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ODF Toolkit: Background Information

What is an “ODF Toolkit”?

The current demand for an “ODF toolkit” actually is a demand for a framework that allows the creation and manipulation of OpenDocument ODF documents in a lightweight fashion. Office applications like OpenOffice.org actually support this functionality, but they carry a lot of functionality with them that is not required for composing or modifying documents, for instance on a server. Furthermore, OpenOffice.org's API did already exist before ODF was defined, and therefore is not as good aligned to ODF and the task of document creation and processing than it could be. The solution for these two problems actually is an ODF Toolkit that is less complex than an office application, and has an API tailored to the creation an processing of ODF documents.

The “ODF Universe”

Documents don't end in themselves. They are stored, viewed, printed, re-edited, used as templates, and so on. Office applications like OpenOffice.org provide a solution for most of these tasks. An ODF Toolkit in the first place does not do so. This means, office application continue to play an important role in an ODF Universe. On the one hand, because they provide solutions where no alternatives exist so far, and on the other hand, because they provide everything out of the box, and in one place.

However, the demand to provide office application functionality outside traditional office applications will increase, and other components beside an ODF Toolkit are required. For instance:

  • ODF Viewer: An ODF Viewer is a component that displays an ODF document. ODF Viewers may either provide a view of the document which equals or at least is close to the view the office applications provide. But they may also provide a view that primarily displays the content of the document without taking a strong emphasis on the layout. Such viewers actually may be called ODF Previewers.

  • ODF Printer: An ODF Printer component prints an document. Unlike it is the case for ODF Viewers, ODF Printers must consider the layout of the document.

  • ODF Conversion Services: An ODF conversion service provides a conversion from ODF documents into other formats, like HTML or PDF, or back. Conversion services are useful in environments where ODF is not supported by all required components, or where certain ODF components (like viewers) are not available. A conversion to PDF may for instance used to display print preview of a document where only ODF Previewers but no PDF Viewers are available.

OpenOffice.org actually provides already all of the above functionality. It on the hand hand can be seen as a combined ODF Viewer, Printer and Conversion Service tool that supplements an ODF Toolkit. On the other hand, its source code may together with the ODF Toolkit may provide the basis for developing these components as standalone components.

Next: Detailed ODF Toolkit Proposal

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