LibreOffice 25.8.5 Brings Needed Fixes and a Few Annoyances
LibreOffice 25.8.5 landed on the official download page this week, and most users will wonder whether it’s worth clicking “Update now.” This article spells out the real‑world changes, points out the quirks that have already annoyed some power users, and shows how to squeeze a bit more polish from the new Aptos font bundle.
What’s actually inside the update
The fifth point release of the 25.8 series patches a handful of long‑standing bugs that have been grinding gears for folks who rely on heavy spreadsheet formulas or complex slide transitions. Among the most noticeable fixes is the corrected handling of embedded OLE objects in Writer documents – a problem that used to corrupt linked Excel charts after a save‑and‑close cycle. The change matters because it stops the dreaded “file cannot be opened” message that has haunted many office managers during month‑end reporting.
On the presentation side, Impress finally respects custom animation timings when exporting to PDF. Users who have been manually re‑tweaking slide durations after each export will notice the workflow smooth out instantly. The update also tightens the import path for DOCX files with mixed RTL and LTR text, a pain point for bilingual teams that previously saw paragraphs flip direction mid‑document.
Should you bother updating?
If the workstation is part of an enterprise rollout that still runs 25.7.x, the upgrade is practically mandatory – the security backports included in 25.8.5 close a remote code execution vector that was disclosed earlier this year. For hobbyists who live on the bleeding edge, the decision hinges on whether any of the fixed bugs have shown up in daily work. A user on a community forum reported that after upgrading from 25.8.4 to 25.8.5, a stubborn macro that kept crashing Calc finally ran to completion; the fix saved him an afternoon of debugging.
On the flip side, the installer adds roughly 120 MB of optional language packs that most users never touch. If disk space is at a premium on older machines, it’s worth deselecting “Additional translations” during setup – the core suite runs just fine without them.
A couple of quirks to watch out for
The release notes proudly tout a new “dark mode preview,” but in practice the feature only flips the UI chrome while leaving document backgrounds untouched. This leads to a jarring contrast when working on slides with dark backgrounds, and the toggle itself is buried under Tools → Options → LibreOffice → View. Expect to spend a few minutes hunting it down if you’re hoping for a full‑bleed night‑time experience.
Another annoyance that slipped through testing concerns the integrated PDF printer. After the update, users who print directly from Writer sometimes get an extra blank page at the end of the file. The cause appears to be a stray newline character in the document’s metadata – removing it manually or using “Export as PDF” instead of “Print to File” sidesteps the issue.
How to get the most out of the new Aptos font
LibreOffice now recommends installing Microsoft’s Aptos font to improve fidelity when exchanging files with Office 365 users. The process is straightforward: download the TrueType package from the official typography page, unzip it, and copy the .ttf files into the system fonts folder (C:\Windows\Fonts on Windows, /Library/Fonts on macOS). Once the fonts are registered, LibreOffice will list “Aptos” alongside Calibri in the font picker.
Why bother? Aptos has a slightly higher x‑height than most sans‑serif defaults, which makes body text look less cramped on screen. In side‑by‑side comparisons of a DOCX converted to ODT, the Aptos version retains line spacing more faithfully, reducing the need for manual adjustments after import.
LibreOffice 25.8.5 has arrived
Berlin, 19 February 2026 – LibreOffice 25.8.5, the fifth update to the FOSS office suite [1] developed by volunteers for personal productivity in office environments on Windows, MacOS and Linux, has landed
