The developers of ONLYOFFICE Docs have released version 8.3, bringing a fresh wave of enhancements designed to streamline document collaboration, improve security, and upgrade user experience. Whether you are working on spreadsheets, text documents, presentations or PDF files, ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.3 provides users with smarter tools and a more intuitive interface.
The latest release unveiled powerful new features that revolutionize team collaboration—enhancing speed, security, and efficiency like never before. With over 30 powerful updates, advanced tools, and expanded file compatibility, this version is designed to simplify workflows and elevate the experience for tech enthusiasts and business professionals.
This article will explore the key features that make this update stand out.
Key updates
ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.3 takes the online editing experience to the next level, introducing enhanced features for document editing and significant improvements across its core editors: Document Editor, Spreadsheet Editor, Presentation Editor, and PDF Editor.
New features in the PDF Editor
ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.3 takes the PDF editing experience to the next level with extensive tools designed for better efficiency, teamwork, and document control.
Add a professional touch with Stamps: Add authority to documents with stamps. With this new feature, users can give their contracts, agreements, and official documents a polished and professional look.
- Apply predefined stamps like “Approved”, “Draft”, or “Confidential”, or create custom stamps as per your business needs.
- Ideal for legal documents, business reports, and compliance workflows.
- Quickly position and resize stamps without affecting the layout of the document.
Enhanced collaboration with Undo in real-time co-editing: Collaborate in real-time without workflow interruptions.
- Undo your last actions while co-editing PDFs with your team.
- Track changes seamlessly, ensuring you can reverse mistakes without disturbing others’ contributions.
- Great for fast-paced environments where various users are reviewing the same document.
Multi-selection for PDF pages: Manage large PDFs with multi-select and annotation tools.
- Select multiple pages to rearrange or delete them in size.
- Use the Ctrl key to add or remove particular pages from your selection.
- Hold the Shift key to select a continuous range of pages quickly.
- This feature is top-tier for reports, e-books, and multi-page contracts.
Quick panel for editing annotations: Annotations are now quicker and easier to manage.
- The quick panel can be accessed to modify highlights, add comments, or delete annotations with a few clicks.
- Changing the highlight color right away to categorize notes or emphasize key sections.
- Add context to annotations with comments directly from the panel, ensuring streamlined feedback during document reviews.
Opacity control for annotations: The adjustable opacity settings can be helpful for a user to personalize their document annotations in the following ways:
- Control the transparency of highlights to make text more or less important.
- Ideal for layered annotations where the visibility of underlying text is crucial.
- Works well with both light and dark document themes, ensuring it is readable and clear.
New features in Spreadsheet Editor
- Enhanced collaboration: Similar to the PDF Editor, the new update allows the user to undo your last actions while co-editing in real time. This feature makes collaboration in spreadsheets more seamless and efficient than ever before.
- Automatic updates for external links: Any external links in your spreadsheet are automatically updated whenever the linked data changes, guaranteeing your content is always up-to-date without the need for manual intervention.
- More Auto-Fill options: The new version introduces further options for auto-filling cells, making it easier to populate rows or columns with data by automatically predicting the next values based on the existing pattern.
- Opening and saving calculated items in Pivot Tables: User can now open and save calculated items in Pivot Tables. This gives more flexibility in handling and working with extensive data sets, ensuring calculations remain intact even when the table is edited.
- Updated function wizard with argument descriptions: This function has been updated to include broader descriptions of function arguments. This makes it easier to understand and use different functions correctly, improving accuracy and productivity.
- Auto-detection of delimiters for CSV files: When using CVS files, the system automatically detects delimiters based on the file’s text. While the process is streamlined, it also removes the need for manual delimiter selection and reduces errors when importing data.
New features in Presentation Editor
The latest version introduces a Design tab. This is a presentation software where the user can customize the visual style and layout of their slides. It includes options for selecting slide themes, backgrounds, colors, schemes, fonts, and overall slide formatting.
Take note of the following features in this tab:
- Renaming the Slide Master: You can now rename Slide Master in your presentation for finer organization and clarity. This ensures easier management of slide layouts, mainly with larger presentations, making it simpler to identify and edit specific slide masters.
- Show from beginning option in the Quick Access toolbar: This feature, which allows the user to begin the presentation from the first slide, is now easily accessible via the Quick Access toolbar at the top screen. This leads to faster navigation and allows smoother presentation playback without the need to click manually through the slides.
- Hand and Select buttons in Presentation Viewer: The mentioned buttons have been added to the presentation viewer for more intuitive navigation. The Hand tool allows the user to smoothly move around the slide during the presentation, while the Select tool helps in highlighting objects on the slide for improved interaction with your audience or easier editing.
All editors-merge shapes
The Merge Shapes feature is a powerful tool across all editors. It allows the user to create stunning custom visuals by combining basic shapes with complex designs with just a few clicks.
The Merge Shape operations include Unite, Combine, Fragment, Intersect and Subtract.
- Unite: Combine two or more shapes into a single unified object.
- Combine: Merge overlapping shapes while removing the intersecting parts, leading to a unique outline.
- Fragment: Break overlapping shapes into different pieces based on their intersections.
- Intersect: Keep only the overlapping area of the selected shapes, removing everything else.
- Subtract: Remove the area of one shape from the other, to create a cut-out effect.
This feature is simple to use and saves time because its intuitive controls speed up the design process. It further helps in maintaining a unified style across all ONLYOFFICE editors, whether the user is working on a report, spreadsheet, or presentation.
Expanded format compatibility
ONLYOFFICE Docs 8.3 enhances format compatibility by adding support for the following file types:
- Apple iWork: Pages, Keynote, Numbers
- Hancom Office: .hwp, .hwpx
The user can now open these formats in ONLYOFFICE. Rest assured, the file will be displayed correctly with preserved formatting. If you need editing with these files, they will be automatically converted to OOXML formats (DOCX, PPTX, XLSX).
RTL and localization
As ONLYOFFICE is always committed to making its suite more inclusive and user-friendly for people worldwide, the new version has brought some major updates to improve localization and enhance support for RTL, ensuring a seamless experience for all users.
Enhanced RTL support: Redefining RTL is a top priority, especially to serve users who work with languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu.
- Default sheet direction: The user can easily set the default sheet direction in spreadsheets. This allows the natural flow of data from right to left, making it more intuitive for RTL language users.
- RTL interface support for the embedded viewer: This now fully supports RTL interfaces, allowing a more consistent across all platforms, whether the document is being viewed from the user website, directly through a browser, or within integrated apps.
- Improved text rendering: Improved alignment, spacing, and layout adjustments ensure better text readability in RTL scripts.
These updates empower users to work comfortably in their native languages, ensuring a smooth workflow for RTL language users, and encouraging language enthusiasts to make a difference.
- Albanian localization (sq-AL): ONLYOFFICE Docs fully support Albanian, including UI translations and formatting standards.
- Expanded language options in Text AutoCorrect: More languages have been added to the AutoCorrect exceptions list, giving users the benefit of customizing autocorrect rules for their specific language preferences.
ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors v8.3
The free desktop version of the suite for Linux, ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors, has also been updated offering the majority of the new features and improvements of the self-hosted version. However, there is a useful update for Linux users. Version 8.3 comes with the context menu for tabs and windows of the desktop app making it easier to manage them with a few clicks.
Get ONLYOFFICE Docs v8.3
If you want to try version 8.3 and its new features, download the self-hosted ONLYOFFICE Docs and deploy it on your Linux server. The corresponding packages (ONLYOFFICE Document Server) are available on the ONLYOFFICE website and GitHub.