How To Install unoconv On Debian
unoconv is a program for converting any documents that can be read by OpenOffice/LibreOffice into formats that OpenOffice/LibreOffice can write. I use it most commonly to convert MS Word documents (.docx) to PDF files, but docx/odt to text, MS Excel/xlsx to CSV and others are possibilities as well.
There are several programs for MS Word to PDF conversion in particular, and there are other wrappers for/interfaces to OpenOffice/LibreOffice, but unoconv covers a wide range of formats, is relatively easy to set up, and has bindings developed for it in several languages. Hence we are going to get unoconv configured and operational.
Devuan Ascii / Debian Stretch
Getting unoconv to work on a modern Debian should be straightforward.
Install unoconv itself:
apt-get install unoconv
Then install appropriate LibreOffice components depending on what type of documents you wish to convert:
apt-get install libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc
This should be it! Give unoconv a try with
unoconv -f pdf document.docx
Debian Squeeze
Debian Squeeze required some effort for unoconv to work. The two gotchas were 1) needing to install LibreOffice components if they were not already installed, ond 2) needing to install Uno bindings as they are also standalone.
OpenOffice or LibreOffice?
Squeeze ships with OpenOffice. Newer versions of Debian have LibreOffice, and LibreOffice is also available in squeeze-backports repository. While trying to troubleshoot the installation I switched to LibreOffice from backports, therefore that is what I will use in the following instructions.
Instructions for configuring squeeze-backports APT repository are available here.
Install LibreOffice
Since I am going with LibreOffice, I will install it in its own step.
apt-get install -t squeeze-backports libreoffice-core libreoffice-writer
For MS Word file conversion libreoffice-writer is needed.
For MS Excel file conversion, liberoffice-calc, and so on.
The core package is a dependency of unoconv. The important part is
also including one of the actual LibreOffice programs, like
libreoffice-writer above.
Those are not required by unoconv but not having any programs installed
will produce the following error when attempting a conversion:
% unoconv -f pdf example.odt
unoconv: UnoException during conversion: Unsupported URL <file:///home/sandbox/example.odt>: ""
The provided document cannot be converted to the desired format.
Install LibreOffice Python bindings
These must be installed from the same source that LibreOffice was installed from, in my case squeeze-backports:
apt-get install -t squeeze-backports python-uno
Install Java
unoconv requires libreoffice-java-common package and a JRE.
Despite libreoffice-java-common bringing in some gij packages, they
do not count for a JRE.
I chose to go with openjdk-6-jre.
apt-get install openjdk-6-jre
apt-get install -t squeeze-backports libreoffice-java-common
LibreOffice listener
unoconv requires a LibreOffice listener to be running. unoconv can launch
it on demand, or you can launch it yourself.
To launch manually run:
unoconv --listener
Important thing to remember if manually launching the listener: the running
listener is not affected by package installations and deinstallations.
For example, if you launched the listener when libreoffice-writer was
not installed, then you instaled libreoffice-writer, and subsequently you
are trying to run unoconv, unoconv will use the runnning listener
which has no knowledge of Writer and conversion will fail. Make sure to
kill/restart listeners after installing or deinstalling LibreOffice components.
Done
With all of the above done unoconv should work:
unoconv -f pdf example.odt