OpenOffice or Libre Office Plugin

[quote=17700:@Eugene Dakin]Thanks for the help everyone!

As the Philosopher ‘Confucious’ would say, ‘a 1000 mile journey begins with the first step’ … Here I go!

Eugene[/quote]

Actually, it is Lao Tzi who wrote that, in the Tao Te King… But both were Chinese :wink:

[quote=155770:@Torsten Gaidies]Hello,

I’m also interessted in creating reports with Libre Office. I use LO Writer to create letters within Libre Office and use Templates as the document base. I would now like to fill the template document (Adress field, tables) with values from Xojo and then print the documents and save them from Libre Office as pdf or odt documents (without starting libre office).

Is there some progress done by someone?[/quote]

For windows you might have a look at this link https://forum.xojo.com/4693-write-an-openoffice-libreoffice-document-with-use-of-xojo-windo

Yep, your thread was the kick I needed to start asking this question by myself. I would like to have a solution firstly for Mac and then for Linux.

For a year ago I was looking around and find no Libre Office UNO Bridge for Realstudio/Xojo… Only for Python.

If programming in Python. You will need the Python UNO Bridge for Windows. In Linux it’s by default, when Libre Office is installed. And on Mac I don’t know. But if you want to do this in Xojo for Mac and Linux. Then I haven’t found much info yet. What I have found you should be able to find here on this forum.

If you find some interesting please add it here. Would be appreciated :slight_smile:

wouldnt it be easier to be able to read and write .doc or .xls or .odt files only ?
without the need to control libreoffice or office ?

I would prefer it, if it would be easy enough. Some years ago I read articles that compared Open Office and Microsoft Office document specifications. The OO version had more than 1000 pages and the MS version had a lot more. A plenty of work to read and handle. Perhaps someone has worked on a solution.

LOL, I Love the Internet and its factual information… here is another one…

Something to start with:

https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office

The table of contents to the odf format:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/OpenDocument-v1.2.pdf

Although there have been many books written (9 books on Xojo and 4 books on REALStudio at RBLibrary.com), the last Book Survey had Open Office and/or Libre Office near the bottom.

Two books were created from this survey (Canvas and Web) and I am working on the third one (Sockets and Networking). I can redo the survey to see if this topic has a higher priority?

Thoughts?

I would be fine with a new survey. I already have your “canvas” book and interessted in your next one.

Sockets and Networking sounds great to me!

[quote=155831:@Eugene Dakin]@Michel Bujardet Actually, it is Lao Tzi who wrote that, in the Tao Te King… But both were Chinese :wink:
LOL, I Love the Internet and its factual information… here is another one…

Ensure that all quotes are factual - Benjamin Franklin - Dec, 1995 ;)[/quote]

Ben Franklin was so right, much before the Internet.

For the initial path thing, I happened to research that a couple years ago. After someone assured me the phase was from a Japanese Zen master, it rang such a bell I re-read the Tao Te Ching until I found it at exactly verse 64.

That said, I would not be surprised that the old man who lived in the 4th or 5th century BC had influenced a lot of others since :wink:

Hi Guys
have you got anywhere with this project?
I desperately need a plug-in/method for creating .docx, but Open/Libre could be an alternative for me

Hi Gerd,

Here is example 2-9 in the book ‘I Wish I Knew How To… Program Word 2010 with Xojo in Windows’. This works on the Windows OS with the MSOfficeAutomation.rbx plugin installed in Xojo.

[code] 'Make a new document
Dim word as new WordApplication
word.Documents.Add
word.Visible = True

'Add some example text
word.Selection.TypeText “This is saved as a file from Word 2013. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.”

'Save As an htm file
word.ActiveDocument.SaveAs2 (“C:\test\MyDoc.docx”, 16)

'Catch errors
Exception err as NilObjectException
MsgBox Err.Message
[/code]

Libre Office and Open Office are on the list from the latest survey at: 2015 Survey , and it looks like there are a few more topics before this book is written - sorry for the delay.

Does this code work for you or are you on Mac or Linux?

Hi Eugene

I actually bought your book a few months ago.
Unfortunately I am working on a Mac, but my clients are on windows.
Maybe I should….
I dare not say it!!

[quote=200003:@Gerd Wilmer]Maybe I should….
I dare not say it!![/quote]
Install a VM if you can not bear having a PC. That said a $200 laptop gets you a full Windows system of average specs and makes a wonderful test environment.

[quote=200003:@Gerd Wilmer]my clients are on windows.
Maybe I should…. [/quote]

How can you support them if you cannot test on the same platform that they use ? There are many things that do not works quite exactly the same way between the two platforms. Not to mention very real differences in terms of UI.

Bob is right, a VM works just perfectly already. I have been using VMWare Fusion ( http://www.vmwareinc.com/ ) for years ; it runs all versions of Windows perfectly and allows drag and drop between the two environments, as well as copy/paste, just as well as folder sharing extremely simply.

I recently got myself a very cute little Asus Book Transformer, which is a 10" Windows 8 notebook that can be turned into a tablet.
http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-Detachable-Touch-Laptop-Storage/dp/B00OBQ59UK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1436823049&sr=8-2&keywords=asus+book+t100&pebp=1436823056312&perid=1X2AH7P9FEPGATT4BXVY

At that price, it is less than an Android tablet, and it is a real PC taht runs the Xojo IDE just fine, as well as all Xojo apps. IMHO quite enough to complement a powerful Mac.

You can download some test VMs from Microsoft here: http://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/

I do have VM Fusion to test things, however i have never had a proper windows machine. My first computer was a NEC which ran its own version of DOS. I has been Macs since the SE or Unix/Linux for the server ever since.
You are correct though - I should…