=head1 NAME
OpenOffice::OODoc - The Perl Open OpenDocument Connector
=head1 SYNOPSIS
use OpenOffice::OODoc;
# get global access to the content of an OOo file
my $document = ooDocument(file => "MyFile.odt");
# select a text element containing a given string
my $place = $document->selectElementByContent("my search string");
# insert a new text element before the selected one
my $newparagraph = $document->insertParagraph
(
$place,
position => 'before',
text => 'A new paragraph to be inserted',
style => 'Text body'
);
# define a new graphic style, to display images
# with 20% extra luminance and color inversion
$document->createImageStyle
(
"NewImageStyle",
properties =>
{
'draw:luminance' => '20%',
'draw:color-inversion' => 'true'
}
);
# import an image from an external file, attach it
# to the newly inserted paragraph, to be displayed
# using the newly created style
$document->createImageElement
(
"Image1",
style => "NewImageStyle",
attachment => $newparagraph,
import => "D:\Images\Landscape.jpg"
);
# save the modified document
$document->save;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This toolbox is an extensible Perl interface allowing direct read/write
operations on files which comply with the OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF),
i.e. the ISO/IEC 26300 standard.
It provides a high-level, document-oriented language, and isolates the
programmer from the details of the file format. It can process different
document classes (texts, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings).
It can retrieve or update styles and images, document metadata, as well as
text content.
OpenOffice::OODoc is designed for data retrieval and update in existing
documents, as well as full document generation.
=head1 HOW TO USE THE DOCUMENTATION
The present chapter, then the OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro one, should be
read before any attempt to dig in the detailed documentation.
The reference manual is provided in several separate chapters as
described below.
The OpenOffice::OODoc documentation, as the API itself, is distributed
amongst several manual pages on a thematic and technical basis. The present
page is not the most important one.
Each manual page correspond to a Perl module, with the exception of
OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro. It's strongly recommended to have a look at
the Intro, and to read the examples, before any other manual chapter, in
order to get a quick and practical knowledge of the big picture.
The API is object-oriented and, with the exception of the main module
(OpenOffice::OODoc itself), each module defines a class. The features of each
module are documented in a manual page with the same name. But, while some
classes inherit from other ones, they bring a lot of features that are not
documented in the corresponding manual page. The best example is
OpenOffice::OODoc::Document: it contains a few method definitions by itself,
but it's the most powerful class, because it inherits from four other classes,
so it's features are documented in five manual pages. Fortunately, the classes
are defined on a functional basis. So, for example, to know the text-related
capabilities of a Document object, the user should select the Text manual page
before the Document one.
The detailed documentation of the API is distributed according to the
following list:
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc
The present manual page contains (in the GENERAL FUNCTIONS section below) the
description of a small number of miscellaneous functions, dedicated to control
some general parameters, to create the main objects of the applications, or to
provide the user with some basic utilities.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::File
This manual page contains detailed information about the physical access to
the OpenOffice.org files. In some simple applications, this page can be
ignored without risk.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath
It describes all the common features, that are provided by the corresponding
class, and available in every other class with the exception of OODoc::File.
This manual page describes the low level, XPath-based XML API of
OpenOffice::OODoc. It can be necessary for advanced applications, but can be
ignored at first look. However, the Text, Image, Styles, Document and Meta
objects inherit all the features of the XPath object, so this manual page
can be useful even if the user don't need to work with explicit XPath objects.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Text
This manual page describes all the high level text processing methods and
allows the user's program to deal with all the text containers (headers,
paragraphs, item lists, tables, and footnotes). It can deal with any text
content in any OOo document, and not only in Writer documents (a special
mapping allows the programmer to address rows and cells in the same way in
spreadsheets as in the tables belonging to other documents).
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Image
This manual page describes all the graphics manipulation API, i.e. all the
available syntax dedicated to insert or remove images in the documents, and
to control the presentation of these images.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Styles
This manual page describes the methods to be used to control the styles
of a document, knowing that each page layout, each text element, and each
image is displayed or printed according to a style. This part of the
documentation can be ignored if the user's programs are strictly content-
focused and don't care with the presentation.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Document
This manual page describe some miscellaneous methods that deal simultaneously
with text, presentation and/or images. So, in order to discover the capabilities
of a "Document" object (created with ooDocument), the user should use the Text,
Image, Styles AND Document manual pages. The OpenOffice::OODoc::Document class
inherits all the features provided by the other classes with the exceptions of
OpenOffice::OODoc::File and OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta
This manual page describes all the available methods to be used in order to
control the global properties (or "metadata") of a document. Most of these
properties are those an end-user can get or set through the "File/Properties"
command with the OpenOffice.org desktop software.
=head2 OpenOffice::OODoc::Manifest
This manual page describes the manifest management API, knowing that the
manifest, in an OpenOffice.org file, contains the list of the file components
(or "members") and the media type (or MIME) of each one. The text content,
the style definitions, the embedded images, etc. are each one stored as a
separate "member".
=head1 GENERAL FUNCTIONS
=head3 ooLocalEncoding([character_set])
Accessor to get/set the user's local character set
(see $OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET in the
OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath man page).
Example:
$old_charset = ooLocalEncoding();
ooLocalEncoding('iso-8859-15');
If the given argument is an unsupported encoding, an error
message is produced and the old encoding is preserved. So
this accessor is safer than a direct update of the
$OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET variable.
The default local character set is fixed according to the
"OODoc/config.xml" file of your local OpenOffice::OODoc installation
(see readConfig() below), or to "iso-8859-1" if this file is missing
or doesn't say anything about the local character set. By calling
ooLocalEncoding() with an argument, the user's programs can override
this default.
Note: the user can override this setting for a particular document,
using the 'local_encoding' property of the document object (see the
OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath manual page).
See the Encode::Supported (Perl) documentation for the list
of supported encodings.
=head3 ooDecodeText($ootext)
Returns the translation of a raw OpenOffice.org (UTF-8) in
the local character set. While the right translation is automatically
done by the regular text read/write methods of OpenOffice::OODoc, this
function is useful only if the user's application needs to bypass the
API.
=head3 ooDocument()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Document->new().
This function is the most general document constructor. It creates
and returns a new Document object. It can be instantiated on the basis of
an existing OpenOffice.org file, or using XML, OpenOffice-compliant
data previously loaded in memory. With an appropriate "create"
parameter, it can be used in order to create a new document from scratch
as well. The Document class provides methods allowing a lot of read/update
operations in the text content, the graphics, and the presentation.
So ooDocument() is the recommended first call to get access to a document
for further processing.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Document manual page for detailed syntax.
=head3 ooEncodeText($ootext)
Returns the translation of an application-provided string,
made of local characters, in OpenOffice.org (UTF-8).
The given string must comply with the active local encoding (see
ooLocalEncoding()). While the right translation is automatically done by
the regular text read/write methods of OpenOffice::OODoc, this
function is useful only if the user's application needs to bypass the
API.
=head3 ooFile()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::File->new().
This function returns a File object, that is the object representation
of the physical file containing the text, the images and the style
definitions of an OpenOffice.org document.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::File manual page for detailed syntax.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Intro manual page to know why, in some
situations, the using applications need or don't need to deal with
explicit File objects.
=head3 ooImage()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Image->new().
This function returns a Image object, that brings a subset of the
Document object. Il can be used in place of ooDocument() if the
calling application needs some image manipulation methods only.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Image manual page for detailed syntax.
=head3 ooManifest()
Short cut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Manifest->new().
This function returns a Manifest object, giving access to the
meta-information of the physical archive containing the document.
=head3 ooMeta()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta->new().
This function returns a Meta object. Such an object represents the
global properties, or "metadata", of a document. It brings a set of
accessors allowing the user to get or set some properties such as
the title, the keyword, the description, the creator, etc.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Meta manual page for details.
=head3 ooStyles()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Styles->new().
This function returns a Style object, that brings a subset of the
Document object. In can be used in place of ooDocument() if the
calling application needs some style/presentation manipulation
methods only. Note the 's' at the end of 'Styles': this object doesn't
represent a particular style; it represents a set of styles related
to a document.
See the OpenOffice:OODoc::Styles manual page for detailed syntax.
=head3 ooText()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::Text->new().
This function returns a Text object, that brings a subset ot the
Document object. It can be used in place of ooDocument() if the
calling application is only text-focused (i.e. if it doesn't need
to deal with graphics and styles). The processed document can contain
(and probably contains) graphics and styles, but the methods to
process them are simply not loaded.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::Text manual page for detailed syntax.
=head3 ooXPath()
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath->new().
This function returns an XPath object, that brings all the low level
XML navigation, retrieve, read and write methods of the API. The XPath
class (in the OpenOffice::OODoc context) is an OpenOffice-aware
wrapper for the general XML::Twig API. Unless you are a very advanced
user and you have a particular hack in mind, you should never need to
explicitly create an XPath object. But you must know that every method
or property of this class is inherited by the Text, Image, Styles,
Document and Meta objects. So the knowledge of the corresponding
manual page could be useful.
See the OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath manual page for detailed syntax.
=head3 ooReadConfig([filename])
Creates or reset some variables of the API according to the
content of an XML configuration file. Without argument, this
function looks for 'OODoc/config.xml' under the installation
directory of OpenOffice::OODoc. In any case, the provided file
must have the same XML structure as the config.xml file included
in the distribution, so:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
<OpenOffice-OODoc>
<XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET>my_charset</XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET>
<Styles-COLORMAP>my_colormap_file</Styles-COLORMAP>
<File-WORKING_DIRECTORY>my_path</File-WORKING_DIRECTORY>
<File-DEFAULT_OFFICE_FORMAT>2</File-DEFAULT_OFFICE_FORMAT>
<INSTALLATION_DATE>my_oo_date</INSTALLATION_DATE>
</OpenOffice-OODoc>
</config>
In the example above, "my_oo_date" should be replaced by a regular
ISO-8601 date (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss).
Elements out of the <OpenOffice-OODoc> element are ignored.
Any element included in <OpenOffice-OODoc> sets or update a variable
with the same name and the given value in the space of the
OpenOffice::OODoc package. So, for example an element like
<strange_thing>a strange value</strange_thing>
will make a new $OpenOffice::OODoc::strange_thing variable,
initialized with the string "a strange value", available for any
program using OpenOffice::OODoc.
Attributes and sub-elements are ignored.
Strings with characters larger than 7 bits must be encoded in UTF-8.
Any '-' character appearing in the name of an element is replaced
by '::' in the name of the corresponding variable, so, for example,
the <XPath-LOCAL_CHARSET> element controls the initial value of
$OpenOffice::OODoc::XPath::LOCAL_CHARSET.
All the variables defined in this file, are the file itself, are
optional.
The <INSTALLATION_DATE> element is not used by the API; it's provided
for information only. It allows the user to get (in OpenOffice format)
the date of the last installation of OpenOffice::OODoc, through the
variable $OpenOffice::OODoc::INSTALLATION_DATE. In the default
config.xml provided with the distribution, this element contains the
package generation date.
This function is automatically executed as soon as OpenOffice::OODoc
is used, if the OODoc/config.xml configuration file exists.
=head3 ooTemplatePath([path])
Shortcut for OpenOffice::OODoc::File::templatePath().
Accessor to get/set an alternative path for the XML template files
used to create new documents. See the manual page for the
OpenOffice::OODoc::File module.
=head3 ooWorkingDirectory([path])
Accessor to get/set the working directory to use for temporary
files. Short-lived temporary files are generated each time the save()
function (see OpenOffice::OOdoc::File) is called. If case of success,
these files are automatically removed when the call returns, so the
user can't view them. If something goes wrong during the I/O
processing, the temporary files remain available for debugging. In any
case, a working directory is necessary to create or update documents.
However, OpenOffice::OODoc can be used without available working
directory in a read-only application.
The default working directory depends on the "OODoc/config.xml" file
of your local OpenOffice::OODoc installation. If this file is missing
or if it doesn't contain a <File-WORKING_DIRECTORY> element, the
working directory is "." (i.e. the current working directory of the
user's application).
If an argument is given, it replaces the current working
directory.
A warning is issued if the (existing or newly set) path is not
a directory with write permission. After this warning, the user's
application can run, but any attempted file update or creation
fails.
This accessor sets only the default working directory for the
application. A special, separate working directory can be set
for each OOo document (see the manual page for OpenOffice::OODoc::File
for details, if needed).
CAUTION: a ooWorkingDirectory() call can't change the working directory
of a previously created File object. So, consider the following
code sequence:
my $doc0 = ooDocument(file => 'doc0.odt');
ooWorkingDirectory('C:\TMP');
my $doc1 = ooDocument(file => 'doc1.odt');
In this example, all the write operations related to the $doc0
document will use the default working directory, while the ones
related to $doc1 will use "C:\TMP".
=head1 AUTHOR/COPYRIGHT
Developer/Maintainer: Jean-Marie Gouarne L<http://jean.marie.gouarne.online.fr>
Contact: jmgdoc@cpan.org
Copyright 2004-2006 by Genicorp, S.A. L<http://www.genicorp.com>
Initial English version of the reference manual by Graeme A. Hunter
(graeme.hunter@zen.co.uk).
License:
- Licence Publique Generale Genicorp v1.0
- GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1
=cut