How to update LibreOffice

LibreOffice is under active development and the version that is maintained by Ubuntu can be pretty ancient. It is easy to remove that and update to the latest LibreOffice.

• Remove the old LibreOffice:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*

• Download the .deb of the latest LibreOffice from here.

• Unzip the downloaded .tar.gz file. You will find a DEBS directory. Install all the .deb packages in it:

$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb

• You can launch the programs of LibreOffice from the shell as explained here. LibreOffice downloaded from their website has a binary that has the version in it. For example, libreoffice-4.4. Use this instead of libreoffice.

• You might notice that LibreOffice does not add any entries to the Dash. You need to add them manually. An easy method to do this is by using the Main Menu (aka AlaCarte) tool as explained here. Icons for the LibreOffice programs can be found at /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/.

• You might also want to associate the new LibreOffice programs for their filetypes. Thankfully, LibreOffice entries corresponding to the version you installed will appear in the Open With dialog.

Tried with: LibreOffice 4.4.4.3 and Ubuntu 14.04