[Gllug] PDF creation

[Richard Huxton]

Peter Childs wrote:
> 
> Linux Format have been doing a series of articles on how to automating
> bits of OOo.
> 
> It goes down to open document files are just zip files, containing
> xml, a bit like jar files for java. Unzip them, edit the contents
> using standard text editing tools and rezip.

Built a setup that did just this a few years back with OOo 1.x

Generates reports as a PDF not via mail-merge but by unzipping, hack 
XML, rezip.

Note that OOo doesn't run truly headless - you need an X session to put 
it in for font handling. Running a macro headless involves something like:

/usr/bin/vncserver :1
DISPLAY=:1 /usr/bin/ooffice -headless macro:///Standard.My.Macro

You don't need to use vncserver - anything that gives you an X session.

-- 
   Richard Huxton
   Archonet Ltd
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