There are three built in converters. To make django-webodt usable, you should set up WEBODT_CONVERTER settings variable to one of the class names:
Backend name:
WEBODT_CONVERTER = 'webodt.converters.abiword.AbiwordODFConverter'
Abiword backend uses Abiword and subprocess module to convert files. To make it usable all you have to do is to install abiword and make sure that it can be lauched with WEBODT_ABIWORD_COMMAND.
Backend name:
WEBODT_CONVERTER = 'webodt.converters.openoffice.OpenOfficeODFConverter'
This is the most powerful and the heaviest backend. First before the OpenOffice should be launched as a daemon listening a TCP port for connections (in headless mode). Headless mode of OpenOffice is a regime of working such that office detaches itself from console, doesn’t open any windows and just starts haindling incoming requests from other applications.
All you have to do is to choose appropriate network interface (usually you’d like to bind OpenOffice to loopback) and port (up to your choice, for example, 2002) to listen to and then type something like this:
soffice '-accept=socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.NamingService' -headless
In the example above office is listening port 2002 of the loopback interface. You can use “0” instead of IP-address if you want to make your office to bind to all available interfaces.
If you work on Linux and you don’t want your office process to be daemonized, use “soffice.bin” instead of “soffice”. Ctrl+C will help you to kill running proccess painlessly. Usually soffice.bin is placed somewhere within /usr/lib/openoffice/ directory.
Once your office is launched, you have to make your application known where it is located by setting up OOFFICE_SERVER variable. You need to setup host and port of the office:
OOFFICE_SERVER = ('127.0.0.1', 2002)
To make the python code communicate with OpenOffice application, the PyUNO module is required. Name of this module in Ubuntu is libobasis3.3-pyuno.
Warning
Office leaks! It is a known bug, and if you plan to work more or less intensively with this backend, you would probably like to restart it every period of time (for example, on a daily basis from cron).
Backend name:
WEBODT_CONVERTER = 'webodt.converters.googledocs.GoogleDocsODFConverter'
This backend uses the google docs API to convert documents. Behind the scene converter creates new document in docs.google.com with a random name, then downloads it in a desired format and finally removes the temporary document.
To use the backend it’s necessary to have a google account and to set up WEBODT_GOOGLEDOCS_EMAIL and WEBODT_GOOGLEDOCS_PASSWORD options.