OODocBatchConverter

OODocBatchConverter

Description

OODocBatchConverter converts any number of files from one format, such as ".doc" to another, such as ".pdf" or ".txt". It isn't limited to word processing files. It can do any conversion that OpenOffice.org can perform because it uses OpenOffice.org to do the actual conversion. OpenOffice.org is an excellent office suite that includes a word processer (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation program (Impress), a drawing program (Draw), and a database program (Base), all for no cost. OODocBatchConverter will run on any computer and any operating system that has Java and OpenOffice.org installed. A variant of OpenOffice.org, called "LibreOffice" has been created recently and will also work with OODocBatchConverter.

OODocBatchConverter is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) client, written in Java, that uses the OpenOffice.org program as a server. OpenOffice.org actually does the conversions. When OODocBatchConverter starts up, it also starts OpenOffice.org. Then, to request a conversion, OODocBatchConverter communicates with OpenOffice.org and makes the request. Open office determines what conversion to make depending on the input files' extensions (which don't all have to be the same) and the output extension (which is the same for all output files).

Requirements

For OODocBatchConverter to work, you must have OpenOffice or LibreOffice installed in your computer. You can get OpenOffice.org for free at: http://www.openoffice.org/. LibreOffice is available at: http://www.libreoffice.org/, also free. OODocBatchConverter is written in Java so you must also have Java 1.8 or later installed. The latest version of Java is available free at: http://www.java.com/. Because it is written in Java, OODocBatchConverter will run on any machine that has Java installed.

Download OODocBatchConverter

Download OODocBatchConverter by clicking this link: https://sourceforge.net/projects/doc-batch-converter/

Installation

OODocBatchConverter downloads as a ZIP file, OODocBatchConverter.zip. You need to unzip the file and extract the folder "OODocBatchconverter". In Microsoft Windows, you can do that by right-clicking the ZIP file and selecting "Extract all...". Move the extracted folder to the directory where you normally store your application programs, for example in Microsoft Windows, that would be C:\program files\. Once you've moved the folder to its proper location, open the folder and find the file OODocBatchConverter.jar. Double-clicking that file will start the program running. If you wish, you may manually make a desktop shortcut to that OODocBatchConverter.jar file.

First run

On its first run, the program will attempt to open OpenOffice.org. If it cannot find the OpenOffice.org executable file, soffice.exe, it will ask you to find it.

On Windows XP it will usually be found in "C:\Program Files\<OpenOffice.org folder>\program\soffice.exe", where the "<OpenOffice.org folder>" is the name of the folder where OpenOffice.org was installed.
On Windows 7 and above it will usually be found in "C:\Program Files (x86)\<OpenOffice.org folder>\program\soffice.exe".
NOTE: In Microsoft Windows, OODocBatchConverter will start OpenOffice in its "headless" state. That is, OpenOffice will not display its usual user interface and will be invisible. There is no need for the interface because OODocBatchConverter will communicate directly with Openffice. When you exit OODocBatchConverter, it will also terminate the invisible OpenOffice process.
On the Mac, it will usually be in "/Applications/OpenOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice".
On Unix or Linux variants the OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice executable will usually be found in /usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice or /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice. Note that in Linux or Unix the OpenOffice or LibreOffice GUI (Graphical User Interface) will open. Do not close OpenOffice or LibreOffice until you are done with your conversions because OpenOffice or LibreOffice is what is doing the work of conversion.
NOTE: In Linux and MacOS OODocBatchConverter will start OpenOffice in its normal state, displaying its usual user interface. Since you do not need to interact with OpenOffice itself while using OODocBatchConverter to convert files, you can minimize the interface or move it out of the way. When you exit OODocBatchConverter, OpenOffice will still be running. You can then use its user interface to exit OpenOffice.

If you can't find the OpenOffice executable, right-click the OpenOffice.org desktop shortcut (in Windows), select properties and the property window will open. Choose the Shortcut tab. The Target: text box will have the location of the soffice.exe file. You will only have to do this once because the program will store the location for its future reference.

Performing conversions

When you start the program, it will first open the OpenOffice.org program, which does the actual file format conversions. Then the main panel will appear:

You can set up for the conversion as follows:

Select the input files to be converted:

Click on the Select Input Files button. A file selection dialog will appear.
Navigate to the folder containing the files you want to convert.
Select the files you want to convert by the usual clicking, shift-clicking, and/or Ctrl-clicking.
Click the Open button to complete the selection. The number of input files selected will be shown in parentheses followed by the path to the folder containing the files.

Select the destination folder:

Click on the Select Output Folder button
Navigate to the folder that you want the converted files to be stored into.
Click on the Open button to complete the selection. The path to the selected folder will be shown next to the button.

Choose the document type from the Select document type drop down list. This selection will narrow the selections in the output file extension list. If you choose "All", then the output file extension list will include extensions from all the different document types.
Choose the output file type from the Select output file extension drop down list. If the extension you want isn't in the list, just type your desired extension in. If the conversion can't be done for that type, you will be informed when the conversion is attempted.
Click on the Perform Conversion button. The conversion will proceed. When it is complete a message dialog will appear announcing completion and whether there were any conversion failures.
To see a report of the successful and unsuccessful conversions, click on the Show Log button. If you want a permanent copy of the log, select all the text in the log window and copy it to a word processor such as Word or notepad. From there you can save it to a file or print it out.

License

OODocBatchConverter was written by John Grosberg. You may contact him here.
The licenses for OODocBatchConverter are given below.

OODocBatchConverter uses several publicly available code libraries that are licensed as follows:

Library name	License
JODConverter	GNU Lesser General Public License
BrowserLauncher2	GNU Lesser General Public License

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE OF OODocBatchConverter SOFTWARE PROGRAM

OODocBatchConverter is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

OODocBatchConverter is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with OODocBatchConverter. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses.

The user is encouraged to report any bugs or problems found in the program to John Grosberg here.