Setting up OpenOffice for Alfresco

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The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

OpenOfficeAdministrationInstallation
This page describes how to install and set up OpenOffice for use with Alfresco.

Installing OpenOffice

OpenOffice is a cross-platform office application suite. Alfresco uses OpenOffice to transform files from one format to another, for example, from Microsoft Word to PDF. OpenOffice.org is free to download. OpenOffice is an optional installation that provides access to a range of document transformations in Alfresco.

To install OpenOffice:

1. Browse to the OpenOffice.org download site: http://download.openoffice.org
   
2. Download the latest (stable) version of OpenOffice for your platform.
   
   1. Note that there is an OpenOffice issue which means that OOo version 3.2+ is needed to transform Office 07 documents (.docx etc).
      
3. When prompted, specify a download destination.
   
4. Browse to the location of your downloaded file, and install the application. A wizard guides you through the installation.
   
5. Accept the license agreement, and click Next.
   
6. Enter Customer information as appropriate, and click Next.
   
7. Select the set up type and Custom, and click Next.
   
8. Change the installation directory to c:\Alfresco\OpenOffice.
   
9. Optionally, select the files for which you want OpenOffice to be the default application for, and click Next.
   
10. Start one of the OpenOffice programs to perform the initial registration, and then close the program.
    
11. If the Alfresco server is running, stop and restart the server.
    
12. Modify the following properties in the <extension>/custom-repository.properties file:
    
    1. Set ooo.exe= to point to the OpenOffice binary.
       
    2. Set ooo.user= to point to the path for the user profile.
       

To configure as a headless service, open a command prompt (or create a .bat file), and start OpenOffice as follows:

soffice '-accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager' -nologo -headless

Installing Microsoft Office add-ins

Alfresco add-ins are available for Microsoft® Office applications, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Note: If you are running Office 2007 on Windows Vista, you will only have READ ONLY access to the Alfresco repository over WebDAV. This is currently a known problem with Microsoft and Vista and affects many applications.

Before you start, make sure that:

• The .NET Programmability Support option is installed for each of the Office applications that you are installing the add-ins. Typically, these will be Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. To find these options, run the Office Setup program and expand the list of available options for each application. You may require your original Office 2007 install media to add these required components.
  
• Any Microsoft Office applications on your system are NOT running, including Outlook if you use Word as an email editor.
  

To install and configure Microsoft Office add-ins:

1. Unzip the files containing the Microsoft setup. This example refers to the Office 3-in-1 installer, which installs all three add-ins. You can also use individual installers to add Alfresco to one of the three Office applications.
   
2. Run setup.exe. If required, the setup program will download the required components from the Microsoft website. These components are .NET 2.0 framework, and Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition runtime.
   
3. Run the Office application, for example, Word. A Welcome window with configuration options display.
   
4. In the Web Client URL area, enter the location to the Alfresco web client. For example: http://server:8080/alfresco/
   
5. In the WebDAV URL area, append webdav/ to the web client URL. For example: http://server:8080/alfresco/webdav/
   
6. In the CIFS Server area, enter the path to the CIFS server. The add-in will try to auto-complete this value, but verify for the correct address. For example: \\server_a\alfresco\ or \\servera\alfresco\
   
7. In the Authentication area, enter your Alfresco user name and password. If you are using the CIFS interface, authentication is usually automatic. However, sometimes the add-In presents your Alfresco user name and password to be correctly authenticated. All values are stored in the Windows registry and your password is encrypted against casual hacking attempts.
   
8. Click Save Settings.