defined by the Area colour, similar as to when working with Shapes. You can also choose from different types of fills (e.g. colour, gradient, bitmap, pattern) and set the transparency. Secondary or tertiary colours of Fontwork can be defined through the Line or Shadow colour.
New configuration option for integrators
Collabora Online now does support the FileUrl property of WOPI. This is a URI to the file location that the WOPI client uses to get the file and can be used to get the file instead of a GetFile request. FileUrl brings better performance in some configurations and has been implemented in cooperation with partners.
About Collabora Productivity
Collabora Productivity is the driving force behind putting LibreOffice in the cloud, providing Collabora Online and a range of products and consulting to enterprise and government. Powered by the largest team of certified LibreOffice engineers in the world, it is a leading contributor to the LibreOffice codebase and community. Collabora Office for Desktop and Collabora Online provide a business-hardened office suite with long-term, multi-platform support. Collabora Productivity is a division of Collabora, the global software consultancy dedicated to providing the benefits of Open Source to the commercial world, specializing in mobile, automotive and consumer electronics industries. For more information, visit www.collaboraoffice.com or follow Collabora Office on Twitter .
