Build Collabora Office

This is the Collabora Office Linux desktop app built on Qt6 WebEngine.

Requirements

Fedora

Tested on Fedora 43.

sudo dnf install autoconf automake cppunit-devel fontconfig-devel gcc gcc-c++ \
    git libcap-devel libpng-devel libtool libzstd-devel make npm openssl-devel \
    pam-devel perl-JSON-PP pkgconf-pkg-config python3-lxml \
    python3-polib qt6-linguist qt6-qtbase-devel qt6-qtwebengine-devel \
    qt6-qtwebsockets-devel

Ubuntu

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

sudo apt install -y autoconf automake build-essential cmake fontconfig git \
    libcap-dev libcppunit-dev libpam0g-dev libpng-dev libqt6websockets6-dev \
    libssl-dev libtool libzstd-dev npm pkg-config python3-lxml python3-polib \
    qt6-base-dev qt6-tools-dev qt6-tools-dev-tools qt6-webengine-dev

Debian

Tested on Debian 13 (Trixie).

sudo apt install -y autoconf automake build-essential fontconfig git \
    libcap-dev libcppunit-dev libpam0g-dev libpng-dev \
    libqt6websockets6-dev libssl-dev libtool libzstd-dev npm pkg-config \
    python3-lxml python3-polib qt6-base-dev qt6-tools-dev qt6-tools-dev-tools \
    qt6-webengine-dev

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -Syu autoconf automake base-devel cppunit fontconfig \
    git libcap libpng libtool npm openssl pam perl-json-pp pkgconf \
    python-lxml python-polib qt6-base qt6-tools qt6-webengine \
    qt6-websockets zstd

openSUSE

Tested on openSUSE Leap 16.0.

PYVER=$(python3 -c 'import sys; print(f"python{sys.version_info.major}{sys.version_info.minor}")')
sudo zypper install autoconf automake cppunit-devel fontconfig-devel gcc-c++ \
    git libcap-devel libopenssl-devel libpng16-compat-devel libpng16-devel \
    libtool libzstd-devel make npm-default pam-devel pkgconf \
    ${PYVER}-lxml ${PYVER}-polib qt6-base-devel qt6-tools-linguist \
    qt6-webenginecore-devel qt6-webenginewidgets-devel qt6-websockets-devel

General notes

A C++ compiler with full C++20 support is required, including std::format (GCC 13+ or Clang 17+).

POCO is built as part of the engine (engine/) and picked up from its workdir automatically, so it no longer needs to be installed as a distro package.

Clone the monorepo

All the source code now lives in a single Gerrit monorepo; the former Collabora Office core is the engine/ subdirectory of the online repo, so there is no separate repository to clone any more. Code review happens on Gerrit, not GitHub pull requests; see the first contribution guide for the full workflow.

For an anonymous read-only clone:

git clone https://gerrit.collaboraoffice.com/online collabora-office
cd collabora-office

If you have a Gerrit account and plan to push changes for review, clone over SSH instead:

git clone ssh://YOUR_USERNAME@gerrit.collaboraoffice.com:29418/online collabora-office
cd collabora-office

Build the engine

The engine is the engine/ subdirectory of the monorepo. For dependency installation, refer to https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/BuildingOnLinux if needed.

If you want a localized (translated) user interface, also clone the translations repository into engine/translations from the top of the clone before building; the engine’s --with-lang picks up the .po files from there:

git clone https://gerrit.collaboraoffice.com/translations engine/translations

cd engine

./autogen.sh --with-distro=CPLinux-LOKit --without-package-format --with-system-nss
make

For debug builds, add --enable-dbgutil to the autogen line.

Once done, step back to the top of the monorepo:

cd ..

Build Collabora Office

From the top of the collabora-office clone. The engine is in engine/, where configure looks by default, so no paths need to be passed:

./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-qtapp --enable-debug
make -j $(nproc)

This produces the coda-qt executable in qt/.

Running

./qt/coda-qt                         # start without a document
./qt/coda-qt ../test/data/hello.odt  # open a file

Debug with Chromium DevTools

export QTWEBENGINE_REMOTE_DEBUGGING=3311

Then run coda-qt and open http://localhost:3311

Flatpak

Install the runtimes:

flatpak install org.kde.Sdk//6.10 \
                org.kde.Platform//6.10 \
                org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.node20//25.08 \
                io.qt.qtwebengine.BaseApp//6.10
                io.qt.qtwebengine.BaseApp.Debug//6.10

Build and export to a local repo:

flatpak-builder --repo=repo --force-clean --ccache build-dir \
    qt/flatpak/com.collaboraoffice.Office.json

Create a .flatpak bundle from the repo:

flatpak build-bundle repo CollaboraOffice.flatpak com.collaboraoffice.Office

Or install directly from the repo:

flatpak --user remote-add --no-gpg-verify --if-not-exists co-local repo
flatpak --user install co-local com.collaboraoffice.Office

Debug symbols

To include debug symbols in the build, add --keep-build-dirs and export the debug extension:

flatpak-builder --repo=repo --force-clean --ccache --keep-build-dirs build-dir \
    qt/flatpak/com.collaboraoffice.Office.json
flatpak build-bundle repo CollaboraOffice.Debug.flatpak \
    com.collaboraoffice.Office.Debug --runtime

Snap

Collabora Office is also packaged as a snap. The snap/snapcraft.yaml builds the engine and the Qt app together, so it does not need the separate engine build above. From the top of the monorepo, with snapcraft installed (it builds in an LXD container by default):

snapcraft

This produces a collabora-office_<version>_<arch>.snap. Install your locally built snap with:

sudo snap install --dangerous ./collabora-office_*.snap

Pre-built download

If you just want a pre-built package instead of compiling:

• Snap, from the latest/edge channel:

  sudo snap install collabora-office --channel=latest/edge
  

• Flatpak — download the Collabora Office Linux Flatpak snapshots: 👉 https://www.collaboraoffice.com/downloads/Collabora-Office-Linux-Snapshot/

Release helpers

tools/add-release.py is a script that allow adding a release to the appstream file prior to tagging.

Usage

$ ./tools/add-release.py 25.04.7.8.1 com.collaboraoffice.Office.metainfo.xml

This will add release 25.04.7.8.1 with today’s date in the appstream file com.collaboraoffice.Office.metainfo.xml

Options are:

• -d or --date to pass the date string to use.
• -c or --changelog to use the changelog entry from a file.

The expected changelog data should follow appstream description element.

<description>
<p>Foo</p>
<ul>
<li>Something</li>
</ul>
</description>

Debugging

Some useful environment variable settings are QT_LOGGING_RULES= to always get JS console warnings and errors (even when running without a --debug command line argument) and QT_MESSAGE_PATTERN=%{if-category}%{category}: %{endif}%{file}:%{line}: %{message} to get JS console warnings and errors that contain file and line information.