In recent weeks I had the opportunity to attend the LibreOffice Conference 2025 in the ELTE Informatikai Kar. had earlier been part of the 4th Latin American LibreOffice Conference (Mexico City, Mexico, 2023) but this is the first time I attend the global edition. I was particularly glad that it took place in Budapest, Hungary, as it had been 24 years since I went «across the pond«.

Before any further comment, I would like to thank The Document Foundation. It was thanks to their invitation and sponsorship that my participation was possible. Given the conference happens in Europe most of the time, and I live in Mexico, it would have been otherwise difficult for me to go. It is clear that they have an interest in involving people from the community, and this task is important work. Please read below, and you will get why the experience makes me feel even more encouraged to continue participating in the project.

The conference

The conference was packed with highly technical talks. Some of them didn’t feel so relevant at first but as the event went on, the content became more and more interesting, but more importantly, a reminder of how different people have so many diverse interests and everyone plays an important role in the LibreOffice project as a whole. Topics included applicability, accessibility, font rendering, templating, standardization, theming, localization (l10n), interoperability, quality assurance, marketing, etc.

One that I particularly liked was about using LibreOffice templates in a Japanese University. I am a fan of using «styles» in Writer and, thus, templating, and I try to promote their use as much as possible. Thus, this presentation was relevant.

Also, it turns out that LibreOffice turned 15 this year! We were promised anniversary cake at the end of the LibOCon… and the cake was not a lie!

The Foundation posted a LibreOffice Conference 2025 wrap-up video.

The community

It’s difficult to mention everyone but I was glad to say hi once again to Xisco, Olivier and Svante, and furthermore, to meet and connect with people like Eliane, Florian, Bogdan, Rene, Eyal, Shinji, Heiko, Michael, Bence, Pogi and too many more to remember. Beyond the technical talks, the people connection is what matters the most. This is just to say that participation now feels more real. I would have like Celia, Juan José, Mauricio and many other Mexican fellows, as well as Gustavo and Daniel to have been there as well.

There was also a moving moment at the closing ceremony, when the community paid tribute to Juan Carlos Sanz, a Spanish documentation contributor who had sadly passed away just two weeks before the event. He received an applause from everyone. He will truly be missed. In the LibreOffice-ES and LibreOffice Documentación ES groups he was well known and appreciated.

Also, thanks to the local organizers who did a great job! Special thanks to Sophi and Italo for assisting me in attending, and to Anabella, Bence, and Pogi for showing us around Budapest.

My talk: LibreOffice Bibisect for Beginners

I felt honored to have my talk accepted; it is nice to share what I know in a conference. However, my ultimate goal was to try creating an online, always-available bibisecting guide for beginners in video form, taken from a live talk. LibreOffice needs more volunteers and lowering the barrier to entry is important. Fortunately, the capture worked! Editing was… «tough», to put it nicely. I will share the story later. Anyway, I was able to create the video. It is now uploaded to YouTube and, here, I share it with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPDgFx4comQ

By the way, please comment, share, like, subscribe, turn on alerts, pray, etc. — What? Aren’t these requests like the TCP handshake of the YouTubes?

I was particularly glad that the talk triggered discussions on how to improve the bibisect repositories overall to make it more approachable and useful. Also, Xisco reviewed the bug itself and found it to be a duplicate of another one, so it helped move it forward.

Budapest, the city

After a 26-hour trip (15 hours of flights) and some rest, I finally got to meet a beautiful city with impressive architecture and a long history behind it. The Danube is impressive! For comparison, the Tijuana River is 100 meters wide. The Santa Catarina in Monterrey is around 180 meters wide. The Danube is around 360 meters wide!

I visited the surprising Museum of Illusions, the majestic Buda Castle, the stunning Margaret Island, the mandatory Ráday Street, and found an enjoyable beer fest. I didn’t want to leave without taking a night boat ride on the Danube, and I did.

Curiosities and anecdotes

I was fascinated with the language! Words rarely resemble anything like Spanish or English. I studied some Hungarian before the trip, and managed to recognize some words and greetings. At one point, some random guy asked me something in Hungarian, and I replied «nem beszélek magyarul; beszélsz angolul?» and the conversation continued in English. Even a small interaction like this going well made me feel connected, even if just a little bit.

Hungary doesn’t use the Euro but the Forint (HUF). I am used to the USD-MXN conversion but with forints, it’s a different story. Now I know how Americans feel when buying Mexican pesos. As of today, 1 Mexican peso is about 18 forints. Similar to how 1 US dollar is about 18 Mexican pesos.

This one is nerdy: I also had my first real look at an A4 piece of paper in daily use—funny detail for someone used to the «letter» paper size in the Americas. It’s not uncommon to get support requests related with misconfigured paper size, mistaking letter for A4. I brought one home, not because I wanted to nerd about this, not at all, no, but because this was a LibreOffice trip. 😉

I have become curious on how Mexican cuisine is prepared in other countries. In the US, the cliché is Taco Bell. I have imagined how here, in Mexico, foreign food (like Chinese) is either reinvented, or, at least, adapted to the local market and limited by the ingredient variants are found here. So, I was curious to taste Mexican food in Budapest. Surprisingly, I found a place that sold me a decent burro with some weird nachos with ketchup. We never use nachos as side dish. It was funny that they sold me a Jarritos soda. I remember they saying: «it’s Mexican coke», haha! It’s not the most consumed brand here but it is well-known. I was glad to see a Mexican brand doing well in another part of the world.

So long Budapest!

I liked you, Budapest. I hope to come back.