The PyOpenOffice User Guide - Version 0.4
Contents
1. with one_file 1 the output is merged to one file see Serial Letters replace_fixeddict textutilities_pyopenoffice defaultkeywords provides constants like TFA today TFE which will insert the current date and can be modified by the user with content any_UTF 8_string you can provide a preprocessed content xml you extracted before from the sxw sourcefile with data_with_linebreaks 1 your carriage returns in the replace_listofdicts can be represented in the generated sxw file This may be useful when processing databases containing values with carriage returns All CR signs are recognized n r and r n and replaced by the open office tag lt text line break gt with transform_linebreaks 1 the open office tag lt text line break gt is replaced by generating a new paragraph necessary for PDF transformation of this tag with RML 1 you can process files in the Reportlab Markup Language RML see below with_multi 1 you scan for the Multi TFA TFE tag before you make serial letters from the TFA TFE tag Page 3 2 2 Reports and Lists The Multi TFA TFE Tag This is a function to multiply table rows containing this tag These Multi TFA TFE tags are always processed before the normal TFA TFE tags see Serial Letters Imagine you have the following table in your sxw template file named test sxw Book Price this background colour is set with this background colour paragrap2. We get a one copy serial letter as a result 1Copies_NewPics_test_pic sxw The result will look like this Page 6 There is one restriction The pictureReplace function uses the Python Imaging Library This library does not process all image formats see the documentation of the PIL or better just try it out 3 Creating PDF The Old Way 3 1 Deprecated but still useful From the beginning PyOpenOffice was designed to create PDF s from sxw files without using OO This is useful for example on a webserver where you cannot easily install and use OO to produce PDF s on demand Nevertheless the built in function of OO to export PDF will always be superior for high quality PDF s that represent the exact layout in a WYSIWYG manner Use the OO export when you need this and do not consider PyOpenOffice as a WYSIWYG tool for PDF exports you always will have to live with certain restrictions When I say the old way creating PDF s I mean the way this transformation was done until version 0 31 A hardcoded way using the SAX parser and the XML DOM API from the Python Standard Library transforming the sxw file to Reportlab Platypus objects which then are used to produce PDF This way is proved to be stable and it may still be the fastest way to do it Nevertheless the code is very hard to maintain and it is not easy to add new features or to adapt it to new file formats So I decided version 0 31 will be the la
3. unpackNormalize and XSLT both are complex XML operations using recursions etc Also you lack the possibility to edit your RML templates manually when you need special features of RML Example You want to insert a letterhead using the pageGraphics option of RML this cannot be done automatically by PyOpenOffice yet and you want to appear this letterhead on all your generated serial letters For this reason PyOpenOffice is able to do all operations Modifying Existing SXW Files also on RML files Use them for files automatically generated by PyOpenOffice or use them for hand written RML files for example when you like RML but you do not like OO Use the TFA TFE and Multi TFA TFE tags the way described above and do your picture replace operations the same way Insert the needed tags into the sxw file transform it to RML or insert the tags manually into the RML sourcecode When inserting pictures manually into the RML sourcecode mind that PyOpenOffice only scans for images that are enclosed by an lt illustration gt tag Have a look at the make_image template in the XSLT Stylesheet to understand it in more detail When you are using automatically generated RML files for picture replacements you do not have to think about it PyOpenOffice will do everything for you appropriately Modifying RML files is straightforward file tool makeSerialLetters sourcefile test rml replace_listofdicts lod one_file 1 data_with_linebr
4. all RML functions needed for text and graphics formatting and will fit for the needs of PyOpenOffice To learn RML when using the tiny rml2pdf processor you can use the original RML User Guide written by Reportlab it is mirrored on the PyOpenOffice homepage just skip the sections for the enhanced features of the commercial solution Oh no not that Will I now have to learn a complex XML language to use PyOpenOffice Don t be afraid PyOpenOffice can hide the complexity of RML from you if you want Design your documents with OO and let PyOpenOffice do the job for you Nevertheless if you want to do some fine tuning or you need features of RML that are not implemented yet by PyOpenOffice you can deal with the RML source code to improve it Page 9 4 4 Using XSLT to transform normalized SXW files We now have to transform normalized_test xml to the RML language A good choice to do XML to XML transformations is the platform independent XSLT language defined by the W3C An XSLT processor transforms an XML file using a so called stylesheet PyOpenOffice comes with a stylesheet normalized_oo2rml xsl This is the first version of it and will need a lot of improvement of course nevertheless it is considered to be stable and it is already able to process more style information than the hardcoded Old Way of PyOpenOffice hey you XML gurus out there work on it and let me know your ideas You will need an W3C conformant XSLT p
5. browse the CVS tree on SourceForge http cvs sourceforge net viewcvs py pyopenoffice pyopenoffice 1 4 Installation Unzip PyOpenOffice zip into your path Make sure that all the skripts have write access to this path Write your skript and import pyopenoffice Mind there are still global variables in use so you always have to use the whole module 1 5 Contact and Feedback The quality of PyOpenOffice depends on your feedback Bug reports feature requests suggestions etc please mail to me simon web de Homepage www bezirksreiter de Page 2 1 6 License PyOpenOffice is now distributed under the Lesser GNU Public License LGPL see www gnu org copyleft lesser html 1 7 Basic Use All OO files are a zip archive consisting of a number of XML files and additional data embedded bitmap pictures for example If you want to modify a file you always have to use the same procedure unpack modify one ore more members of the archive repack If you want to open one of the unpacked xml files in an editor you should save your sxw file with pretty printing See menu Extra Options Load Save General in OO The OO file format is an open file format and is documented on hundreds of pages in detail Enjoy it on http xml openoffice org general html The PyOpenOffice tool is tested only for the OO Writer format sxw nevertheless some of the functions for example modifying existing sxw files should also work with
6. cycle producing a serial letter when you are using the New Way import pyopenoffice import os tool pyopenoffice PyOpenOffice n tool unpackNormalize test sxw now n normalized_test xml os system xsltproc normalized_oo2rml xsl normalized_test xml gt test rml file tool makeSerialLetters sourcefile test rml replace_listofdicts lod one_file 1 data_with_linebreaks 1 transform_linebreaks 1 RML 1 with_multi 1 list_of_outfiles tool makeSafePdf oowriter file_or_listoffiles RML 1 Page 11 You see just two more steps than the Old Way but with all advantages of the XML approach Allright 5 Miscelleanous Other Functions Here I only speak only about features you can access directly with the PyOpenOffice object Have a look at the sourcecode if you want to have access to more functions 5 1 Creating Plain Text Files and PDF s without any Formatting Sometimes you want a plain text representation of an sxw file PyOpenOffice can do this for you All XML tags for formatting are dropped no images are processed table cells are transformed to paragraphs with text data You can choose plain text output set plain_text_output 1 or PDF output list_of_outfiles tool makePlainText file_or_listoffiles plain_text_output 0 5 2 Extract the content xml file from the sxw archive With this function you can extract the content xml from an SXW Archive Use this to work on it with your own customized fun
7. files Nevertheless it is still to be developed Which of you Python and XML gurus out there would help to develop PyOpenOffice It is hosted with SourceForge and can be developed in a team via CVS I also appreciate all kind of feedback bug reports suggestions code snippets Yes I should not forget to give you a hint to find Bezirksreiter using PyOpenOffice There is a live reference implementation on my homepage http www bezirksreiter de bezirksreiter verwaltungMain htm Sorry it s only available in German who will help to port it to other languages Login as Benutzername Onkel_Otto and Passwort 12345 1 2 Thanks This tool is dedicated to the developers of OpenOffice org Python the Reportlab Toolkit the Python Imaging Library and tiny rml2pdf rml2html They did a great job and I admire them for their programming skills 1 3 Requirements Any operating system that supports the following software Python 2 3 maybe it works form 2 1 upwards but this is not recommended for the SXW Processing see www python org The ReportlabToolkit and the Python Imaging Library for the transformation from SXW to PDF see www reportlab org and www pythonware com products pil OpenOffice org for viewing and editing the templates see www openoffice org The PyOpenOffice Zip Package see www bezirksreiter de Any W3C conformant XSLT processor for the new XSLT based functions To get the latest unstable version
8. Dh TMS EG EON OEA ATT E 2 MeL FAISCORY oertein EEEE ASE EOE bes tenthas EREE EEEE 2 12 Thank Secciones E A EEE ETE ETE a a Saia 2 1 3 Reguire ments aeirenon iienaa nis EAE EE A TREN E E EE A AE EEEa 2 KA Mii Stealll Att one are rrr E EEEE E E E E EEEE a E e EE 2 1 5 Contact and Peedback iicci sisi ibnstiins lekeindiiendiieast ite EE EA E E a iaiia 2 TGs EEA E E E AEE T 3 E7 BASIC WSC isnie iene e E AE E AE EAA E E AE GETO 3 2 Modifying Existing SXW Emles ivi ciscciscsesccceosssocdecseadvecseveccesonesecsaoecsseossccess ovoessoossoesdsossasdessvoidsesossusestosceseresese 3 D A INO CU CON iaeiae in eR E A EE R E a iE A aaa aii 3 2 2 Reports and Lists The Multi TFA TFE Tag eee eeccessccsseeceseecsaecsanecsacecaaeeeaeeseeeseneeeeeeeneeesaees 4 2 3 Serial Letters The TFA TFE Tag cccccecsccccssceceseceesaceceeneeceaeeeeaaeceeaeeceeeesesaecseaeeceeeeeaeeseaaeeeeees 4 2 4 Catalogues etc The Picture Replace FUNCTION 0 0 0 cccccceeceeesseceseeeeceeeeesaeeceeneeceaeeeseaueceeneecsaaeceeaaeeeeeees 5 3 Creating PDE The Old Way cssecssecssseassseseccessscs sessisoes vcesosesssoestecsvecessocesectscenssucesscavosecssessocgssacssectestessectes 7 3 1 Deprecated DUE still USGI sornes ccs saedudecescededvnnevesdecs nie eaa eia e ias aeh OENE 7 De 2s RESMICUONS Se 10 feta E e E AE E E EEE act cation E E EO EE A E 7 BiB O T 2 E E AA 7 4 Going XML The Future of PyOpenOffice ccssccsscscssscsscscscsccccscsc
9. OO Calc etc The following examples all assume the PyOpenOffice skripts are in your path It is planned to make PyOpenOffice more accessable like an UNIX command line tool but at the moment almost every function of PyOpenOffice can only be accessed by the Python API The instantiation of tool also will create a empty dummy DTD named office dtd in your path this is needed for the XML parsers import pyopenoffice tool pyopenoffice PyOpenOffice 2 Modifying Existing SXW Files 2 1 Introduction Let s think you are running a Christian bookshop and have some data from a database query To insert the data into your sxw file you have to provide it as a list of dictionaries lod Book Holy Bible nLuther Version Price 15 00 Book Calendar for Daily Devotion Price 8 00 Book Holy Bible Good News Version Price 17 00 Surname Simon FirstName Martin Surname Miller FirstName Steve Surname Smith FirstName John StrangeField StrangeValue Now it is time to discover the makeSerialLetters function The complete definition of this function is def makeSerialLetters self sourcefile replace_listofdicts one_file 1 replace_fixeddict textutilities_pyopenoffice defaultkeywords content data_with_linebreaks 0 transform_linebreaks 0 RML 0 with_multi 1 You see three required arguments and a number of switches with default values
10. are converted to points 72pt 1 inch gt In normalized_test xml the style P11 from our example will now have a font size of 12 0 without the pt after it As XSLT is not a language that is very suitable for complex calculations this preprocessing will dramatically decrease the complexity of your XSLT stylesheets 4 3 What is RML RML is an XML language to describe text which is formatted mainly for printing Nevertheless you can transform it not only to PDF but also to HTML Maybe in future other transformations to RTF LATEX etc also will be possible The purpose of RML is similar to XSL FO but in my opinion it is much clearer and more powerful RML was developed and defined by Reportlab to make it easier to work with the Reportlab Toolkit Instead of generating a lot of Python objects to describe your PDF document the Old Way of PyOpenOffice you write an RML document and give it to an RML to PDF processor which will generate the corresponding Python objects for you Have a look at http vww reportlab com eprs_index html Reportlab combined this with a commercial enterprise level solution for PDF reports You will find in it very ambitioned features like PDF encryption or a page catcher to integrate existing PDF documents into your RML file When you do not need such high level features and are looking for an open source solution you will appreciate the tiny rml2pdf processor written by Fabien Pinckaers It implements almost
11. ctions then pass the preprocessed content xml to the variable content of makeSerialLetters Always keep in mind that everything in content xml has to be UTF S encoded Do not use the RML switch is designed for internal purposes only content_string tool extractContentXml self sourcefile RML 0 5 3 Dealing with the files generated by PyOpenOffice Working with PyOpenOffice you will soon find a lot of files in your path PyOpenOffice keeps track of them in the not human readable file PyOpenOffice_Tempfiles List them all with list tool listTempfiles Then make your great spring cleaning and remove them all tool cleanTempfiles Now you are done Relax and switch off your machine Page 12
12. eaks 1 transform_linebreaks 1 RML 1 with_multi 1 Just set the switch RML 1 You can drop the switch transform_linebreaks it is always set to 1 automatically when you use the RML option Do picture replacement the same way piclist prayl pcx read pcx think pcx pray2 pcx act pcx filel tool replacePictures test_pic rml piclist RML 1 Page 10 4 6 Example Manual Editing of an RML File Created by PyOpenOffice We now take the file test rml and want to improve it a bit I show you how to insert a pageGraphics section you find it in the file pageGraphics_test rml in your PyOpenOffice distribution lt xml version 1 0 gt lt document filename test pdf gt lt template pageSize 595 0 842 0 title Test author Martin Simon allowSplitting 20 gt lt pageTemplate id first gt lt frame id first x1 42 0 1 30 0 width 511 height 782 gt lt pageTemplate gt lt template gt lt stylesheet gt lt blockTableStyle id Standard_Outline gt The code inserted manually is highlighted This will print very large grey letters Test rotated by 45 degrees to the left as a background on all the pages of your document When you make serial letters from this template every letter will contain this background Examples for more special features of RML you find on Fabiens homepage www openreport org 4 7 Using RML to create PDF When you like the commercia
13. get a readable output from an SXW file 4 Going XML The Future of PyOpenOffice 4 1 Introduction As I already said the possibilities of the Old Way are robust but very restricted You can transform your SXW files only to one format PDF What will you do if you want your server to deliver them in HTML It is very difficult to transform more than a very simplified layout from SXW to PDF What will you do when you need more style information What will you do when you want to transform the coming OO OASIS file format to PDF I am not very keen on rewriting a great part of my code So what I am doing now is the following PyOpenOffice sxw normalized sxw file XSLT normalized sxw file zd RML insert your data with PyOpenOffice Serial Letters Reports and Lists Picture Replace RML gt NEW_RML trml2pdf NEW_RML gt PDF trmi2htmi NEW_RML gt HTML Remarks 1 RML is the Report Markup Language see below a special kind of XML to describe pages It is similar to XSL FO but much more usable 2 trml2pdf and trml2html are python scripts written by Fabien Pinckaers Have a look at his homepage http www openreport org As you can see you some additional programs are required an XSLT processor a suitable XSLT stylesheet and two python scripts named trml2pdf and trml2html This sounds complicated but in practice this is Page 8 much clearer and easier to maintain than a hardcoded only approach P
14. h background is set with table cell background Multi TFA Price TFE Now you do the following operation file tool makeSerialLetters sourcefile test sxw replace_listofdicts lod one_file 1 data_with_linebreaks 1 transform_linebreaks 0 RML 0 with_multi 1 A new file named 1Copies_test sxw will be generated the variable file containing the name of this file Opening it with OO you will find the table above being replaced by the following Book this background colour is set with paragraph background Price this background colour is set with table cell background 15 00 8 00 17 00 Mind obviously only one row with Multi tags should be used in the template table Notice how the carriage return before Luther Version is replaced by an OO linebreak Also notice how the keys from the lod like Surname that do not fit to any tag names are automatically dropped by makeSerialLetters 2 3 Serial Letters The TFA TFE Tag The price list is generated now we want to send it to some of our customers as a serial letter For this purpose we use the TFA TFE tag in the letterhead as follows TFA FirstName TFE TFA Surname TFE We perform the same operation as above file tool makeSerialLetters sourcefile test sxw replace_listofdicts lod one_file 1 data_with_linebreaks 1 transform_linebreaks 0 RML 0 with_multi 1 Now a new fi
15. l tools from Reportlab you now can use them to transform one of the RML files mentioned above see the description in the RML User Guide Here I describe the poor man s open source solution as an alternative For this purpose I use a patched version of tiny rml2pdf There where very few patches necessary to adapt it to the needs of PyOpenOffice Now it is possible to use German Umlaute and the sign in your documents Also all your tables are now attached to the left margin of your page and not centered on the page anymore If you do not like these patches it is easy to remove them have a look at the sourcecode of patched_trml2pdf py Be aware that you also have the additional files in your path that are needed by patched_trml2pdf py colors py utils py __ init__ py You can use the PDF converter from the command line see the sourcecode We use it from PyOpenOffice here using the same function like in the Old Way Mind the switch RML 1 list_of_outfiles tool makeSafePdf oowriter file_or_listoffiles RML 1 When an error occurs list_of_outfiles will be an empty list Maybe this will change in future 4 8 Using RML to create HTML This is a feature not included yet in the PyOpenOffice package Please have a look at the homepage of trml2html when you need this www openreport org 4 9 Putting it all together Has PyOpenOffice become too difficult to use now I do not think so This will be the example for the normal
16. le named 3Copies_test sxw will be generated the variable file containing the name of this file There are three identical letters in this three pages file the TFA TFE tags are replaced with the dictionaries containing Surname and FirstName as keys this is what will happen when you try this with the test sxw that comes with the PyOpenOffice distribution sate Martin Simon remaining part of the first letter Pagebreak Steve Miller remaining part of the second letter Pagebreak ain John Smith remaining part of the third letter Page 4 Sometimes you want to have your serial letters in separate files Use the switch one_file 0 to do this The variable file now will be a list l_test sxw 2_test sxw 3_test sxw containing the names of all generated files The makeSerialLetters function is clever enough to always process Multi TFA tags first and then make serial letters from the normal TFA tags Also mind the dictionary StrangeField StrangeValue which does not match in our template is automatically dropped by makeSerialLetters The makeSerialLetters function normally works very fast and robust It does not use any XML parser but is working with Regular Expressions and search and replace operations I was reported it is able to process even sxw files in Japanese some trials with the new OASIS file format of OO 2 0 also succeeded There is only one restriction i
17. pped If at least one cell has borders the whole table is printed with a grid not all image formats are processed due to the use of the Python Imaging Library image sizes may only be given either in cm or inch only headings form heading 1 to heading 3 can be mapped they will have always a certain standard appearence 3 3 Usage When you want to deliver a serial letter from an sxw template in PDF format you will have to perform two steps file tool makeSerialLetters sourcefile test sxw replace_listofdicts lod one_file 1 data_with_linebreaks 1 transform_linebreaks 1 RML 0 with_multi 1 file will contain the string value 3Copies_test sxw see above Mind the switch transform_linebreaks 1 All OO linebreaks are transformed to separate paragraphs in the output sxw file This is necessary because the Reportlab Toolkit does not provide intra paragraph linebreaks If you need separate files do it as Page 7 shown above Modify Existing SXW Files with the switch one_file 0 Now we call the function makeSafePdf where file can be one filename or a list of filenames file2 tool makeSafePdf file file2 will contain a list of the generated PDF files in this example it is 3Copies_test pdf makeSafePdf performs several trials when an error occurs full featured without underlines without images text only without all formatting as a last rescue So it is a really safe function you will always
18. rocessor installed on your system I do not want to force you to use a special one this will depend on your personal preferences your environment where you are using PyOpenOffice your operating system etc I made myself good experiences with the libxml libxslt library which was developed for the GNOME project All major LINUX distributions should contain a copy of it a Python API for it is also avaible It is written in C very fast and very conformant to the W3C standard For my example I will use it not with the Python API but use it as a LINUX command line tool started by the Python interpreter import os os system xsltproc normalized_oo2rml xsl normalized_test xml gt test rml Adapt this example to your XSLT processor and your operating system Mind When starting the XSLT processor from the commandline your generated file test rml will not be tracked by the PyOpenOffice cleanup routine see below 4 5 Modifiying Existing RML Files One of the most important features of PyOpenOffice is modifying existing SXW files to generate reports lists serial letters catalogues with pictures etc Now imagine you have serial letter with 200 recipients When you first make a serial letter from it in the sxw format and then do the unpackNormalize XSLT transformation cycle on this new large sxw file you will find it working very slow The reason is that those transformations are quite expensive compared to the makeSerialLetters function
19. saecsaeceaeceeeeeeeeeeeeeaeeenes 12 5 3 Dealing with the files generated by PyOpenOffice 0 cece cceseceeeteceenaeeceeeeecaeceeeaeeceeeeeeaaeceeaeeesaes 12 Page 1 1 Introduction 1 1 History I frankly admit that I am not a professional programmer myself The PyOpenOffice library grew from a practical need when I was developing my software Bezirksreiter Bezirksreiter is a web based open source software for church administration member and donation tracking accounting reporting and statistics I was looking for an appropriate reporting tool for my daily needs serial letters lists reports and so on As I am working as a pastor I often sometimes too often have to do with administrative tasks I am using OpenOffice org in my church office both Linux and Windows version so I tried to combine Bezirksreiter with OO The basic ideas Modifying Existing SXW files developed and you still find Bezirksreiter code in some parts of PyOpenOffice During the time a spin off product was created from this The PyOpenOffice library Other features were added some of it from my own ideas other as a respond to user feedback You still can see the church background in the examples of this user guide I think PyOpenOffice should not be ashamed of its roots A big step was done when I discovered the tiny rml2pdf converter from Fabien Pinckaers A more XML oriented approach was born you find this in the New Way to create PDF and HTML
20. scccsscccsescssccescecssscessssssessseessecees 8 41 INMPOGUCTION PEPEE EAE EE A IE AE 8 4 2 Normalizing the SXW formate cicietasessstevsencesvedeseubyeusesscepsdguatcevsuissscevsesesgusvenaessisviasesacevvapsaadevecninnecs 9 4 3 What iS RMD cis cccsvesacecessencecestanccsnsesdacessadacesantguatvonaes dosha cevaneuatesenedeuensesjadsveanduavonaduacpanddecdevedecasanajemasonies 9 4 4 Using XSLT to transform normalized SXW files ee eee eeeceseeeseeceeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeees 10 4 5 Modifying Existing RML Pils i c ccc teiscceenesoctescisssneesetestcasvegssdcnevtssbeabvasobigeungd sblebangeotdesasshaadenanonce 10 4 6 Example Manual Editing of an RML File Created by PyOpenOffice ccecsceesseeeeeeeetteeeteeeees 11 4 7 Using RML to create PDE rciris iorri iire en AEAT sacs shed EE EA cad snes EEE EA AE EE 11 4 8 Using RMI t create HT MU scccsciicsctezs sagensees dascvess ia setatiaiese E AAEE AE E AEAEE EA 11 4 9 Pating tall OS CINER 32 3 sacesssuccens sasavcdoaseetensessddounssdenseasdeansnsntedssavesenadaatensaaedieh ESEE SNEEK SEEE KeA SEERE 11 5 Miscelleanous Other FunctionS s seeeeeeosorseeescsorceeescronceceeososcreesosoncroesosorcreeeesorcreeeesororeesesesererereeeereeereesee 12 5 1 Creating Plain Text Files and PDF s without any Formatting eeeeseeeeseeeeeeesresresrerresresrrssrerresreereses 12 5 2 Extract the content xml file from the sxw archive cccccccssessscesscessceeeceeeceseecscec
21. st version using this way new versions with new features will use a different and much more flexible approach see below Going XML You still can use this proven way in this and the coming versions of PyOpenOffice but you will have to live with the following restrictions some of them are still found in the new way version 0 4 3 2 Restrictions only the automatic styles of the current document are parsed inherited styles from master documents etc will be dropped all fonts are mapped to the three standard postscript fonts of PDF Times Helvetica and Courier Only pt is accepted for fontsizes no page numbering function headers of long tables will not be repeated on every page the underline function of the ReportlabToolkit has several bugs When difficulties occur PyOpenOffice will change all underlines to italics If text alignment justified is used in the document this will be done by default J strongly recommend not to use underlines at all Underlines are considered as old fashioned and ugly in professional typography have a look at the way how LaTeX does reminding us to the good old times of the typewriter Underlines are not supported in the new way the underline function should not be used with coloured background else you will see a little white point after the underlined word do not use frames and columns the text within is printed as normal paragraphs and sometimes it is just dro
22. t will not work with frames that are anchored at the page The workaround is simple use the anchor at paragraph option in your template file instead 2 4 Catalogues etc The Picture Replace Function Sometimes you have a number of picture files on your server for example products you are offering in your webstore and you want to present them in an appealing form As an example we now want to generate a worksheet for a sunday school lesson The first step would be to create a template file test_pic sxw with dummy pictures and replacement fields see your PyOpenOffice distribution Page 5 Assume you have the following lists piclist containing a list of picture files in the order you want to use them you have got the files with your PyOpenOffice copy and pictest a list of dictionaries containing the titles for the pictures and the headline piclist prayl pcx read pcx think pcx pray2 pcx act pcx pictest Headline Useful Bible Study Picl Pray Pic2 Read Pic3 Think Pic4 Pray again Pic5 Practice it Pic6 You see The place is left empty We first use the function replacePictures filel tool replacePictures test_pic sxw piclist file1 will contain the name of the new generated file NewPics_test_pic sxw Then we apply the function makeSerialLetters to the new generated file file2 tool makeSerialLetters filel pictest
23. yOpenOffice 0 4 contains an sxw preprocessor an XSLT stylesheet to generate RML from normalized sxw and an RML to PDF processor Future versions also may contain an RML to HTML processor 4 2 Normalizing the SXW format After unpacking an sxw archive you will find two files named content xml and styles xml The style information for formatting the text is contained in both files and is build using a complex style hierarchy Example for a paragraph style named P11 derived from derived from Pll a TextBody lt Standard In some way it is working similar to class hierarchies in object oriented programming languages Many styles you find in an OO document are derived from a so called parent style To find a font size of a certain style OO calculates this way 120 nothing 10pt P11 E TextBody lt Standard found in found in found in content xml styles xml styles xml Got it gt This will result in a font size of 12pt for paragraph style P11 To make your XSLT transformation easier PyOpenOffice does some preprocessing n tool unpackNormalize test sxw A new file named normalized_test xml is stored additional information from test sxw like included picture files is unpacked into the same path The information in normalized_test xml is merged from information in content xml and styles xml and will contain only absolute values for every style All units like cm or inch
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