odsgenerator, a .ods generator.

Generate an OpenDocument Format .ods file from a .json or .yaml file.

When used as a script, odsgenerator parses a JSON or YAML description of tables and generates an ODF document using the odfdo library.

When used as a library, odsgenerator parses a Python description of tables and returns the ODF content as bytes (ready to be saved as a valid ODF document).

• The content description can be minimalist: a list of lists of lists,
• or description can be complex, allowing styles at row or cell level.

See also https://github.com/jdum/odsparsator which is doing the reverse operation, .osd to .json.

odsgenerator is a Python package, using the odfdo library. Current version requires Python >= 3.10, see prior versions for older environments.

Project: https://github.com/jdum/odsgenerator

Author: jerome.dumonteil@gmail.com

License: MIT

Installation

Installation from Pypi (recommended):

pip install odsgenerator

Installation from sources:

uv sync

CLI usage

odsgenerator [-h] [--version] [-l LANGUAGE] input_file output_file

arguments

-l, --lang: force document language (e.g. en-US, fr-FR)

input_file: input file containing data in JSON or YAML format

output_file: output file, .ods file generated from the input

Use odsgenerator --help for more details about input file parameters and look at examples in the tests folder.

Usage from python code

from odsgenerator import odsgenerator

content = odsgenerator.ods_bytes([[["a", "b", "c"], [10, 20, 30]]])
with open("sample.ods", "wb") as file:
    file.write(content)

The resulting .ods file loaded in a spreadsheet:

Another example with more parameters:

import odsgenerator

content = odsgenerator.ods_bytes(
    [
        {
            "name": "first tab",
            "style": "cell_decimal2",
            "table": [
                {
                    "row": ["a", "b", "c"],
                    "style": "bold_center_bg_gray_grid_06pt",
                },
                [10, 20, 30],
            ],
        }
    ]
)
with open("sample2.ods", "wb") as file:
    file.write(content)

The .ods file loaded in a spreadsheet, with gray background on first line:

Principle

• A document is a list or dict containing tabs. If a dict is provided, optional keys include language (e.g. "en-US"), styles, default_styles, common_styles, defaults, and body.
• a tab is a list or dict containing rows,
• a row is a list or dict containing cells.

Documentation

See in the `./doc folder:

• html/odsgenerator.html
• tutorial.json or tutorial.yml and tutorial.ods

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License (see the LICENSE file for details).