hello I work in a company were we use alot of PDF files
we are using RH 7.3 and RH 8.0 together with OpenOffice and a own software package.
Now I wonder is there a program that can convert like 300 sxw files to pdf files just with a small time of actions to do.

because now I need to convert them 1 by 1

please help

why don't you make a script?
-> lets say the program that converts pdf's is called convertpdf

#!/bin/bash
convertpdf file1
convertpdf file2
convertpdf file3

chmod +x it and run.
It's not so elegant (far from), but it'll do the job untill you find a program that you want

well 1 problem, do you know a command line to convert sxw files to pdf

converting (this printing) sxw in OpenOffice takes alot of time

bump

because i need help

Since .sxw and other OpenOffice formats are kind of specific to OpenOffice, I don't know of any easy way to batch-convert them to anything else.

There is the Document Converter (under the File->Autopilot menu in OO) that will convert other formats to OpenOffice format. I don't know if it'll go the other way, though.

There are some command-line utilities, such as ps2pdf and dvi2pdf, which are also capable of producing pdf output.

Perhaps GhostScript will do something like this?

Just some guesses I hope it helps.

Does this help: Print files to PS format. Is it any faster to save them as PS file, then do the iceman47 script thing?

Building an PDF file is not that difficult, it can easily be done in a minute.
In OpenOffice is already an function build in, PDF converter.
But you have to alter your print preferences.
I will try to explain it in a very simple way.
Go to File -> Printer Settings. You will get an pop-up to choose an printer, then you have to choose PDF converter. And press 'ok'
If you want an pdf file you just press Ctrl-P.
I hope that my post will usefull for you.

Hi bartgymnast,

Do you still need this help? Probably it's good for reference for anyone else.

It's not trivial to do such a batch printing, but still possible, and worth the trouble for printing 300 files at once!

First, I scoured the openoffice website for command-line options. Here it is:

http://www.openoffice.org/files/docu...ets=1w1sjze2h3

What version of Open Office (OO) that you use? I assume version 1.0.x or 1.1.x. Hopefully they are compatible in the command line options. Let me assume that you use version 1.0.x.

First, follow the earlier suggestion to set up the PDF-convertor printer.

To do this, close all openoffice windows, and open the printer admin program (spadmin). On some systems (notably those that bundle OpenOffice into their Linux distros), this program is not readily accesible by typing spadmin on the shell. Either they provide it somewhere, or find it manually. Use, e.g. rpm -ql OpenOffice.org | grep spadmin if you can't find it.

On my distro (Mandrake 9.1), it's found in:

/usr/lib/openoffice/program/spadmin.

Let's say you've set up the PDF printer with the name "PDF converter".

My suggestion: set the "PDF target directory" to a fixed directory (let's say, /home/myself/Print), so that the printed files go there, not spread everywhere. But you can keep it blank, in which case all the printed files go to your home directory. To set this option, on spadmin window select the "PDF converter" printer, click "Properties". The "PDF target directory" is right on the bottom of the dialog box.

Now that you've set everything up, close spadmin. And make sure that the directory /home/myself/Print does exist (or create it).

Go to the directory containing the .sxw files. Then type this on your shell:

oowriter -pt "PDF converter" *.sxw

(On Red Hat sometimes the program is called ooowriter -- with three o's, IIRC; on generic distribution, it's called swriter. Please check that.) Don't forget to quite the PDF converter on the shell command above, as we have a whitespace in the printer name.

Voila... all the documents are printed after a little while. Check the

/home/myself/Print

directory. I don't remember how the printed files get their names. On my little experiment, it got it from the source files (e.g. file1.sxw.pdf, file2.sxw.pdf, and so on). But somehow I remember that it gave me another name, i.e. the title of the document in its summary box, or what. Anyway, hopefully this helps you (or anyone else in the future ---- :-)

Here is one I wrote for DOS to convert faxes. I hope it helps


@echo=off
cls
set U=1
set T=0
set H=0
:loop
if not exist FAX--%H%%T%%U%.pcx goto done
type FAXBATCH.txt
@echo=on
rem WE ARE NOW CONVERTING FAX--%H%%T%%U%.PCX to FAX.%H%%T%%U% .................................................................................................... .................................................................
@echo off
if exist FAX--%H%%T%%U%.pcx convert FAX--%H%%T%%U%.PCX FAX.%H%%T%%U%
IF %H%%T%%U% == 999 GOTO done
del FAX--%H%%T%%U%.PCX
call number %U%
SET U=%ANS%
IF NOT %U% == 0 GOTO LOOP
call number %T%
set T=%ANS%
if not %T% == 0 GOTO LOOP
call number %H%

_______________________________________
FAXBATCH is FREEWARE.

FAXBATCH is a batch program designed to convert a number of files in one
format such as PCX to another such as your FAX format. This is very
convenient for the WordStar FAX utility. Of course it can be modified
to be used for any other .EXE or .COM files which you would like
execute on consecutively numbered files.


Instructions for FAXBATCH:


1. Rename your .exe or .com file to be used on multiple
files to convert.exe or convert.com.

REN YOURS.EXE CONVERT.EXE
REN YOURS.COM CONVERT.COM

2. Place the FAXBATCH files (number.bat, FAXBATCH.txt, and FAXBATCH.bat)
and the files to be converted in the same directory.

3. Make your filenames comply to the format below.


FAXBATCH file format:


FAX--001.pcx will convert to fax.001
FAX--002.pcx will convert to fax.002
etc.

4. type FAXBATCH

Note: FAXBATCH will delete the original .pcx files that it converts.


Modifications of FAXBATCH for use with other .exe and .com files:


1. Find all references to FAX--%H%%T%%U%.pcx in the autofax.bat file
with an editor and replace the extension to the one desired.

Example:

FAX--%H%T%%U%.pcx to FAX--%H%%T%%U%.drw
etc.


2. Change all references in autofax.bat to fax.%H%%T%%U%
to "Your 8 character filename".%H%%T%%U%

3. Run as above.

______________________________________

FAXBATCH.TXT file is as follows:

________________________________
| |
| FAXBATCH CONVERSION UTILITY |
| |
| FREEWARE |
| |________________________________|

No

I desperately need a solution to convert DOC/XLS files to either PDF or TXT/CSV (respectively) on a Unix/Linux command line as part of a solution I am developing for my client.

Can this be done with StarOffice or OpenOffice? Does anyone know of any open source command line utilities out there capable of converting DOC or XLS?

Any help at all would undyingly appreciated (you'll make my Christmas card list).

Thanks in advance.

Kind Regards,
John

Check out this thread describing how to use OpenOffice to convert Word docs into PDF from the command-line. There's also some discussion of XLS to CSV.

Just some info for those in need (it took me an entire day to figure this one out). A fairly clean solution for converting/extracting text and CSV data from Word documents and Excel spreadsheets (respectively) is to use:

catdoc & xls2cvs
http://www.45.free.net/~vitus/ice/catdoc/

You can just drop to the command line, convert the file to text on the command line, capture the output in an array and use it as you wish. For example:

Also for those of you hosting on Windows, there's always:

ShareOffice PHP
http://badblue.com/helpphpo.htm

Hope this helps someone.

Rock on,
John

hey, i know that

for i in /target_directory/*; do insmod $i; done

will allow you to insert every module in the target directory so try..

for i in /pdf_dir/*; do convert_pdf_program $i; done

convert every, pdf file in the given directory? i dont know any pdf conversion
program so replace convert_pdf_program with whatever you can find and try it.

ooh, it's my birthday, how special, i get a cake next to my name. cool.