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Extract and Parse ODF Files with Python

Issue 156

From Issue #156
April 2007

Apr 01, 2007  By Kamran Husain
 in
Use Python to demystify Open Document Format files.

Resources

The OASIS Open Document Format specification and related information is available for download from www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office.

The documentation for tags in the content.xml file can be found at www.oasis-open.org/committees/documents.php?wg_abbrev=office.

Download Python from www.python.org.

Python in a Nutshell, Alex Martelli: O'Reilly, 2003.

Python and XML, Christopher A. Jones and Fred Drake, Jr.: O'Reilly, 2001.

XML Pocket Reference, 3rd edition, Simon St. Laurent and Michael Fitzgerald: O'Reilly, 2005.

Kamran Husain has been working with software for 20 years. He can be contacted at khusain62@yahoo.com.

______________________

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File is not a zip file

hypertex's picture
Submitted by hypertex (not verified) on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 22:03.

I am trying to run listing 5. Am I the only one receiving this error?


File "./odt.py", line 13, in __init__
self.m_odf = zipfile.ZipFile(filename)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 693, in __init__
self._GetContents()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 713, in _GetContents
self._RealGetContents()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/zipfile.py", line 725, in _RealGetContents
raise BadZipfile, "File is not a zip file"
zipfile.BadZipfile: File is not a zip file

and yet . . .

>>> odfname = ('bill_of_rights.odt')
>>> zipfile.is_zipfile(odfname)
True

I'm confused is_zipfile() returns true, but I get a BadZipfile exception. Same result with several different files, so I don't think it is a bad file. Running python 2.6.4 on fedora 13.

D'OH!

hypertex's picture
Submitted by hypertex (not verified) on Fri, 08/27/2010 - 17:11.

the __main__ block should have:

filename = sys.argv[1]
phrase = sys.argv[2]

I keep forgetting that sys.argv[0] is a reference to the script, not the first argument to the script.

LPOD Project

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/28/2010 - 16:49.

lpod is an ODF library that allow to easily manipulate ODF documents.

Fail? What fail?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 04/20/2010 - 13:11.

To the first commenter, win32 doesn't mean windows 3.2. It means 32-bit windows.
(Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7)

FAIL!

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 06:47.

Python 2.4.1 (#65, Mar 30 2005, 09:13:57)
[MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()"
for more information.

however, very good tutorial doh! ;)

greets
Royma

Nice

Nichoals's picture
Submitted by Nichoals (not verified) on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 09:49.

Nice tutorials.. You'r the only one in the net that write something aboute odt and python clearly.
Do you have a tutorials to pick pictures from the odt file too?

uçak bileti

uçak bileti's picture
Submitted by uçak bileti (not verified) on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 07:43.

Have read all of the posts. Very interesting and much better disciplined than most sessions. and thank you for information.

Plug-in For MS Office

W^L+'s picture
Submitted by W^L+ (not verified) on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 17:26.

Instead of the ODF-Converter project on SourceForge, with its well-known flaws (cannot set ODF formats as default formats for MS Office, poor fidelity between original file and the imported/exported version, ODF placed in separate submenu instead of the usual file->save as, and intermediate saves still require long export process), I'd recommend Sun's plugin for MS Office. It features much better integration with MS Office and better fidelity import/export.

Either one will trigger warnings about the format not being fully compatible, but for most purposes, ODF is fully-capable of representing MS Office data.

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