OpenOffice / LibreOffice / Word

[RLJB]

We use Linux servers. We would like to use Word (or .doc fiel type) templates.

Has anyone done anything with either OpenOffice or LibreOffice or tried running Word under wine on a Linux box or writtena plug in etc etc and could report any learnings?

Thanks

[RLJB]

Sorry this was actually a stupid post. We have since mucked around with this a bit using suggestions from other posts on the forum and you can get a Linux based server to use Word templates using .rtf file format.

You don't need OpenOffice or LibreOffice or Word under wine on the Linux server to get this to work. We did the following:

On the client, open Word, create a template (use your <<xxx.yyy>> tags), put in pictures, have fonts etc, make it a pretty as you like. Save it as a .rtf file using Save As...

Then on the Config Tool create a new Doc (say it's called Letter1), have it as a txt doc, and use your .rtf file as the template.

Create a process something like:

EXPORT DOCUMENT Letter1 TO FILE ‘/AwareIM5/Letter1.rtf’
IMPORT DOCUMENT Communications.Letter1 FROM ‘/AwareIM5/ Letter1.rtf’

Then create a nice looking form to VIEW the field Communications.Letter1 and you can download it. When a user downloads it, it will recognize the .rtf and if they have Word on their machine it will open it in Word - with all the pictures and fonts and merged tags.

Don't try using DISPLAY DOCUMENT since it will open it in .txt format and it will be a mess to read.

[hpl123]

Sorry this was actually a stupid post. We have since mucked around with this a bit using suggestions from other posts on the forum and you can get a Linux based server to use Word templates using .rtf file format.

You don't need OpenOffice or LibreOffice or Word under wine on the Linux server to get this to work. We did the following:

On the client, open Word, create a template (use your <<xxx.yyy>> tags), put in pictures, have fonts etc, make it a pretty as you like. Save it as a .rtf file using Save As...

Then on the Config Tool create a new Doc (say it's called Letter1), have it as a txt doc, and use your .rtf file as the template.

Create a process something like:

EXPORT DOCUMENT Letter1 TO FILE ‘/AwareIM5/Letter1.rtf’
IMPORT DOCUMENT Communications.Letter1 FROM ‘/AwareIM5/ Letter1.rtf’

Then create a nice looking form to VIEW the field Communications.Letter1 and you can download it. When a user downloads it, it will recognize the .rtf and if they have Word on their machine it will open it in Word - with all the pictures and fonts and merged tags.

Don't try using DISPLAY DOCUMENT since it will open it in .txt format and it will be a mess to read.

I am still experiencing the problems with Word merge (Aware IM + WINWORD.EXE freeze). Can this workaround be used on a Windows server where Office is not installed to avoid these problems? Has anyone done this successfully?

Thanks

[RLJB]

Hi Henrik

I have never done it on a windows server, but there is no reason it shouldn't work. Give it a try.

[tford]

I am still experiencing the problems with Word merge (Aware IM + WINWORD.EXE freeze

I have had zero issues with freezing since I removed Office 2010 from the server and installed Office 2007.

[hpl123]

Thanks Tom, this will probably be how i handle this as well. I wanted to run Aware IM as a service and therefore thinking about other options.