Converting Word Documents (and other types of files) to PDF in a rails application

ruby-talk
1

Hi everyone,

I'm currently developing a Rails content management system, and one of
the useful features we're trying to get sorted is a way to allow a
user to upload a word document or some other type of regular file, and
have it converted by the server to PDF.

I've seen a java programme called Alfresco do this using Open Office,
but I'm just wondering if there's another way that's more integrated
with Ruby?

If anyone knows if bits and pieces of tech already exist in this area
but they just haven't been brought together in this way yet, I'd be
keen to learn the names of these projects. Perhaps we can create a
plugin as a result of our larger project.

Looking forward to your ideas :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Brendon

2

Brendon wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm currently developing a Rails content management system, and one of
the useful features we're trying to get sorted is a way to allow a
user to upload a word document or some other type of regular file, and
have it converted by the server to PDF.

I've seen a java programme called Alfresco do this using Open Office,
but I'm just wondering if there's another way that's more integrated
with Ruby?

If anyone knows if bits and pieces of tech already exist in this area
but they just haven't been brought together in this way yet, I'd be
keen to learn the names of these projects. Perhaps we can create a
plugin as a result of our larger project.

Looking forward to your ideas :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Brendon
  

There are open source things that kinda sorta almost work, but they're ephemeral by nature -- Microsoft proprietary formats are ... well ... proprietary. :slight_smile: Abiword and OpenOffice.org can read most Word documents, and lots of tools can write PDFs. Here's a list of things I have on Gentoo:

* dev-python/rtf2xml
      Latest version available: 1.32
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 1.32
      Use Flags (stable): -
      Size of downloaded files: 1,255 kB
      Homepage: http://rtf2xml.sourceforge.net/
      Description: Converts a Microsoft RTF file to structured XML
      License: GPL-2

* dev-java/poi
      Latest version available: 2.5.1-r1
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 2.5.1-r1
      Use Flags (stable): -doc -elibc_FreeBSD -elibc_FreeBSD +source
      Size of downloaded files: 20,128 kB
      Homepage: Apache POI - the Java API for Microsoft Documents
      Description: Java API To Access Microsoft Format Files
      License: Apache-2.0

* app-text/catdoc
      Latest version available: 0.94.1
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 0.94.1
      Use Flags (stable): +tk
      Size of downloaded files: 490 kB
      Homepage: http://www.45.free.net/~vitus/software/catdoc/
      Description: A convertor for Microsoft Word, Excel and RTF Files to text
      License: GPL-2

* app-text/docfrac
      Latest version available: 3.1.1
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 3.1.1
      Use Flags (stable): -
      Size of downloaded files: 7,105 kB
      Homepage: http://docfrac.sourceforge.net/
      Description: rtf/html/text conversion utility
      License: LGPL-2.1

* app-text/highlight
      Latest version available: 2.4.8
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 2.4.8
      Use Flags (stable): -
      Size of downloaded files: 925 kB
      Homepage: http://www.andre-simon.de/
      Description: converts source code to formatted text ((X)HTML, RTF, (La)TeX, XSL-FO, XML) with syntax highlighting.
      License: GPL-2

* app-text/unrtf
      Latest version available: 0.20.1
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 0.20.1
      Use Flags (stable): -
      Size of downloaded files: 448 kB
      Homepage: UnRTF - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
      Description: Converts RTF files to various formats
      License: GPL-2

* app-text/wv
      Latest version available: 1.2.3-r1
      Latest version installed: 1.2.3-r1
      Unstable version: 1.2.3-r1
      Use Flags (stable): +wmf
      Size of downloaded files: 1,844 kB
      Homepage: http://wvware.sourceforge.net/
      Description: Tool for conversion of MSWord doc and rtf files to something readable
      License: GPL-2

* dev-python/pyrtf
      Latest version available: 0.45
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 0.45
      Use Flags (stable): -
      Size of downloaded files: 96 kB
      Homepage: http://pyrtf.sourceforge.net
      Description: A set of python classes that make it possible to produce RTF documents from python programs.
      License: || ( GPL-2 LGPL-2 )

* dev-tex/latex2rtf
      Latest version available: 1.9.16
      Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
      Unstable version: 1.9.16
      Use Flags (stable): -doc
      Size of downloaded files: 1,856 kB
      Homepage: http://latex2rtf.sourceforge.net/
      Description: LaTeX to RTF converter
      License: GPL-2

I think "wv" is the best of this crowd, but it's been a while since I had to eat a Word document on my Linux box. As far as Word-to-PDF is concerned, it's more or less built in to OpenOffice.org, so just shelling out to that might get the job done. OO.o is quite a memory hog, though, so you'll probably want to fire it up as a server and leave it running.

···

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.

3

i'd reccomend one of three approaches

   1) run windows under cross-over office on a linux box or under parallels on
   osx. then you can install ruby, under windows, and write a ruby application
   that does this using the native ms bindings

   2) setup a windows servers (two would be better) and run a simple drb
   service for converting doccuments - again using the native drivers and ruby

   3) use some online service such as http://www.zamzar.com/ and drive it via
   http libs/curl

if it were me i'd go with 3 since any reliable method will ential keeping a
windows box online (!!). you could could probably write producer code that
posted files to a service and a consumer that checks a special email account
for finished files in a few days...

regards.

-a

···

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Brendon wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm currently developing a Rails content management system, and one of
the useful features we're trying to get sorted is a way to allow a
user to upload a word document or some other type of regular file, and
have it converted by the server to PDF.

I've seen a java programme called Alfresco do this using Open Office,
but I'm just wondering if there's another way that's more integrated
with Ruby?

If anyone knows if bits and pieces of tech already exist in this area
but they just haven't been brought together in this way yet, I'd be
keen to learn the names of these projects. Perhaps we can create a
plugin as a result of our larger project.

Looking forward to your ideas :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Brendon

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better.
simply reflect on that.
- the dalai lama

4

I think the best way might be to use RJB or JRuby and Jakarta
Poi(http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/\)

···

On 2/12/07, Brendon <brendon.muir@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone,

I'm currently developing a Rails content management system, and one of
the useful features we're trying to get sorted is a way to allow a
user to upload a word document or some other type of regular file, and
have it converted by the server to PDF.

I've seen a java programme called Alfresco do this using Open Office,
but I'm just wondering if there's another way that's more integrated
with Ruby?

If anyone knows if bits and pieces of tech already exist in this area
but they just haven't been brought together in this way yet, I'd be
keen to learn the names of these projects. Perhaps we can create a
plugin as a result of our larger project.

Looking forward to your ideas :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Brendon

--
Chris Carter
concentrationstudios.com
brynmawrcs.com

5

Thank you both for your informative replys. :slight_smile: I like the idea of an
online service. As I was reading your first two options I quickly came
to your conclusion :slight_smile: !

I'll post any learnings and methods on here when I have something
working,

Cheers,

Brendon