I am a little bit confused. I want to use odt format for my documents. So, I have to build in a view of my RCP application Writer from OpenOffice. Additional I have to replace placeholders in documents, merge documents, give some users print preview and print possibility.

I've made some research and I've found:
noa, noa4e, OOo SDK, ooeclipse, odftoolkit.

So, which tool is right for me? How can I start (documentation, tutorials, examples)?

Thanks,
Jacek

Hi Jacek,

i don't know much about OOo SDK, ooeclipse or odftoolkit, so I will focus on our software.

noa is a java wrapper around the openoffice uni api to make life easier.

noa4e is a set of eclipse plugins that use noa to display and handle openoffice documents in eclipse.

If you use eclipse as RCP than possibly noa4e is the right option for you.

Both noa and no4e do not really have any documentation or tutorials. There is a wiki with examples for noa and our code is very well documented.

Most of you desired featrues (maybe all, if you give some more details) can be done with noa4e.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Markus

Hi Markus,

thank you for answer. I want to develop Eclipse RCP application and it should i.a. do:

- admin can edit odt file as template with variable/placeholder
- system should replace placeholder with pure values
- normal user can preview and print merged documents with pure values

The documents aren't reports, they have about 90% fixed text with strong formatting and only 10% or less simple variables, so I don't need report system like e.g. BIRT.

I want to have two separate applications (for admin and normal user) and I want to use Open Office in GUI only in admin part. I want to use for preview and print in normal user part Paperclips (http://code.google.com/p/swt-paperclips/) plug-in, so I need to parse (content, style, align of paragraphs) the odt documents to build necessary Paperclips objects. Or do you see a simpler way to give the user "light" preview and print with some OO-library, without Paperclips?

I hope I show you clear my needs .

Do you plan more documentation or/and examples for NOA/NOA4e?

Regards,
Jacek

Hmmm,

using noa/noa4e requires an openoffice installation on each computer the application is running on (may be this is a "no go" for you).
But if you use noa/noa4, than it is also possible to open a "modified" odt document in read-only state and preview mode and then send it to the pinter.

More documentaion is not planed.

Regards,
Markus