What works today¶

Libera Suite is early. This page is a status list: it says what is built, what is half-built and what has not been started, so the gaps are visible in one place.

Known issues¶

This is the short version, for anyone trying Libera Suite for the first time. None of these needs reporting, since they are known and the rest of this page has the detail.


macOS calls it an unidentified developer	The application is not signed with a Developer ID, so Gatekeeper objects the first time. On macOS 15 and later, right-click ▸ Open no longer helps: it is System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ "Open Anyway".
Run from a terminal, the Dock says "Python"	Only when you start `libera` from a `pipx` or virtualenv install. A Dock tile is named after the bundle it was launched from: here, the Python interpreter's, which nothing in the application can change. The icon and the menu bar are ours either way; `Libera.app` says Libera.
Diagrams cannot save	It opens `.vsdx` and shows it. The converter cannot write any Visio format, so there is nothing to save and no blank to start from.
No PDF editing	PDFs are written, not read for editing.
A shallow menu bar, and none on Linux	macOS gets File, Edit, View, Window and Help. Linux gets no menu bar at all, and so no ⌘N-style shortcuts: use the start window or the editor's own File tab.
No tabs	One window per document.
Two copies do not notice each other	There is no file locking. Editing the same document in two windows will lose one set of changes.
No Windows	Not started; it needs a build machine we do not have.

If you hit something that is not on this list, tell us about it.

Works¶


Four editors	macOS on Apple Silicon, Linux on x86_64 and arm64. Words, Tables and Slides edit; Diagrams reads Visio files.
Open and save	Words `.docx .odt .rtf .txt .md`, Tables `.xlsx .ods .csv`, Slides `.pptx .odp`. Save, Save As, New.
Export	Save As offers a format popup per editor, PDF included. Every format offered was checked by converting to it.
Images	Preserved on open and save; Insert ▸ Image works.
Print	Renders to PDF and opens it in your PDF viewer.
Spell checking	Six languages, with suggestions. See below.
Recent documents	File ▸ Open Recent remembers the last 20.
Several documents at once	One window each, as `libera *.docx` or from File ▸ Open. The file's type picks the editor.
A start window	`libera` on its own: new, open, recent, and where the payload came from.
Crash recovery	Unsaved edits are offered back the next time you open the document.
Closing asks	A window with unsaved changes offers Save, Don't Save or Cancel.
A menu bar	File, Edit, View, Window and Help, with the usual shortcuts.
Settings persist	Theme, units, spellcheck language and the like survive a restart.
Payload install	From a local directory of built artifacts, verified against hashes shipped in the application.

Half-built¶

The payload origin. The application knows how to fetch, verify and install its payload from a static server. The server does not exist yet, so in practice you install from a directory.

Linux. Built and tested, on x86_64 and arm64. The payload builds in a pinned container, the suite runs there (275 tests, including every editor loading in headless Chromium and x2t converting documents). A real GTK/WebKitGTK window opens under Xvfb with a document laid out in it. The Flatpak installs a payload inside its sandbox and converts with it.

Linux does not have the menu bar yet. host/menu.py is AppKit, so there is no File menu and none of the keyboard shortcuts that belong to one (see the known issue below). Use the start window, or the editor's own File tab.

Not started¶

No New shortcut on Linux. ⌘N works on macOS because the menu bar owns it. On Linux there is no menu bar, because host/menu.py is AppKit-only; the web layer does not handle the key itself off a Mac either. Measured in the container: the keystroke reaches the editor and nothing follows, for either Ctrl-N or Super-N. libera on its own gives you the start window, which has a New button. The editor's own File tab works too. The test for it is a strict xfail on Linux, so we will be told if it ever starts working.

The application bundle is new and rough. build/macos-app.sh builds Libera.app: double-clicking a document opens it, Libera Suite appears in Open With, and it carries the Libera mark in the Dock. But the bundle is a launcher around the interpreter it was built with (nothing is embedded, signed or notarised), so it is not something you can hand to somebody else yet.

In the editor¶

Password-protected documents. Neither opening nor saving one.
Digital signatures.
Mail merge.
Plugins. Disabled upstream in this fork, so the panel never appears.

In the application¶

Tabs. Windows exist and the Window menu lists them, but they cannot be merged into one window.
File locking. Two copies of Libera Suite editing the same file will not notice each other.
A redistributable application. The bundle runs from your own checkout, embeds no interpreter and no payload, and is neither signed nor notarised.
Drag and drop onto the window or the Dock icon.
Automatic updates, and code signing and notarisation. macOS will treat a Libera Suite you have built as software from an unidentified developer.
Help inside the application. See below.

Elsewhere¶

Editing diagrams. Diagrams opens .vsdx and shows it. The converter cannot write any Visio format, so there is nothing to save and no blank to start from.
PDF editing. The payload has an editor for it; nothing routes to it yet.
Windows. Needs a build machine we do not have yet.
Collaboration, cloud storage, accounts, telemetry. None of it is built, and none of it is being worked on. The roadmap says what each would look like if it arrived, and what leaves your machine lists the application's entire network use.

Notes on specific gaps¶

Help¶

There is no Help menu in the application, and this page is the substitute for now. Upstream ships a full manual, but it documents ONLYOFFICE and weighs 84 MB in eight languages. Libera Suite therefore does not carry it. In-application help comes back when there is documentation of our own to point at.

Spell checking¶

Libera Suite ships dictionaries for English (US and UK), French, German, Spanish and Italian: 9.5 MB, chosen because the full set is 327 MB. Misspellings are underlined and right-click offers suggestions, per the document's language, which you set from the status bar.

A language with no dictionary is not an error: its words are simply treated as correct, which is what upstream's own desktop application does. Adding a language is one line in build/dictionaries.txt and a payload rebuild.

Personal dictionaries (Add to dictionary) are not stored yet, so a word you add comes back next session.

Your name in documents¶

Tracked changes and comments are attributed to a person, whose name is written into the saved file. Libera Suite uses your account's full name, the one macOS knows you by.

There is no way to change it yet. If you need to appear under a different name, that setting has to be built.

Fonts¶

Libera Suite ships a core font set: Liberation, Carlito, Caladea, Open Sans and a few others, enough to render ordinary documents faithfully at 7 MB. The full set is 248 MB. A document that asks for a font outside that set, and outside the fonts installed on your machine, gets a substitute. Widening the set, particularly for CJK, is an open decision.

Rendering fidelity¶

The layout engine is upstream's and is mature. Where you see something wrong, it is much more likely to be our packaging (a missing font, a missing resource) than the engine. That makes such reports especially useful; please send feedback with the file.