lostyle

Manage the styles of LibreOffice / OpenDocument files from the command line. It supports Draw (.odg), Writer (.odt), Calc (.ods), Impress (.odp), their templates (.otg, …) and their flat XML variants (.fodg, …). It works directly on the ODF XML and only depends on lxml; LibreOffice doesn't need to be installed or running.

What it does:

• copies styles from one document into another;
• renames a style;
• merges duplicate styles into one;
• compares the styles of two documents;
• finds and deletes unused styles;
• keeps a whole folder of documents in line with a template.

Installation

pip install lostyle          # or: uv tool install lostyle
lostyle --help
uvx lostyle --help           # run once, without installing

From a source checkout: uv tool install . (or pip install .).

Commands

lostyle list    DOC [-f FAMILY] [--automatic] [--usage | --unused]
lostyle copy    SOURCE TARGET [-s STYLE] [-f FAMILY] [--on-conflict overwrite|skip|rename]
                [--no-deps] [--defaults] [-o OUT]
lostyle rename  DOC OLD NEW [-f FAMILY] [-o OUT]
lostyle replace DOC OLD [OLD ...] --with NEW [-f FAMILY] [--keep] [-o OUT]
lostyle diff    A B [-f FAMILY] [--exit-code]
lostyle purge   PATH... [--keep TEMPLATE] [-f FAMILY] [-o OUT]
lostyle map     PATH... --map styles.toml [-o OUT]
lostyle audit   TEMPLATE PATH... [--map styles.toml] [-v] [--exit-code]
lostyle sync    TEMPLATE PATH... [--map styles.toml] [--purge] [--dry-run] [-v]

• Style names. Styles can be named by their display name (Fancy Box) or by the encoded internal name LibreOffice stores (Fancy_20_Box).
• Families. -f takes a family or kind: graphic, paragraph, text, list, table, table-cell, table-column, table-row, drawing-page, presentation, number, master-page, page-layout, gradient, hatch, marker, stroke-dash, fill-image, opacity, font-face, default, …. It is repeatable where the synopsis allows several.
• Where results are written. Commands that change a document save it in place unless -o is given.
• Several documents. purge, map, audit and sync accept several documents and directories, which are searched recursively. An error in one document is reported and the others are still processed; the exit code is 1 if any failed.

list

Lists a document's styles with their display names:

• --automatic includes automatic styles;
• --usage shows how many references each style has;
• --unused shows only what purge would delete.

copy

lostyle copy template.odg drawing.odg -s "Fancy Box"
lostyle copy template.odg drawing.odg -f master-page --on-conflict rename -o out.odg

Copies the selected styles, or all of them, together with what they depend on:

• parent and next styles;
• gradients, hatches, markers (arrowheads) and dash patterns;
• fill images (embedded pictures) and font declarations;
• number formats and list styles;
• page layouts and master-page backgrounds.

When a style already exists in the target, it is overwritten by default. --on-conflict skip keeps the target's version, and rename copies it under a new name such as Fancy Box (1).

The target's automatic styles are never overwritten. --no-deps copies only the selected styles, and --defaults also copies default styles. Copying the same styles again changes nothing.

rename

lostyle rename drawing.odg "Fancy Box" "Corporate Box"

Every reference to the style is updated: parent and next styles, master pages, and the shapes, paragraphs and cells in the document. If another style already has the new name, nothing is changed.

Renaming an Impress master page also renames its <master>-title, <master>-outline1, … presentation styles, which LibreOffice links to the master page by name.

replace: merging duplicate styles

lostyle replace drawing.odg "Box 2" "Box copy" --with Box

Everything that used Box 2 or Box copy now uses Box: shapes, paragraphs, cells, child styles and master pages. The duplicates are then deleted; --keep keeps them instead.

• Inheritance. If a replaced style is an ancestor of the replacement, the inheritance chain is re-linked so that no style inherits from itself.
• Fonts. Fonts can be replaced too: lostyle replace doc.odg Arial --with "Liberation Sans".
• Impress master pages. Replacing one also switches its <master>-* presentation styles to the replacement master's ones.

diff

$ lostyle diff template.odg drawing.odg
--- template.odg
+++ drawing.odg
graphic
  - Fancy_20_Box  (Fancy Box)
  + Corporate_20_Box  (Corporate Box)
1 only in template.odg, 1 only in drawing.odg, 36 in both

Lists, by family, the styles that exist only in A (-) or only in B (+).

• Styles are matched by family and name; their contents aren't compared.
• Automatic styles are ignored.
• --exit-code exits with 1 when the documents differ.

purge

lostyle purge Diagrams/ --keep templates/Schematization.otg

Deletes the styles nothing uses, along with embedded pictures that only those styles used.

• What counts as used. A style is used when the drawing, text or sheets use it, or when a used master page or another used style does.
• Always kept. Default styles are never deleted.
• --keep TEMPLATE. Also keeps every style the template has, so the template's palette stays available in each document.

Keeping many documents in line with a template

Edit the styles in one template, then push them into every document:

lostyle audit templates/Schematization.otg Diagrams/ --map styles.toml
lostyle sync  templates/Schematization.otg Diagrams/ --map styles.toml --purge --dry-run
lostyle sync  templates/Schematization.otg Diagrams/ --map styles.toml --purge

The mapping file

The mapping file (TOML) records once, for all documents, the old names of each template style, grouped by family:

[graphic]
"Line: Association" = ["Line: Assosiation", "Assosiation line"]
"Page: part splitter" = "Page part splitter"

[master-page]
SchematizationTemplate = ["SchematizationTemplate_2"]

How each entry is applied:

• Each old style a document has is merged into the new one, as replace does.
• When the new style doesn't exist yet, the first old style is renamed to it instead.
• Old names a document doesn't have are ignored.

lostyle map applies a mapping file on its own.

audit

Shows what the mapping file is still missing. It lists the styles documents would still use after a sync but that the template doesn't have, with how many documents use each. -v also lists the documents.

$ lostyle audit templates/Schematization.otg Diagrams/ --map styles.toml
graphic
    74  Line: Assosiation
    62  Slide title
2 style(s) used in 80 of 232 document(s) are not in the template

Add these names to the mapping file, or the styles to the template, until audit reports nothing. Nothing is saved.

sync

For each document of the template's type, sync:

1. copies all of the template's styles over the document's;
2. moves old style names to the template's names, as listed in the mapping file;
3. cleans up: it deletes the automatic styles a replaced master page left behind, and with --purge also every unused style that isn't in the template. Template styles stay even when unused.

How it behaves:

• Other document types are skipped. For example, a spreadsheet among drawings is left alone.
• Only changed documents are saved. Running sync again on synced documents changes nothing.
• --dry-run reports what would change without saving anything.
• -v shows the mapped and deleted styles.

Note that master pages are copied as well, page size included. A document whose master page has the same name as the template's, but a different page size, gets the template's page size.

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest        # LibreOffice round-trip tests run when `soffice` is installed
uv run ruff check . && uv run mypy