LibreOffice Conference 2026

A few years ago, Janayugom — a newspaper based in Kerala — switched to GNU/Linux. The software they were using for printing was outdated and only supported ASCII encoding, but they needed something with a better support for complex rendering layout for printing in the Malayalam language.

When they looked for better alternatives, Adobe InDesign was the most recommended solution by the industry. However, it required paying a recurring subscription fee to use it.

With the help of the free software community, the newspaper switched to its own GNU/Linux distro instead, which was based off of Kubuntu. The stack also contained LibreOffice which the newspaper uses for its documents on a daily basis.

References:

[1] https://alphafork.com/janayugom/

[2] https://hasgeek.com/fosscell/fossmeet23/sub/desktop-publishing-and-foss-a-success-story-EQN2NSfmh9Yi15XWV5n2vu

[3] https://www.opensourceforu.com/2020/02/the-print-media-can-slash-costs-if-it-switches-to-open-source/

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21504721

[5] https://blog.smc.org.in/smc-monthly-report-october-2019/