Knowledge Base

OpenOffice / LibreOffice

If you require preview files to be created for common office document formats such as .docx and .pptx you will need to install a utility called Unoconv which allows conversion between different document formats in Open Office.

sudo apt-get install unoconv

You must then add the following line to config.php

$unoconv_path="/usr/bin";

Next start the unoconv listener by enter the following into the Command line/Terminal:

unoconv --listener &

It should start its own listener but it is mostly required to run this command in order to ensure that it will work correctly.

The default file extensions that will be previewed with Open office are:

$unoconv_extensions=array("doc","docx","odt","odp","html","rtf","txt","ppt","pptx","sxw","sdw","html","psw","rtf","sdw","pdb","bib","txt","ltx","sdd","sda","odg","sdc");

An alternative method for previewing Office formats is to use QuickLook to get previews on the Mac, but using Unoconv enables page previewing and an automatic PDF alternative version of the file.

You can prevent the system from adding the automatic PDF alternative by including the extension this is not desired for in the configuration option $non_image_types.

On Linux the following willl start the unoconv listener on startup so no need to worry about starting the listener on reboots.

Create a file /etc/init.d/local

#! /bin/sh
unoconv --listener &

Then:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/local
update-rc.d local defaults 80