How to install

$ sudo aptitude install -y libreoffice libreoffice-script-provider-python uno-libs3 python3-uno python3

$ sudo aptitude install -y virtualenvwrapper
$ mkvirtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3.4 --system-site-packages tmp3

(tmp3)$ python
Python 3.4.0 (default, Apr 11 2014, 13:05:11)
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import uno

(tmp3)$ pip install unotools

$ hg clone ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/t2y/unotools

$ hg clone ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/ambv/singledispatch

$ export PYTHONPATH="/path/to/singledispatch/:/path/to/unotools/"

$ /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice --version
LibreOffice 4.4.0.3 de093506bcdc5fafd9023ee680b8c60e3e0645d7

$ /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/python
Python 3.3.5 (default, Jan 22 2015, 17:12:45)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.0 (clang-600.0.51)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import unotools

How to use (on Ubuntu 14.04)

Startup libreoffice:

(tmp3)$ soffice --accept='socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.Service'

Download sample-scripts from https://bitbucket.org/t2y/unotools/raw/default/sample-scripts:

(tmp3)$ python sample-scripts/writer-sample1.py -s localhost
(tmp3)$ python sample-scripts/calc-sample1.py -s localhost -d sample-scripts/datadir/
(tmp3)$ ls
sample-calc.html  sample-calc.pdf  sample-calc_html_eaf26d01.png
sample-scripts  sample-writer.html  sample-writer.pdf
sample.csv  sample.doc  sample.ods  sample.odt  sample.xls

There’s a sample script to convert odt/ods to pdf.

(tmp3)$ python sample-scripts/pdf-convert-sample1.py -s localhost -f sample.odt
(tmp3)$ python sample-scripts/pdf-convert-sample1.py -s localhost -f sample.ods
(tmp3)$ ls sample.pdf

Look through these sample script, then it help you how to use unotools.

Interact with interpreter step by step

Interacting documents with UNO make you learn how to use unotools.

Startup LibreOffice:

$ soffice --accept='socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.Service'

>>> from unotools import Socket, connect
>>> from unotools.component.writer import Writer
>>> context = connect(Socket('localhost', 8100))
>>> writer = Writer(context)

Now, you can see new document window on LibreOffice.

>>> writer.set_string_to_end('Hello\n')
>>> writer.set_string_to_end('World\n')

Then, Hello and World are put into the document window.

>>> text = writer.text
>>> text
<unotools.component.writer.Text object at 0x1064a8e10>

Writer inherits XTextRange interface and has those methods. To make full use of unotools, you have to understand UNO APIs.

There’s a tip to confirm what methods are exist in the component. The _show_attributes() is a helper method that unotools component inherit.

>>> text._show_attributes()
[ ...
 'getElementType',
 'getEnd',
 'getImplementationId',
 'getImplementationName',
 'getPropertySetInfo',
 'getPropertyValue',
 'getSomething',
 'getStart',
 'getString',
 'getSupportedServiceNames',
 'getText',
 'getTypes',
  ...
]

Though these methods are CamelCase, you can also invoke Python style methods.

>>> text.getString()
'Hello\nWorld\n'

>>> text.get_string()
'Hello\nWorld\n'

Both are same method and unotools component handles to convert Python style to original method.

Let’s save this document as odt.

>>> from unotools.unohelper import convert_path_to_url
>>> url = convert_path_to_url('./test1.odt')
>>> url
'file:///Users/t2y/work/repo/unotools/test1.odt'
>>> writer.store_to_url(url, 'FilterName', 'writer8')
>>> writer.close(True)

If you want to read OpenDocument on file system, like this.

>>> writer = Writer(context, convert_path_to_url('./test1.odt'))

ChangeLog