Originally published at: 13th birthday of ONLYOFFICE: Let’s celebrate together! | ONLYOFFICE Blog
ONLYOFFICE turns 13, and we can’t imagine this special day without you. Here’s our annual wrap-up, new resolutions, and some awesome gifts for you. Find out more in this post.
Foreword from the CEO
Lev Bannov, the creator and CEO of ONLYOFFICE, from his newfound home beside the emerald Turkish sea, shares his thoughts on the past year and his vision for the project’s future:
If I had known 13 years ago what ONLYOFFICE would become today, I would have been astounded. The amount of work we have undertaken and the transformation we have achieved is akin to the iceberg effect. However, we have a comprehensive plan for the years ahead, understanding exactly what we aim to accomplish and how to do so.
Our plans encompass various aspects. Of numerous requests from clients worldwide, both large and small, RTL support is the most prominent requirement that we are determined to meet. This task is challenging, involving substantial back-end work alongside the interface mechanics.
We have high hopes for the digital forms, where we aim to enable online form editing from anywhere, revolutionizing document preparation and saving considerable time. This year, we intend to introduce an advanced signature mechanism, expanding upon existing opportunities. We will utilize the same algorithm employed in crypto transactions, making our signature mechanism even more reliable than traditional examples.
Moreover, we recently launched ONLYOFFICE DocSpace, and things we have accomplished thus far we only see as a start. For further development, our initial focus will be on public rooms and integrating them into various web interfaces. DocSpace will serve as the foundation for integrating forms and editing documents in the web in general. Forms will undergo further evolution within the solution, with incorporation of form rooms and the new digital signature mechanism.
We are also committed to further development of the PDF editor. We already have a solid foundation for it and will introduce a mature and comprehensive application with many more capabilities.
In our direction, we want not only to address the B2B market, but also to prioritize developers, providing them with the opportunity to create alternatives to Google Docs and Microsoft Office on their websites.
While we emphasize developer support, we remain mindful of the importance of compatibility across mobile and desktop environments. And as always, our development focus will remain on handling heavy workloads and ensuring utmost safety.
A year of growth
Our team keeps growing both in numbers and geographic reach. Since our last birthday, 40 new team members joined us, located all over the world: Germany, Serbia, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.
Moreover, we opened a new branch in Belgrade, launching our new development hub in Europe and aspiring to welcome the local community to our family.
Would you like to join ONLYOFFICE team? Take a look at our list of available vacancies. Who knows, maybe a dream job is already waiting for you!
A year of exploration
In the last twelve months, we have taken part in multiple prominent events around the globe:
It’s a great opportunity for us to exchange ideas, share experiences and get valuable feedback from users and partners.
We also sponsor various international hackathons to support local initiatives and younger generations of users who would like to polish their coding skills and build a career in software, including such events as TurtleHacks, SheHacks, Pyxis Hacks, DJS-S4DS, EdTech Hack, etc.
A year of learning
With our solutions growing and becoming more complex, we are constantly extending our library of learning assets and practices. For example, we added a number of webinars and video tutorials to our YouTube channel so that you can master ONLYOFFICE and learn about our solutions in a convenient format:
- ONLYOFFICE Docs: Integration with Nextcloud (in German)
- New ONLYOFFICE plugins: ChatGPT, Zoom, and Zotero
- Introducing ONLYOFFICE DocSpace
- Switching from MS Office to ONLYOFFICE: Reasons and benefits
- ONLYOFFICE & Moodle
- ONLYOFFICE Docs 7.4: What’s new?
- Free course on macros
- ONLYOFFICE Docs Cloud: What it is and how to use it
- ONLYOFFICE DocSpace: How to build an optimized collaborative space
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and other social media, including TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Telegram, and never miss out our new videos and guides!
A year of partnership
The number of our customers is constantly growing. Here are some recent success stories from users from various areas of performance who share their experience and tell how ONLYOFFICE helps them in their daily routine:
- Stiftung der Deutschen Wirtschaft, a community initiative for education from Berlin.
- Equal Rights Beyond Borders, a Greek-German human rights organization.
- KMF, the leading microfinance organization in Kazakhstan.
- Lehnert & Wieners, a Hamburg-based editorial office.
- GRE’SY, a non-profit organization from France.
- Collège-Lycée Sacré Cœur de Taravao, a Catholic school in the countryside of Tahiti.
- marinom GmbH, a development service provider from Germany.
- Geyma Sistemas de Información, a Spain-based IT provider.
- Nanjing University, an institution of higher education from China.
- Jambi University, a state university from Indonesia.
- Stellfeld & Ernst, a versatile trading company from Germany.
- Projet Internet et Citoyenneté, a French association.
- IBE, Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometry, and Epidemiology in Munich.
- Space Research Department, the Centre for Energy Research in Hungary.
- Korczak-Haus Freiburg, a German school for children with special educational needs.
- Love Foundation, a community of activists and artists.
- CNKI, China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Besides, we joined the BvB Dallas organization in their mission to support Alzheimer’s research and care.
A year of trust
For the second year in a row, we made it to the top 3 in the Cloud Computing Insider Awards. ONLYOFFICE received Gold in the category Cloud Content Management. Thanks to everyone for your support and trust!
It’s a great honor for us that ONLYOFFICE is nominated for the IT Awards for the third time in a row. Let’s make it to the winners’ list together! We will really appreciate your support and votes in this year’s awards.
The voting form is available in German. Please use this instruction in case you need assistance.
What we brought to you this year
With no doubts, we always take your requests into consideration. We do our best to further improve ONLYOFFICE by adding new useful features, integrations, and assets, and follow the up-to-date technologies to implement innovative functionality. Here’s what’s new this year:
ONLYOFFICE DocSpace
ONLYOFFICE DocSpace is a co-working platform intended to boost document collaboration with your customers, business partners, contractors and third parties. It provides customizable rooms with flexible permissions and allows working on any content.
ONLYOFFICE Docs
Since our last birthday we released three big updates for both online and desktop editors:
- ONLYOFFICE Docs 7.2 with plugin marketplace, live viewer, ligatures / desktop app 7.2 with vector text printing and VLC support.
- ONLYOFFICE Docs 7.3 with enhanced forms, SmartArt, Watch Window / desktop app 7.3 with Print Preview and Autoupdate.
- ONLYOFFICE Docs 7.4 with drawing, radar charts, combining documents / desktop app 7.4 with the form templates gallery.
Our next big goal is to add RTL support. Read this post to learn how you can help us with it.
Mobile apps
ONLYOFFICE mobile apps for working with docs on the go – ONLYOFFICE Documents – also got several updates:
- v5.5 for Android with passwords, shape filling, and UI improvements.
- v7.2 for iOS with handwriting recognition and Mobile View.
- v5.6 for Android with custom fonts and Autofill.
- v7.3 for iOS with footnotes and graphic annotations.
- v5.7 for Android with Integration with DocSpace, more in file sharing, UX and security.
- v7.4 for iOS with doc protection, redesigned account menu, and vertical text alignment.
Collaboration platform
The new version of our collaboration platform – ONLYOFFICE Workspace 12.5 – comes with enhanced security, optimized document management, Dark theme, and more.
More distribution formats and markets
Our goal is to make ONLYOFFICE available for every user, so we are always extending the number of distribution formats and packages.
One of the main news here is that we rolled out ONLYOFFICE Docs as a service. It allows you to access all the editing and collaborative features from the on-premise version and enjoy the same user experience without the need to install and configure the suite manually.
ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors became a default office app on Br OS as well as pre-installed on risiOS and Amarok Linux. Besides, we got a compatibility certificate with the China’s national operating system Kylin OS.
What else, we released framework components which you can use to easily deploy ONLYOFFICE Docs within React, Angular and Vue environments.
ONLYOFFICE editors are now also available as One-Click App on the Linode Marketplace.
Artera, an internet service provider from Switzerland, is now offering ONLYOFFICE Docs as part of their hosting solutions.
Also, now you can install ONLYOFFICE Docs on Wölkli cloud, a Swiss cloud storage provider offering secure, encrypted hosting.
Integrations
A lot has been done in the integrations development – both internal and external ones.
Thus, we added new plugins: ChatGPT to perform AI-assisted tasks with text, Zoom to make video calls right in the editors, Speech Input to write text with voice, as well as we updated the Zotero plugin.
Moreover, our new Plugin Manager allows exploring all available plugins and installing or removing any plugin with just one click, both in online and desktop editors.
Among new integration apps which allow using ONLYOFFICE Docs with other cloud platforms you will find connectors for:
- Odoo, a Belgian suite of business software tools.
- Mattermost, an open-source online collaboration service with private and group messaging.
- Confluence Cloud.
- New partner integrations EasiShare and Tuleap.
We also improved the existing connectors:
- Confluence connector with Version History and Force Save.
- Moodle connector with fillable forms and interface customization, and form submissions in assignments.
- Jira connector with document creation and certificate verification settings, and ability to edit non-OOXML files.
- Nextcloud connector with JWT leeway setting.
- ownCloud connector with new security settings.
- Drupal connector became available in the official Drupal directory.
- Nuxeo connector with JWT header configuration.
- Redmine connector with doc conversion and advanced server settings.
- Plone connector with demo server and uploading files from storage.
Join us on our journey
The constantly growing network of partners, resellers and integrators helps us bring high-quality office software to the existing corporate ecosystems all over the world. We updated our Channel Partner Program introducing new benefits and level-based approach to make it even more transparent and profitable.
Read our partner testimonials and get inspired: TGI, Innovazionedigitale, GenySoft, Dhorde, Mailhappen, Emakin.
What’s more, we launched ONLYOFFICE Campus Ambassador Program for students. Join now!
ONLYOFFICE in numbers
If you prefer figures, here’s what ONLYOFFICE project looks like today:
Join our official Telegram channel
Now ONLYOFFICE is even closer to you with an official channel on Telegram. Subscribe to a feed of news, tips, interactive polls, and videos in your app. We are going to experiment with formats and make sure to bring you a lot of useful content with all the opportunities the platform gives us.
And here’s a little bonus from us: a productivity-themed animated sticker pack!
Festive luck: touch the crystal ball!
ONLYOFFICE turns 13, and we prepare 13 gifts for you! Click on our crystal ball and get a vaiuable prize: a discount or another bonus. Then, just follow the instruction in the memo to get your prize.
Please note: One user can only interact with the ball once per day. The ball will reset daily at 00:00 . The offer is valid till 19 July 2023.
