JeffOffice

Changelog

What changed in each version of JeffOffice, newest first. Each version's files are on its downloads page.

JeffOffice 0.10.3

· Downloads

JeffWrite gets the tools for working on a document with other people, and JeffCrunch can save copies for older programs. JeffWrite now tracks changes, takes comments, edits tables, places pictures, and manages styles. JeffCrunch can save a copy as .xls or .ods and works out what-if data tables.

JeffWrite (preview)

  • Track Changes. Turn it on with Ctrl+Shift+E (on the Review tab). JeffWrite then marks everything you type, delete, or reformat with your name and the date, in your own color. Each change also gets a bar in the margin.
  • Accept or Reject one change, every change, or every change shown, and step through them with Next and Previous.
  • Four views: Simple Markup, All Markup, No Markup (as if every change were accepted), and Original (as if every change were rejected).
  • Accept All and Reject All reach headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, and text boxes, and one Undo takes either back.
  • On 27 documents with tracked changes, Accept All and Reject All gave exactly the same text as the original program.
  • Comments. Add a comment with Ctrl+Alt+M, then reply to it, mark it done, edit it, or delete it. Comments show in the margin and in a Reviewing pane.
  • Tables. Insert a table, add or delete rows and columns, merge and split cells, and apply table styles. You can also select a cell, row, column, or whole table, from the new Table tabs or the right-click menu.
  • Pictures. Insert pictures, then size, move, and wrap text around them with the mouse.
  • Page Setup and the ruler. A Page Setup dialog sets margins, paper, and orientation, and the ruler sets indents and tab stops.
  • Styles. A Styles pane lists the document's styles, and you can make new styles and change existing ones. Update to Match Selection and automatic updating also work.
  • Copy Formatting. Copy the look of text to other text. Double-click the button to paint more than once.
  • Drag and drop. Drag selected text to move it, or hold Ctrl (Option on a Mac) to copy it.
  • Go To (Ctrl+G). Jump to a page, section, line, bookmark, footnote, or heading.

JeffCrunch (preview)

  • Save a copy as .xls or .ods. Save As now writes the older .xls format and OpenDocument .ods.
  • Before saving, JeffCrunch names anything the format can't hold, such as rows past 65,536 or newer functions.
  • A formula the format can't express is saved as its value.
  • We saved copies of 8,371 workbooks and read every one back. Every value came back the same.
  • What-if data tables work. A data table reruns a formula for a list of inputs. JeffCrunch now works these out, instead of only showing the results stored in the file.
  • IRR matches the original. IRR works out a rate of return by repeated guesses, and it now takes the same steps as the original program, so it gives the same answers.
  • Grouping and outlines. Group and ungroup rows and columns, and show outline levels from the margin.
  • Fill has more options, works across sheets, and won't fill over merged cells that don't line up.
  • Show Formulas widens columns so the formulas fit, including columns you scroll to later.
  • Frozen panes are saved with the workbook.
  • Insert > Header and Footer opens the header so you can type in it.
  • Text files are saved the way you choose and otherwise kept as they came, including UTF-16 and Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text.

Behind the scenes

  • New checks read every .xls file JeffCrunch writes, record by record, and compare its formulas byte for byte with formulas taken from about 97,000 real files.

JeffOffice 0.10.2

· Downloads

JeffCrunch keeps up with huge sheets and says plainly what a save will change, and JeffWrite breaks lines and pages more like the original. This release finishes the rebuild of how JeffCrunch tracks rows and columns, so even a sheet of a million rows stays quick to edit, undo, and redraw. It also adds the first beta work for JeffCrunch and JeffWrite.

JeffCrunch (preview)

  • Column edits in very large sheets are faster. In a sheet of a million rows, deleting a column now takes 17 to 44 thousandths of a second instead of up to 70, and undoing it takes about 4 thousandths of a second instead of 70.
  • The window redraws only what changed. After an insert or delete, JeffCrunch repaints just the rows or columns that moved, instead of the whole sheet.
  • Undo and Redo give your selection back. After Undo or Redo of a row or column edit, the cells you had selected are selected again.
  • Filling 100,000 new rows takes under a second. Before, it could keep JeffCrunch busy for minutes.
  • A refused edit never costs you your Undo history. When JeffCrunch can't do an edit (for example, on a protected sheet), everything you could undo before is still there.
  • Templates and add-ins are saved as what they are. A template (.xltx, .xltm) or add-in (.xlam) is saved back as a template or add-in. Save As can now turn a template into a workbook (.xlsx or .xlsm), and it asks first if the new kind can't hold the file's macros. The Open dialog lists templates and add-ins.
  • Saving as CSV says what will be left out. CSV holds only one sheet of plain values. Before saving, JeffCrunch now names what the CSV file won't keep, including other sheets (hidden ones too), formulas, pictures, charts, and notes. It offers Save Values Only, Save as .xlsx, or Cancel.
  • A file that won't open gets a plain explanation. JeffCrunch says whether the file is empty, is really a PDF, picture, text document, or presentation, is password-protected, was cut short, or is damaged. Other open workbooks are left alone.
  • Saving keeps everything you didn't change. A new check opened, edited, and saved 8,328 workbooks and compared every part of each file. Nothing that wasn't edited changed.

JeffWrite (preview)

  • Lines and pages break more like the original. On our practice documents, pages that match the original went from 76% to 82%, and page counts now match in 95% of documents. The changes include:
  • Footnotes split across pages as in the original.
  • Spaces at the end of a paragraph wrap when the document asks for it.
  • Numbered lists set with a space or nothing after the number are spaced as the document asks.
  • Empty header and footer lines take the right height.
  • Web addresses in links no longer break after a slash.
  • Typewriter-style text looks as dark as in the original. Text in Courier New, drawn with a free stand-in font, is shown a little darker on screen to match. PDFs and printing are unchanged.

Windows installer

  • The folder page no longer shows a stray backslash at the end of the install folder when you update.

Behind the scenes

  • New stress tests feed JeffCrunch extreme sessions: millions of edits, sheets edited for hours, and every row and column number used up. Those tests found two of the fixes above.

JeffOffice 0.10.1

· Downloads

JeffCrunch gets much faster at inserting and deleting, and a set of fixes in every app. This release rebuilds how JeffCrunch keeps track of rows and columns, so inserting, deleting, undoing, and saving no longer slow down with the size of the workbook. It also fixes the blank workbook in JeffCrunch, which could not be typed into, and several smaller problems found by new checks that run every command of every app.

JeffCrunch (preview)

  • A blank workbook works. Starting JeffCrunch with no file, or choosing File > New (Ctrl+N), now gives a workbook you can type into at once. Before, the window kept saying the workbook was still being opened.
  • Inserting and deleting rows and columns is up to a hundred times faster. In a workbook of 100,000 rows with names and tables, inserting a row at the top took nearly a second and now takes about a hundredth of a second. Formulas that refer to the moved cells follow them without being rewritten one by one.
  • Undo of a large delete is instant. Deleting half a million rows and undoing it each took several seconds; both now take a few thousandths of a second, and Undo holds kilobytes instead of more than a gigabyte. JeffCrunch no longer asks "This can't be undone" before most row and column edits.
  • Saving after many edits is faster and uses far less memory. After 200 inserts and deletes, a save takes about a third less time and less than a quarter of the memory. Formulas that did not move are saved exactly as the file had them.
  • Fill, sort, and paste of formulas are faster. Filling a formula down 100,000 rows takes well under a second.
  • Workbooks that use iterative calculation show the right numbers. In workbooks set to go round their circular formulas until the numbers settle (common in financial models), some cells showed #NUM! or 0 instead of the number the file had. They now show what the workbook's own program shows.
  • Typing works as soon as the window opens. Before, the first keys went to the File button, and Enter opened the File screen.
  • Tab, then Enter. After you move across a row with Tab, Enter goes down to the column where you started, as in other spreadsheet programs.
  • Formulas follow edits more faithfully. Links to other sheets, ROW() and COLUMN(), and shared formulas keep pointing at the right cells after rows or columns move and after Undo.
  • No dead buttons. Picture, Shapes, Pivot Table, and Text Box, which could not be used yet, are gone from the Insert tab, and commands no longer say "not available yet" once they work.

JeffDeck

  • No crash when a presentation is replaced during an animation preview.
  • Typing as the window opens no longer opens the File screen.
  • Choosing the transition a slide already has keeps its check mark in the menu.
  • No dead buttons. Notes Page, Reading View, and Slide Master's Effects, which could not be used yet, are gone from the ribbon, and Help no longer mentions them.

JeffPub

  • Change Case (Shift+F3) always changes the words. It goes from what the selected words are now, rather than from a step shared by every window.
  • Redo answers to the system's usual key (Ctrl+Shift+Z on Linux and macOS) as well as Ctrl+Y.

Linux

  • Our own apt repository for Ubuntu 22.04 and later and Debian 12 and later: add it once, and updates arrive with the system's other updates. See Installing on Linux.
  • The Snap Store: sudo snap install jeffoffice --edge for now, with the stable channel to follow.
  • When JeffOffice is installed from the apt repository or the Snap Store, the apps no longer offer their own update download.

Behind the scenes

  • Every command of every app is now run by automatic checks on Windows, macOS, and Linux, on a blank document and on one opened from a file, and each must do what a person would see it do. These checks found most of the fixes above.

JeffOffice 0.10.0

· Downloads

JeffCrunch arrives as a preview. JeffOffice now has a spreadsheet: JeffCrunch opens your workbooks, works out their formulas with its own calculation engine, and lets you edit, format, chart, sort, filter, and print them. This release also makes every JeffOffice app safer with files from other people, and makes JeffWrite faster with long footnotes.

JeffCrunch (preview)

  • Opens the workbooks you have. .xlsx, older .xls files, .ods, and text files (.csv, .tsv, and .txt, with a preview where you choose the separator, the encoding, and what each column holds). It saves .xlsx, and .csv with Save As.
  • The same numbers. JeffCrunch works out every formula itself. On thousands of real workbooks we have never used to build it, 99.97% of formula results match what the workbook's own program saved, and on older .xls files 99.16% do.
  • Editing. Type, fill, copy and paste (including Paste Special), insert and delete rows, columns, and cells (formulas follow), undo and redo, Sum, sheets you can add, copy, move, rename, hide, and color.
  • Formatting. Number formats, fonts, fills, borders, alignment, cell styles, Copy Formatting, conditional formatting (colors, data bars, and icons), and merged cells.
  • Charts and pictures. Make column, bar, line, pie, area, scatter, and combination charts from your data, then change their parts, colors, and data. Pictures, shapes, and charts can be moved, sized, copied, and put in front of or behind each other.
  • Find, sort, and filter. Find and Replace with wildcards, Go To, sorting by several columns, colors, or your own lists, and filters with value lists, conditions, and colors, all kept when you save.
  • Formulas. Function suggestions as you type, a list of every function with what it does, named cells and ranges, manual or automatic calculation, a warning for formulas that go in a circle, and arrows that show which cells feed a formula.
  • Tables. Turn a range into a table with its own look, a totals row, filters, and formulas that name its columns.
  • Notes, links, and protection. Notes on cells, links to web pages, places in the workbook, and e-mail addresses, and sheets and workbooks protected with or without a password.
  • Printing. Page setup, print areas and titles, headers and footers (with pictures), a page-break view where you drag the breaks, a page view where you type the headers in place, print preview, and PDF export.

Not yet in the JeffCrunch preview

  • Editing pivot tables, slicers, and 3-D charts or charts with trend lines (they're shown and kept as they were)
  • Saving in .xls and .ods (JeffCrunch opens them and saves .xlsx)
  • Opening password-encrypted workbooks, macros, and data tables (what-if tables)
  • A dialog that shows a function's result as you type its arguments

Every app

  • Safer with other people's files. Text from a document, a workbook, or the internet is always shown as plain text. A file can no longer make a label or a tip fetch a picture from another computer when you point at it.
  • Saving is repeatable. Saving the same file twice now gives exactly the same file, which helps when you keep your files in version control or compare them.
  • Every app in eight languages. JeffCrunch, and the Help of JeffWrite and JeffCrunch, are now in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), as well as American English, like the rest of JeffOffice.
  • Damaged files stay harmless. Older-format files (.doc, .ppt, .pub, and .xls) that are damaged on purpose can no longer make the apps do a very large amount of work.

JeffWrite (preview)

  • Long footnotes are faster. A very long footnote that runs over many pages is laid out with about a tenth of the work it took before.

JeffPub and JeffDeck

  • Your decimal mark. Measurement boxes show and accept the decimal mark your computer uses, so in German you type 1,5 cm.
  • Text in pictures stays whole in PDFs. Text drawn in an SVG picture keeps every letter when you copy it from the exported PDF.

Install

  • A clearer Windows installer. Every app and option shows at once in a full-width list with its description underneath, the welcome page is sharper and easier to read, and the apps' file properties now show their version.
  • Windows: download JeffOffice-Setup.exe and run it, or let the update install it. JeffCrunch is a preview you can tick in the installer; if you already have it, the update keeps it. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway; the program isn't code-signed yet. Prefer no installer? Use JeffOffice-windows.zip.
  • Debian, Ubuntu, and relatives: sudo apt install ./jeffoffice_0.10.0_amd64.deb.
  • Other Linux: the AppImage of the app you want (JeffPub-0.10.0-x86_64.AppImage, JeffDeck-0.10.0-x86_64.AppImage, JeffWrite-0.10.0-x86_64.AppImage, or JeffCrunch-0.10.0-x86_64.AppImage).
  • Mac (test build, not yet signed): JeffOffice-0.10.0.dmg; drag the apps to Applications, and the first time you open each one, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway.

JeffOffice 0.9.1

· Downloads

JeffWrite gets faster and more exact. This update to the JeffWrite preview fixes what people noticed first: documents with very long paragraphs open far faster, tabs land exactly where the document puts them, and Help now describes what JeffWrite really does. JeffPub and JeffDeck work as before.

JeffWrite (preview)

  • Faster with long paragraphs. A paragraph made of thousands of separately formatted pieces used to take minutes to lay out; the worst case we test went from over two minutes to 14 seconds, with exactly the same pages.
  • Tabs land where the document puts them, including in paragraphs that have their own tab stops, stops at uneven distances, and right-to-left text.
  • Pages match more closely. Two more kinds of documents now come out on the right number of pages: tables whose cells hold an empty cross-reference, and documents whose styles carry a name but no id.
  • Counts read naturally. The status bar says "1 word" and "652 words" instead of "652 word(s)", and so do the other counted messages in JeffWrite and JeffPub, in every language with its own plural forms.
  • Our own names are spelled right. Spelling no longer marks JeffWrite, JeffPub, JeffDeck, JeffOffice, and the other JeffOffice names as misspelled, in any language.
  • Help is up to date. The JeffWrite topics now say what this version shows and edits (tables, pictures and text boxes, fields, notes, and older .doc files) and what it doesn't do yet.

Not yet in the JeffWrite preview

  • Pages drawn a little differently from the original's in places: most often where a line or a page breaks
  • Editing the text of headers, footers, and notes (they're shown and kept)
  • Equations laid out as they print (they're shown as one line, and kept)
  • .rtf and .odt files, and the ruler

Install

  • Windows: download JeffOffice-Setup.exe and run it, or let the update install it. If you installed JeffWrite, the update keeps it and updates it too; if you didn't, you can tick it in the installer. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway; the program isn't code-signed yet. Prefer no installer? Use JeffOffice-windows.zip.
  • Debian, Ubuntu, and relatives: sudo apt install ./jeffoffice_0.9.1_amd64.deb.
  • Other Linux: the AppImage of the app you want (JeffPub-0.9.1-x86_64.AppImage, JeffDeck-0.9.1-x86_64.AppImage, or JeffWrite-0.9.1-x86_64.AppImage).
  • Mac (test build, not yet signed): JeffOffice-0.9.1.dmg; drag JeffPub, JeffDeck, and JeffWrite to Applications, and the first time you open each one, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway.

JeffOffice 0.9.0

· Downloads

Meet JeffWrite. JeffOffice's word processor arrives as a preview. It opens documents (.docx and the older .doc), lays them out page by page much as the word processor that made them did, lets you edit them, and saves .docx. JeffDeck is out of preview, and JeffPub is still in beta.

New: JeffWrite (preview)

  • Pages as they print. A continuous page view with zoom, laid out from the document's own settings: page size and margins, sections, columns, facing pages, page borders, and line numbers. The pages you're looking at come first; the rest are laid out while you read.
  • Editing with undo: typing, the clipboard, character and paragraph formatting (the Font dialog among it), bulleted and numbered lists, styles, page and section breaks, and page setup.
  • What documents hold: tables, headers and footers with page numbers and other fields, footnotes and endnotes, pictures and text boxes that the text wraps around, frames, form fields and content controls, and equations (shown as a line of text). Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text is drawn with your computer's own fonts.
  • Find and Replace, and spelling as you type, with suggestions and the Spelling pane (F7).
  • Print and export to PDF, with copies, page ranges, and a preview.
  • Document files. Opens .docx, .docm, .dotx, and .dotm, and the older .doc and .dot; saves .docx. A template opens as a new document. Anything JeffWrite doesn't show or edit yet is kept, and saved back as the file had it.
  • How close it comes. On 95 real documents that JeffWrite was never tuned on, 73% of the pages come out very close to the original's own printout (a page score under 2, where 0 is a perfect match), and all but 0.16% of the words the original shows are on JeffWrite's pages.

Also in 0.9.0

  • JeffDeck is out of preview. Old .ppt presentations are drawn close enough to the original that the Preview label came off. JeffDeck also gains the Format Shape pane and the Shape Format tab (fill and line, shadow, reflection, glow, and edges, size and position, alt text, and picture corrections, color, and cropping), the Shape Styles and Text Art Styles galleries, Change Shape, and Slide Master view.
  • Safer with files from others. JeffWrite was tested against 2,289 files, among them hundreds of damaged and deliberately broken ones. None made it close or run out of memory, and those that made it stop responding were fixed, apart from a few built to be enormous, which JeffWrite still lays out in the background while you read their first pages. JeffWrite and JeffDeck now refuse a file larger than 1 GB before reading it.
  • JeffPub works as before, and its publications draw exactly as they did in 0.8.0.

Not yet in the JeffWrite preview

  • Pages drawn a little differently from the original's in places: most often where a line or a page breaks
  • Editing the text of headers, footers, and notes (they're shown and kept)
  • Equations laid out as they print (they're shown as one line, and kept)
  • .rtf and .odt files, and the ruler

Install

  • Windows: download JeffOffice-Setup.exe and run it, or let the update install it. JeffWrite is listed in the installer as a preview: tick it to install it. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway; the program isn't code-signed yet. Prefer no installer? Use JeffOffice-windows.zip.
  • Debian, Ubuntu, and relatives: sudo apt install ./jeffoffice_0.9.0_amd64.deb.
  • Other Linux: the AppImage of the app you want (JeffPub-0.9.0-x86_64.AppImage, JeffDeck-0.9.0-x86_64.AppImage, or JeffWrite-0.9.0-x86_64.AppImage).
  • Mac (test build, not yet signed): JeffOffice-0.9.0.dmg; drag JeffPub, JeffDeck, and JeffWrite to Applications, and the first time you open each one, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway.

JeffOffice 0.8.0

· Downloads

JeffDeck grows up. JeffOffice's presentation app gains themes, animations you can make and change, the slide show's tools, the Morph transition, movies and sounds that play, diagrams and equations that show, and saving of OpenDocument files. It's still a preview: everything it promises now works, and the next step is drawing slides as faithfully as JeffPub draws publications. JeffPub, the suite's first app, is still in beta.

New in JeffDeck

  • Themes. Nine built-in themes (the plain JeffOffice theme and eight new ones: Harbor, Ember, Almanac, Confetti, Granite, Orchard, Marquee, and Tideline), each with four color variants, plus menus of colors, fonts, and background styles on the Design tab. Applying a theme keeps every slide's text, pictures, and layout; you can also take the theme of another presentation. Every theme is tested so text stays readable on its backgrounds.
  • Animations you make and change. An Animations tab and an Animation Pane: entrance, emphasis, and exit effects and motion paths, with their directions, start (on a click, with, or after the one before), delay, duration, repeats, and order. They're saved the way the presentation program saves them, so it lists each effect by its own name.
  • The slide show's tools. Draw on slides with a pen or highlighter, point with a laser pointer, and keep your ink as shapes afterward. Set Up Slide Show runs a show in a window or at a kiosk that loops by itself; Custom Shows play a chosen set of slides; Rehearse Timings records how long each slide stays up.
  • Morph. The transition that moves, resizes, turns, and recolors what two slides share, by objects, words, or characters.
  • Movies and sounds play on the slide while you edit (with a control bar) and in the slide show as the presentation says: at a click, by themselves, or when clicked, with their volume, trim, looping, and full screen. Insert > Video and Insert > Audio add them, and the Playback tab sets how they play. A movie or sound in a file is only ever played when you or the show plays it.
  • diagrams and equations show as the presentation program drew them, and are saved back whole (this came first in 0.7.1).
  • Online Pictures, Icons, and Text Art on the Insert tab, the same as JeffPub's.
  • OpenDocument files saved. JeffDeck now saves .odp and .otp files for other office programs, and an .odp you open is saved back as an .odp.
  • Fonts travel with the file. A saved .pptx carries the fonts JeffOffice brings that other computers may not have, so a deck made with one of the new themes looks the same elsewhere. Fonts JeffOffice draws in place of common ones (like Calibri) are saved under the common name instead, and add nothing. A presentation's own embedded fonts are used while it's open, and never replace a font for anything else.
  • Updates and usage statistics. JeffDeck now checks for new versions when it starts, as JeffPub does, and, if you chose to share usage statistics, sends them and its crash reports too. It's the same one choice for both apps; you can change it anytime in File > Options.

Also in 0.8.0

  • Safer with files from others. Every new reader (embedded fonts, slide show settings, animations, media, themes) was tested against hundreds of damaged and deliberately broken files, and fixed wherever one could make JeffDeck run out of memory, stop responding, or close.
  • JeffPub works as before, and its publications draw exactly as they did in 0.7.1.

Not yet in the preview

  • Slides drawn a little differently from the presentation program's in places: most often text it shrank to fit its box, a picture's brightness and contrast, and some text shadows
  • Editing diagrams, equations, and charts (they're shown and kept)
  • Animation triggers, sounds, and color effects (they're kept as the file has them)

Install

  • Windows: download JeffOffice-Setup.exe and run it, or let the update install it. If Windows says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway; the program isn't code-signed yet. Prefer no installer? Use JeffOffice-windows.zip.
  • Debian, Ubuntu, and relatives: sudo apt install ./jeffoffice_0.8.0_amd64.deb.
  • Other Linux: the AppImage of the app you want (JeffPub-0.8.0-x86_64.AppImage or JeffDeck-0.8.0-x86_64.AppImage).
  • Mac (test build, not yet signed): JeffOffice-0.8.0.dmg; drag JeffPub and JeffDeck to Applications, and the first time you open each one, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway.

Playing movies and sounds adds FFmpeg's libraries to JeffDeck, so the downloads are about 12 MB (Windows) to 23 MB (Mac) larger than 0.7.1's.