Livingdocs Release September 2026: Smarter Crops, Smarter Search
Every other month, we at Livingdocs release an updated version of our product wherein we expand its functionality with new features, capabilities and improvements. Now, our September 2026 Release is live and ready for users to explore.
Media Center: Image Cropping
Almost every image is cropped before it goes into an article. The previous cropping tool made this routine step harder than it should be. Crops with a fixed aspect ratio could not be resized by dragging, freely croppable images lost the selected ratio as soon as dragging started, the frame could only be grabbed on its sides, and moving one edge also moved the opposite one. Editors worked around these limits with zoom buttons and repeated adjustments.
The September release improves the cropping tool. The crop frame can now be resized from any corner or edge, each edge moves independently, and a fixed aspect ratio stays locked while resizing. Where a configuration allows free cropping, a new „Free“ option makes unrestricted cropping an explicit choice instead of something that happens by accident. The aspect ratio picker has also been redesigned.
No configuration is needed. Focal points, automatic crops and the configured image formats are unchanged.
Media Center: Search by Image Usage
The Usage Log records where and when an image was published, including the channel, the department and the billing status. Until now, this information could not be used to find images. Dashboards could only be filtered by billing status, not by questions such as „Which photos have we already run in print in the politics section?“ or „Which images have not been used online in two years?“.
Image dashboards can now be predefined with criteria from the Usage Log: usage purpose, publication period, billing status, confirmation state, and any additional parameters a newsroom records per usage, such as department or medium. Several criteria can be combined and must apply to the same usage entry, and they work together with the other image filters. The result is always a set of images, ready for batch actions such as billing, archiving or metadata changes.
Ready-made filters for these questions are deliberately not part of this release. The topic is new, and we prefer to build filters for use cases that have proven themselves in daily work. Newsrooms that need a specific filter are welcome to tell us which one. In the meantime, the expert search covers the same criteria.
Further Improvements in the September 2026 Release
Image dashboards showed „10K+“ for any search with more than 10,000 results. The exact number is now available on demand with one click, without slowing down regular searches.
Images often arrive with little more than a filename. Any part of the filename is now a valid search term, for example an agency ID, a photographer's abbreviation or an event name.
The filename of an image, video or file has its own row in the detail view. It is shown in full and can be copied with one click.
Image collections catch up with image dashboards: navigation between images in the lightbox, display settings, configurable image cards, a download action and drag-and-drop of multiple selected images between groups. The document inbox receives the same improvements.
License and status indicators for images now look the same everywhere: in the properties panel, in image metadata fields, in the detail view and in license approval tasks.
License profiles can be configured and assigned to images without being enforced. Newsrooms can add licenses to their existing image stock first and switch enforcement on when they are ready.
Upcoming: Spellcheck
Livingdocs keeps adding the capabilities you ask for most, and the pain many of our customers have with third-party spellchecking tools has become very apparent. Check out what has been happening when it comes to spelling, grammar and house-rule support within Livingdocs.
Typos should be caught while you write, not in a separate tool after the fact. Today, a newsroom that wants this has to buy the service from a third-party provider or operate it itself: extra cost, another integration, one more system to look after.
We are now building a service that is fully operated by Livingdocs, with no plugin installations needed on your side. Spelling and grammar will be checked live while you type, and corrections will be one click away. Before publication, you will be able to check the whole article in one pass, with every finding collected in one place and decided there. Beyond the standard rules, your newsroom's own house rules from your styleguide will be set up and maintained by Livingdocs.
This is not usable with the current release yet.
Please note that we will be offering proofreading as a supplementary package rather than as part of the standard product. The offering is currently being finalised, and we will share the details on scope and pricing as soon as the package is ready.
Interested in being among the first newsrooms to use proofreading in Livingdocs? Please speak to our Head of Business Céline Tykve about our pilot program.
Breaking Changes & Upcoming Deprecations
In order to keep Livingdocs as streamlined and user-friendly as possible, we periodically remove features when we have found better solutions to the problems they solve. We will always give you ample notice so that you have plenty of time to make adaptations to your setup.
In the September Release, there are some technical breaking changes you need to be aware of as a technician working with Livingdocs. No user-facing features are affected. Please read the Technical Release Notes for a comprehensive list of changes that may affect your newsroom.
To get more in-depth, technical information about this release, please refer to our documentation site. There, you can also stream the recordings and peruse the slide presentation of our Feature Webinar.
We look forward to showing you what’s in store for our next release!