LibreOffice 26.2 brings JSON import and other long-awaited features

The Document Foundation released LibreOffice 26.2 today with several features that frankly should have existed for years, but better late than never. The update finally brings automatic JSON and XML mapping to spreadsheets, along with full Markdown support, and enhanced multi-user capabilities for Base databases.

The most significant addition is generic JSON and XML mapping to Calc. LibreOffice can now open JSON and XML files and automatically map them into spreadsheet format. When you open a JSON or XML document, LibreOffice analyzes the structure and maps each data range to a separate sheet. You can then add more entries, edit the data, and export as ODS, CSV, XLSX, or other spreadsheet formats.

This essentially serves as a JSON-to-spreadsheet converter. It can't edit the JSON file itself or save the edited spreadsheet back as JSON, but that's not surprising given the incompatibility between the two formats - spreadsheets are flat 2D grids while JSON supports nested hierarchies.

LibreOffice 26.2 continues to improve Excel compatibility. Calc now supports the Biff12 clipboard format, which allows you to paste much more data from Excel compared to previous versions. The team also made Excel 2010+ the default format when saving XLSX files and renamed it from "Office Open XML Spreadsheet" to "Excel 2010–365 Spreadsheet." It's positive to see these changes,

Writer now supports both importing and exporting Markdown format. You can convert documents to Markdown or use ODT/DOCX templates when importing Markdown files.

Additional improvements include connector support in Calc, so you can now add flowchart-style connectors between objects. Furthermore, Base now properly supports multiple users working simultaneously, which gave a lot of trouble to users in previous versions. And finally, LibreOffice now uses Skia, a Google-developed graphics library, as the mandatory rendering engine on Windows and macOS to display documents identically across both platforms.

When it comes to performance improvements, LibreOffice now exports EPUB files faster, and scrolling is improved in spreadsheets with many hidden columns.

I tested the new LibreOffice version myself and can confirm that it accurately mapped a few JSON files I imported. I also noticed that Calc works faster and more smoothly now. When I was working with large CSV files before, it took a few seconds to find a cell through the search function, but now it instantly finds whatever I’m looking for, regardless of how “deep down” in the document that cell is.

You can check the full LibreOffice 26.2 changelog on The Document Foundation website.