[discuss] Creating odp files programmatically

[M Singh]

Hello

I wish to work on a project that creates OpenOffice.org Presentation (odp)
files using shell scripts, without invoking openoffice desktop. Basically I
wish to convert a presentation in one format (it is not ppt, and not in any
format that openoffice can currently, or probably ever, will read /
understand).

Can someone please point me to a guide that uses python, or some such API,
to actually write the contents of the zip archive and explains the
structure in some detail for making simple presentations (no animations,
sound or movies - just simple graphics and text) ? I have googled around,
but all the guides I can find are either for using python with an open
session of openoffice or involve going into the UNO framework which looks
very complicated and daunting.

Alternatively, is there a (preferably free) tool on Linux to convert PDFs to
odp (and I am NOT talking about exporting each page of the pdf as a single
image into a presentation) ?

Thanks.


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[Mike Scott]

Post by M Singh
Hello
I wish to work on a project that creates OpenOffice.org Presentation (odp)
files using shell scripts, without invoking openoffice desktop. Basically I
wish to convert a presentation in one format (it is not ppt, and not in any
format that openoffice can currently, or probably ever, will read /
understand).
Can someone please point me to a guide that uses python, or some such API,
to actually write the contents of the zip archive and explains the
structure in some detail for making simple presentations (no animations,
sound or movies - just simple graphics and text) ? I have googled around,
but all the guides I can find are either for using python with an open
session of openoffice or involve going into the UNO framework which looks
very complicated and daunting.

I think you're making life too hard. You don't /need/ to go anywhere
near UNO to create an OOo document.

There are some gory details on the odf file structure at
http://books.evc-cit.info/odbook/book.html for example, but again, you
probably don't need all that to get started.

I've not made any odp files programmatically, but I have created simple
odt files using perl. In that instance I found it quite easy to examine
the internals of examples created with OOo, and then to write code to
"do likewise" - it's all just xml, and with care can be written from
your favourite programming language. I did cheat a bit, using a
pre-existing template odt file, and just replacing content.xml with my own.

The structure of the zip archive itself is pretty obvious, and you could
well get away with attention to just the content.xml part, and the
images directory.

It's no paragon of code writing, and as I said, creates an odt not an
odp file, but if you'd like a copy of what I have as a naive example,
let me know.

[Christian Lippka - Sun Microsystems Germany]

Hi,

if java is an option for you than you should have a look at

http://odftoolkit.openoffice.org/

Regards,
Christian

Post by M Singh
Hello
I wish to work on a project that creates OpenOffice.org Presentation (odp)
files using shell scripts, without invoking openoffice desktop. Basically I
wish to convert a presentation in one format (it is not ppt, and not in any
format that openoffice can currently, or probably ever, will read /
understand).
Can someone please point me to a guide that uses python, or some such API,
to actually write the contents of the zip archive and explains the
structure in some detail for making simple presentations (no animations,
sound or movies - just simple graphics and text) ? I have googled around,
but all the guides I can find are either for using python with an open
session of openoffice or involve going into the UNO framework which looks
very complicated and daunting.
Alternatively, is there a (preferably free) tool on Linux to convert PDFs to
odp (and I am NOT talking about exporting each page of the pdf as a single
image into a presentation) ?
Thanks.
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[Alexandro Colorado]

ODF4py is certainly something you should have a look. I think that
modifying this will make you able to target ODP instead of ODT.
http://opendocumentfellowship.com/development/projects/odfpy

Post by M Singh
Hello
I wish to work on a project that creates OpenOffice.org Presentation (odp)
files using shell scripts, without invoking openoffice desktop. Basically I
wish to convert a presentation in one format (it is not ppt, and not in any
format that openoffice can currently, or probably ever, will read /
understand).
Can someone please point me to a guide that uses python, or some such API,
to actually write the contents of the zip archive and explains the
structure in some detail for making simple presentations (no animations,
sound or movies - just simple graphics and text) ? I have googled around,
but all the guides I can find are either for using python with an open
session of openoffice or involve going into the UNO framework which looks
very complicated and daunting.
Alternatively, is there a (preferably free) tool on Linux to convert PDFs to
odp (and I am NOT talking about exporting each page of the pdf as a single
image into a presentation) ?
Thanks.
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[M Singh]

Post by Mike Scott

Post by M Singh
Hello
I wish to work on a project that creates OpenOffice.org Presentation
(odp) files using shell scripts, without invoking openoffice desktop.
Basically I wish to convert a presentation in one format (it is not ppt,
and not in any format that openoffice can currently, or probably ever,
will read / understand).
Can someone please point me to a guide that uses python, or some such
API, to actually write the contents of the zip archive and explains the
structure in some detail for making simple presentations (no animations,
sound or movies - just simple graphics and text) ? I have googled around,
but all the guides I can find are either for using python with an open
session of openoffice or involve going into the UNO framework which looks
very complicated and daunting.

I think you're making life too hard. You don't /need/ to go anywhere
near UNO to create an OOo document.
There are some gory details on the odf file structure at
http://books.evc-cit.info/odbook/book.html for example, but again, you
probably don't need all that to get started.
I've not made any odp files programmatically, but I have created simple
odt files using perl. In that instance I found it quite easy to examine
the internals of examples created with OOo, and then to write code to
"do likewise" - it's all just xml, and with care can be written from
your favourite programming language. I did cheat a bit, using a
pre-existing template odt file, and just replacing content.xml with my
own.
The structure of the zip archive itself is pretty obvious, and you could
well get away with attention to just the content.xml part, and the
images directory.
It's no paragon of code writing, and as I said, creates an odt not an
odp file, but if you'd like a copy of what I have as a naive example,
let me know.

Please post an example.

This is exactly what I am looking for - ability to write the xml to a bunch
of files and then zipping them together, followed by a rename to
something.odp.


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