Comments on OpenOffice.org Ninja: odf-converter 1.1 released

Anonymous Debian user: The odf-converter-intergrat...

2009-01-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

Anonymous Debian user: The odf-converter-intergrator builds include a newer version of odf-converter (with better conversion) built without dependencies on libtiff or libgif.

Debian etch only has libtiff4. So, I had to do the...

2009-01-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Debian etch only has libtiff4. So, I had to do the following to get it to work:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3

Adam: odf-converter requires SUSE/OpenSUSE/Novell'...

2008-08-05T18:41:00.000-06:00

Adam: odf-converter requires SUSE/OpenSUSE/Novell's special edition of OpenOffice.org, so everyone else should use odf-converter-integrator

When I try to run the RPM, it says: "Missing Depen...

2008-08-05T14:41:00.000-06:00

When I try to run the RPM, it says: "Missing Dependency: OpenOffice_org >= 2.0 is needed by package odf-converter"

I have OO2.3 installed and have used yum to ensure that all packages are up to date. Any solutions?

slipsticking: Based on the release date of OpenSUS...

2008-04-05T13:27:00.000-06:00

slipsticking: Based on the release date of OpenSUSE 10.3, you may have an old version of odf-converter (now at 1.1.7), which has come a long way lately. If you reproduce the problem in the latest version, report it to http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

I am using OpenSUSE 10.3, which (as this post sugg...

2008-04-05T11:42:00.000-06:00

I am using OpenSUSE 10.3, which (as this post suggests) comes with the odf-converter natively installed in OpenOffice. Additionally, I teach college English and require students to electronically submit their term papers. I then convert them to PDFs and upload them to the university's Blackboard server where students download them for class workshops. All that to say....

Unfortunately, the integrity of the .docx files does not always seem to be exact. On at least two student papers, translation into ODF was inaccurate. On one paper the page numbers at the top (an MLA formatting requirement) appeared on the bottom instead; on another paper, the last several paragraphs lost their font style and double-spaced formatting. Viewing the same files on a Windows XP machine running MS Office 2003 with the MS Office pack converter translated them correctly.

I have Googled high and low, but no one else seems to report this problem with Novell's odf-converter.

If you would like the original .docx student papers for conversion testing, mail me: mrrena -- at -- gmail.

The Ubuntu and Novell/SUSE editions of OOo have so...

2008-02-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Ubuntu and Novell/SUSE editions of OOo have some extra code to allow the use of an out-of-process (in other words, external) converter. The OdfConverter is really a command line program with a thin interface to OpenOffice.org. That could explain why it seems so slow to me.

The OdfConverter is Novell's temporary solution until OOo 3.0 is released. It would have been nice if upstream included the code, but, "Oh, well." I am glad upstream work is focusing on the long-term OpenXML solution called "xmlfilter."

Andrew

Sorry, I meant: "how come is works with the Ubuntu...

2008-02-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I meant: "how come is works with the Ubuntu version and not the upstream version?"

This is very interesting news. I just tried to ins...

2008-02-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

This is very interesting news. I just tried to install the converter in my Ubuntu OOo, and it actually seems to work!

How come it works with the OOo version and not with the upstream version? What is the difference between the version?