The document discusses generating documents using OpenOffice and evaluating different options. It considers MS Office APIs but finds they are Windows only and have complicated APIs. Options like PDF-Writer, RTF, LaTeX, and HTML are discussed but found to have downsides like not supporting design changes or document formats needed. The document settles on using the Open Document Format (ODF) as it is an open standard, has cross-platform tools, and simple document structure and lifecycle. However, it finds converting ODF to other formats like PDF is surprisingly difficult due to its complex XML structure with many namespaces. It presents a solution using an ODF Toolkit but notes it is still in the early phases.

1. Generating Documents
with OpenOffice
michael@koziarski.com

2. Introduction - Me

4. TheRailsWay.com

5. Introduction - PlanHQ

6. Online Business
Planning

15. What we needed

16. Unique Challenges
• No limits on amount of text
• Real time generation

17. Visual Design
• Printed output must be high quality
• Frequent iteration and enhancement
• Worked on by non-programmers

18. What we evaluated

19. MS Office APIs

20. Office APIs

21. Downsides
• Windows Only
• None of us knew .NET
• Complicated APIs

22. Downsides
• Windows Only
• None of us knew .NET
• Complicated APIs

23. Downsides
• No PDF export
• Design Changes are Expensive

24. Expensive Design
Changes

25. Web Programming
Works

26. The design output should be as close
as possible to the programming output.

27. Design Changes
Imperative Markup
• •
Change Design Change Design
• •
Reverse engineer into Apply changes to code
method calls
• Test
• Apply changes to the
code
• Test

28. PDF-Writer

29. PDF-Writer

30. Downsides
• Design Changes are Expensive
• No suitable .doc conversion

31. RTF

32. RTF
• Relatively Simple Format
• Cross Platform Support
fs30 First line with 15 point textline
fs20 Second line with 10 point testline
i Italics on i0 Italics offline
b Bold on b0 Bold offline

33. Downsides
• Design Changes are Expensive
• Subset of Formatting options available
• No PDF support

34. LaTeX

35. LaTeX
• Beautiful output
• Some Existing ‘GUI’ Editors (LyX, TeXmacs)

36. Downsides
• Design Changes are Expensive
• No Mathematics in our output
• No .doc support

37. HTML

38. HTML
• Automated conversion tools produce UGLY
results
• Browsers give poor control over printed
output

39. ODF

40. Why ODF?

41. Open Standard

42. Cross Platform Tools

43. Simple Design Lifecycle

44. Creation

45. Structure
Zip File

46. meta.xml

47. meta.xml

48. settings.xml
• PrintControls
• PrintEmptyPages
• DoNotCaptureDrawObjsOnPage
• ConsiderTextWrapOnObjPos

49. settings.xml

50. META-INF/manifest.xml

51. Configurations2
I have NO idea

52. content.xml

53. content.xml

54. content.xml

55. content.xml

56. Final Step

57. Why not use Builder?

58. ODF XML

59. ODF XML

60. ODF XML
24 Seperate Namespaces!

61. ODF XML

62. ODF XML
Inserting an image uses 4 separate namespaces!

63. ODF XML
Inserting an image uses 4 separate namespaces!

64. ODF XML

65. ODF XML

66. Conversion

67. Surprisingly Difficult!

68. Conversion?
ooffice --save-as pdf some_file.odt

69. Conversion?
ooffice --save-as pdf some_file.odt

70. UNO

71. UNO
No Ruby Bindings!

72. UNO
No Ruby Bindings!
Stuck with Python!

73. ooextract.py
Takes a document on the command line,
and converts it to pdf or html

74. ooextract.py
Takes a document on the command line,
and converts it to pdf or html
Cargo Culting to the rescue

75. ooextract.py

76. ooextract.py

77. ooextract.py
What’s the filterName for MS Office?

78. ooextract.py

79. One last problem

80. X11

81. New Deployment
Architecture
• Separate ‘converter’ nodes
• S3 to hold odf files
• SQS to trigger conversion
• Conversion must be idempotent to allow
retries

82. Pain!

83. ODF Toolkit
The solution?

84. ODF Toolkit

85. ODF Toolkit
• Still in the incubator phase
• No production ready code yet.

86. Conclusions

87. ODF - Good

88. ODF - Weird

89. Conversion - Bad

90. Questions?
michael@koziarski.com