LibreOffice 25.8 SDK - Examples

Software Development Kit 25.8

# Examples

The SDK provides a rich set of examples in different programming languages (Java, Python, C++, LibreOffice 25.8 Basic, OLE) to illustrate the use of the API and demonstrate how to benefit from the included word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, graphics program and database of LibreOffice 25.8. Some of the examples need a running office instance listening on a port. If this is necessary you will get further information in the makefiles. Every makefile contains at least one run target to execute an running example, please see the makefile output in the different example directories. Some of the examples which create a component have no run target. In these cases a document is provided which instantiates and runs the component (see the makefile output). Also the Basic examples provide documents which use and shows the implemented functionality.
| Developer's Guide examples | The Developer's Guide comes with a rich set of examples which demonstrate the use of the API in the different application areas.
| Java examples | Set of simple and more complex examples which shows the use of the API from Java.
| Python examples | Small set of examples which shows the use of the API from Python.
| C++ examples | Small set of examples which shows the use of the API from C++.
| LibreOffice 25.8 Basic examples | Small set of examples which shows the use of the API from LibreOffice 25.8 Basic.
| Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) examples | Examples which show the use of the API from OLE.
| Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) examples | Examples which show the use of the API from the CLI.
Java examples |
Text Document Examples | Description
BookmarkInsertion | This application connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. An empty text document will be opened and an example text will be entered. Afterwards, some bookmarks will be inserted.
HardFormatting | This program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Furthermore, an empty text document will be opened, an example text will be entered, some text attributes will be inspected, and the PropertyState will be checked from the selection.
SWriter | The program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. An empty text document will be created, some text will be entered, and a text table, a colored text, and text frame will be inserted.
StyleCreation | The example connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. An empty text document will be opened, a new paragraph style will be created, and applied.
StyleInitialization | The program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Thereafter, an empty text document will be opened and an example text will be entered. The paragraph collection will be used, in order to apply a different paragraph style on the paragraphs.
TextDocumentStructure | The application connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. An empty text document will be opened, an enumeration of all paragraphs and an enumeration of all text portions will be created.
TextReplace | The example connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. An empty text document will be created, an example text will be inserted, and some English spelled words will be replaced with US spelled words.
GraphicsInserter | The GraphicsInserter creates a graphics object on an empty text document by setting its position, width, height, and URL.
WriterSelector | This class gives you information on the selected objects (text range, text frame, or graphics) at a LibreOffice Server.
Spreadsheet Document Examples | Description
CalcAddins | This component adds new functions to the spreadsheet application. After registering the component, the inserted functions can be found with help of the functions autopilot. The new functions are assigned to the category Add-in.
ChartTypeChange | This class loads a LibreOffice 25.8 Calc document and changes the type of the embedded chart.
EuroAdaption | The application connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory, opens an empty Calc document, enters an example text, sets the number format to DM, changes the number format to EUR (Euro), and uses the DM/EUR factor on each cell with content.
SCalc | The program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Then an empty calc document will be opened, cell styles will be created, some data will be inserted into the sheets, and the created cell styles will be applied. Finally, a 3D chart will be inserted.
Drawing Document Examples | Description
SDraw | This program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Afterwards, an empty text document will be created and some shapes will be inserted on the draw page.
Document Handling Examples | Description
DocumentConverter | The program offers a service that converts arbitrary documents to a favored document type.
DocumentLoader | The DocumentLoader can open a new or an existing document.
DocumentPrinter | The DocumentPrinter allows you to print the favored pages of a specified document on your favored printer.
DocumentSaver | The DocumentSaver shows how to save a document and how you can change the type of your document.
UNO Component Examples | Description
Object Inspector | The Object Inspector is primarily an auxiliary tool for the developer, which can present information about an object of the LibreOffice 25.8 API at run-time. Depending on the object to be inspected, appropriate methods, interfaces, services, and attributes can be displayed to the developer. The methods, interfaces, services and attributes are represented in a predictable tree. If the attributes contained in an object are to be examined, the appropriate nodes in the tree can be expanded with the help of the mouse. For each non primitive object, five categories are offered to the user, as long as those are available with that object. The Object Inspector is currently available as a NetBeans project only because of major code changes. Please see the project page for further details.
MinimalComponent | This class provides a minimal UNO component. You can take this class as a base for your own components. By extensions of this class it is possible to also extend the function range of the Office.
PropTest | Contains a component that provides property set interfaces by means of inheriting com.sun.star.lib.uno.helper.ProperterSet.
ToDo | For every to-do listed in a spreadsheet document, this component calculates the start date, day of week of the start date, the end date, and the day of week of the end date. All calculations are dependent upon the values of "Needed Days", "Due Date" and "Status". The columns "Needed Days" and "Status" are mandatory. The first to-do should be placed in row nine. The date to start the calculation should be placed in cell C6. The private holidays should be placed in cell K4/K5 and below. All rows will be calculated up to the first empty cell in the first column. If a cell in the column "Due Date" is colored red, you should take a look at your entries.
EmbeddedObject | Contains a component that provides an example of embedded object implementation.
Additional information: How to write a UNO component in Java Java UNO Language Binding Debugging Java components
Python examples |
Example | Description
ToolPanelPoc | This proof of concept extension illustrates how to create a ToolPanel in Calc.
Document Handling Examples | Description
DocumentConverter | The program offers a service that converts arbitrary documents to a favored document type.
DocumentLoader | The DocumentLoader can open a new or an existing document.
DocumentPrinter | The DocumentPrinter allows you to print the favored pages of a specified document on your favored printer.
DocumentSaver | The DocumentSaver shows how to save a document and how you can change the type of your document.
Text Document Examples | Description
BookmarkInsertion | This application opens an empty text document and enters an example text. Afterwards, some bookmarks will be inserted.
HardFormatting | This program opens an empty text document and enters an example text, some text attributes will be inspected, and the PropertyState will be checked from the selection.
SWriter | This program opens an empty text document and enters some text, and a text table, a colored text, and text frame will be inserted.
StyleCreation | This program opens an empty text document. Then a new paragraph style will be created, and applied.
StyleInitialization | This program opens an empty text document and enters an example text. The paragraph collection will be used, in order to apply a different paragraph style on the paragraphs.
TextDocumentStructure | This program opens an empty text document and enters an example text. Document structure will be printed out. Looping through the paragraphs and their portions in a more Pythonic way instead of calling the methods of XEnumeration interface.
TextReplace | The program opens an empty text document and enters an example text, and some English spelled words will be replaced with US spelled words.
GraphicsInserter | The GraphicsInserter creates a graphics object on an empty text document by setting its position, width, height, and URL.
WriterSelector | This program gives you information on the selected objects, e.g. text range, text frame or graphics.
Spreadsheet Document Examples | Description
ChartTypeChange | This class loads a LibreOffice 25.8 Calc document and changes the type of the embedded chart.
EuroAdaption | The application connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory, opens an empty Calc document, enters an example text, sets the number format to DM, changes the number format to EUR (Euro), and uses the DM/EUR factor on each cell with content.
SCalc | The program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Then an empty calc document will be opened, cell styles will be created, some data will be inserted into the sheets, and the created cell styles will be applied. Finally, a 3D chart will be inserted.
Drawing Document Examples | Description
SDraw | This program connects to the office server and gets the multi component factory. Afterwards, an empty text document will be created and some shapes will be inserted on the draw page.
Miscellaneous Examples | Description
InputEvents | This example illustrates how to register to keyboard or mouse events with Listener and Handler interfaces.
No Additional information
C++ examples |
The DocumentLoader example needs a running office server, before running this program you should invoke the office with the following command: `soffice "--accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2083;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager"` You can also customize the mentioned host and port to your needs.
Example | Description
Draw | This is essentially the same as the appropriate Java example, but is implemented in C++. It does not need a running office instance.
DocumentLoader | This component works the same as the appropriate Java example, but is implemented in C++. It needs a running office instance.
Counter | This demo shows how to implement a very simple UNO component and how to access the UNO component from an executable.
Remote client | The 'uno' program is used to export an arbitrary service to other processes. In this example the com.sun.star.uno.Pipe service (which is built in io-module) is exported. The client component implements the com.sun.star.lang.XMain interface. In the run method, it connects to the servers process and retrieves an instance and does some calls on the instance.
complextoolbarcontrols | This example shows how to create a toolbar add-on with complex toolbar controls. It shows how to use an Image Button, a Combo Box, a Spin Field, an Edit Field, a Dropdown Box, a Toggle Dropdown Button and a normal Dropdown Button
Additional information: How to write a UNO component in C++ C++ UNO Language Binding C++ reference
LibreOffice 25.8 Basic examples |
The example programs are embedded in LibreOffice 25.8 documents in the samples directory. To view or edit the LibreOffice 25.8 Basic source, select the appropriate document and then select Tools->Macro. Most of the examples are stand-alone, but two of them (Creating an Index and Import/Export of ASCII Files) have an associated data file identified by a .txt file name suffix). Some of the examples are also available in Java, you can find them in the Java section.
Example | Description
Changing Appearance | To change the style used for certain words, you can start with the following example. This code searches for the regular expression `the[a-z]`, which stands for the text portion the followed by exactly one lowercase letter. All occurrences of these four letters are then changed to bold characters. The same happens in the next part of the program, this time changing the appearance of `all[a-z]` to italic. In order for this example to work, you must execute it from an open text document.
Replacing Text | If you regularly receive documents from other people for editing, you might want to make sure that certain words are always written the same. The next example illustrates this by forcing certain words to be spelled in American English. In order for this example to work, you must execute it from an open text document. For a real world application, it is a good idea to read the words from an external file.
Using Regular Expressions | Another application of automatic text modification is related to stylistic questions. Suppose your company’s policy is to avoid the use of certain words. You want to replace these words, but you cannot do that automatically because you have to find the appropriate replacement, which depends on the context. So instead of deleting or replacing the offending words automatically, you change their color to make them stand out during a subsequent manual review process. The following example handles two kinds of unwanted wordings: those which are absolutely forbidden and must be replaced by something else, and those which are considered bad style. A subroutine is responsible for the changes. It can be used to make all words in a list appear in a certain color in the text document. To keep the lists short, we use regular expressions which provide for the variants of the words (plural, adjective etc.).
Inserting Bookmarks | The next example does something very similar. This time, however, we do not change the color of the words but insert a bookmark at each of them. You can thus use the StarOffice navigator to jump directly from word to word. Bookmarks must first be created using `createInstance()`. They are then inserted with `insertTextContent()` at the current text range. The main difference to the preceding example is the For loop in `markList()`. Instead of changing the color of the current word, it creates a new bookmark, oBookmark, whose name is the current word with an integer appended. It then inserts this bookmark at the word.
Creating an Index | Indices for text documents can be created manually in LibreOffice 25.8 Writer by clicking on the words that should appear in the index. If the document is large, or if you have to generate indices for several documents, this task should be automated.
Adapting to Euroland | Most of the members of the European Union will abandon their old currency in favor of the new Euro in 2001. This requires modifications to all programs using the old currencies. Since the exchange rates for the old currencies have been fixed at the end of 1999, one can already convert old data. The following program does this for all values in a table that are formatted with the currency string DM.
Import/Export of ASCII Files | You can use the drawing facilities of StarOffice API to generate a picture from ASCII input. One application would be a hierarchical representation of a directory listing, based on textual data.
Stock Quotes Updater | If you want to display stock charts for certain companies, you can open up your browser every day, go to a search engine, look up the quote and copy it by hand into a table. Or you can use a program that does all this automatically. The following example relies on the sheet module. It uses URLs to obtain the current stock quotes. The quotes are displayed in sheets, one for each company. We show a line diagram and the numerical values for this company on every sheet. The functionality is hidden in the three subroutines `GetValue()`, `UpdateValue()`, and `UpdateChart()`.
Forms and Controls | The example document Burger Factory offers some forms and controls, which you can use to order your desired burger type, beverage, topping, and sauce. By hitting the button "Order now!", your order will be placed.
Additional information: LibreOffice Basic language binding
Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) examples |
Example | Description
ActiveX Control | The ActiveX control shows an example of access to UNO through COM technology. It requires a properly installed StarOffice version 6.0 or OpenOffice 1.0 or newer. This is a Lite ActiveX control so it can be used only in containers that allow the use of such controls. It can be activated with an <OBJECT> tag from a html-page to embed a document. Without any parameters a new writer document will be opened for editing. For more details please see the README. Note: This example works only under windows and if you don't use the MS .Net C++ compiler please check the makefile and take notice of the comments.
WriterDemo | This Visual Basic Script creates an empty text document and inserts text, a table, and a text frame.
Additional information: Automation Language Binding
Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) examples |
Example | Description
Spreadsheet Example | This example is written in C# and shows how Spreadsheet documents are created and filled with content. This example actually consists of three separate executables, SpreadsheetSample.exe, GeneralTableSample.exe, ViewSample.exe.
WriterDemo | This example is written in VB.NET. It creates a text document and inserts text, a table, and a text frame.
Additional information: CLI-UNO Language Binding