Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04) and OpenOffice.org

The OpenOffice.org package (2.2.0-1ubuntu3) that comes with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn distribution has some issues especially on the document conversion front. I did not face any problem on my dektop edition installed directly from the feisty fawn dvd. But on the server edition the conversion was taking almost 20x more time. On googling it seemed to be a problem with the java compilation on the OpenOffice package from Ubuntu.

The best and easiest remedy is to uninstall your current OpenOffice.org packages completely and install the latest OpenOffice 2.2.1 from directly from www.openoffice.org. Installation is a bit tricky so I suggest you take a look at this article where the installation is described step by step.

You might have to install msttcorefonts package if you start facing issues with windows fonts once you install OpenOfiice 2.2.1.

OpenOffice as a Document Converter

Though not well known for it, OpenOffice.org can be extended as a doument conversion engine capable of conversion between almost all kind of office documents. OpenOffice.org directly doesn’t support a command-line option, but allows it to be run as a service. An open source tool JodConverter (earlier called JooConverter) provides a wrapper for the OpenOffice.org service and exposes web and command-line interaces to simply convert between the compatible office formats.

Read Full Article by Dmitry Popov at Linux.com