ONLYOFFICE has been putting out fairly consistent updates to its open source office suite. The previous release focused heavily on the PDF editor, adding new signature options, password-protected PDF editing, and a multipage view for documents.
Since then, things got a little complicated for the project. Nextcloud and IONOS launched Euro-Office, a European fork of ONLYOFFICE, citing concerns about the project's Russian development roots, lack of transparency, and resistance to outside contributions.
ONLYOFFICE hit back, accusing the fork of violating the additional conditions attached to its AGPLv3 license.
Now, the developers have released ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.4, which covers a fair bit of ground across all the editors and introduces a licensing update.
🆕 ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.4: What's New?
Starting with form management, you can now assign specific recipients and track their filling status directly within the editor. Previously, that meant going outside the editor entirely, making the whole experience more clunky than it needed to be.
Horizontal lines in documents are in too, which was apparently a frequently requested feature on their social media pages. You can insert them to visually separate sections via the "Borders" button in the Home tab.
Similarly, the signature field in forms now defaults to the last image you used. Thanks to this, you don't need to dig around for the same file each time you sign a batch of documents.
Then there's the Presentation Editor, which picks up 25 new ready-to-use themes, covering a fairly wide range of styles, accessible from the Design tab. There are also 20 new slide transitions under the Transitions tab for adding a bit more polish to your next pitch.
The new presentation themes (left) and the 'Dark Document' mode for spreadsheets (right).
The Spreadsheet Editor gets a dedicated Dark Document mode. With the general dark theme on, the spreadsheet canvas can be switched to a dark background as well via the View tab.
The community version (for self-hosting) also sees some structural work. The code is no longer minified, making it easier to read through, and it now runs as a single process with no reliance on RabbitMQ or databases.
That trims down what the host machine needs to run, and starting with this release, the 20-connection cap is gone.
Finally, the licensing terms have been updated. ONLYOFFICE has clarified its AGPLv3 conditions, with clearer language around attribution, copyright notices, labeling of modified versions, and trademark rights under a separate Trademark Policy (was error 404 at the time of writing).
If you recall, the Euro-Office dispute was specifically about whether a fork could drop those additional Section 7 conditions. The developers haven't said this update was a response to that, but we can confidently infer that from what has happened so far.
📥 Download ONLYOFFICE Docs 9.4
Like usual, you will find there are two main flavors. One is for self-hosting users who want to deploy ONLYOFFICE on their infrastructure, and the other one is for people who want a reliable office suite on their computer.
For more details on this release, you can refer to the changelog.
Suggested Read 📖: The TDF Questions Whether Euro-Office is Truly Sovereign
Sourav Rudra
