LibreOffice 25.8 to End Support for Windows 7/8/8.1, Paving the Way for Modern Alternatives

Developers from The Document Foundation have unveiled the release of LibreOffice 25.8 Beta 1 for public testing on Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms. The final stable version of LibreOffice 25.8 is expected to be released by the end of August 2025.

This new iteration of the software includes enhanced features for Writer, Calc, and Impress, fixes for previously identified issues, and introduces a privacy function in the Auto-Redact tool that allows users to remove all images from documents. Furthermore, the project has improved its capacity to handle varied languages in punctuation, reducing confusion in multilingual documents.

In LibreOffice 25.8, Calc will gain a variety of new functionalities that bring it closer to competitors like Excel, including TEXTSPLIT, VSTACK, and WRAPROWS. Additionally, Impress now properly supports embedded fonts in PPTX files, alleviating issues when sharing presentations with PowerPoint users. The open-source office suite also features minor user interface enhancements, such as the ability to enter rotation mode for objects in Writer and Calc with just a single click. Users on macOS will benefit from improved integration with proper support for the native fullscreen mode and new window management features from the Sequoia update.

Alongside these enhancements and refinements, the LibreOffice developers are also streamlining support for older operating systems. They have announced that support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 will be completely discontinued starting with LibreOffice 25.8 and future releases. Users needing to operate on these older systems will have to stick with LibreOffice 25.2 or LibreOffice 24.8.

Previously, The Document Foundation, the creator of LibreOffice, joined an initiative called End of 10, which focuses on migrating older PCs from Windows 10 to Linux-based distributions. «You are not obliged to follow Microsoft’s upgrade path. There is a better option that returns control to users, institutions, and government bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two solutions provide a powerful, privacy-friendly, and future-oriented alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem,» explained representatives from The Document Foundation.