Office documents with LibreOffice

LibreOffice is installed as soffice (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw). Two paths, cheapest first.

1. Headless, no window: conversions and batch work

soffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir ~/Documents report.docx     # any format → PDF
soffice --headless --convert-to docx letter.odt                          # ODF ↔ Office formats
soffice --headless --convert-to csv:"Text - txt - csv (StarCalc)":44,34,76 data.xlsx
soffice --headless --convert-to xlsx table.csv

Tier: reversible (writes new files next to the source or in --outdir; never overwrites the source). Verify with ls -l and, for PDFs, pdfinfo if present.

To create a document from text without a GUI, write Markdown or HTML and convert it: soffice --headless --convert-to odt draft.html (headings, lists, tables and bold survive; images by absolute path).

2. In a window: editing, formatting, anything the user wants to see

• Open: desktop_launch with soffice and the file (soffice --writer, --calc, --impress for a new document of that kind).
• LibreOffice exposes a complete accessibility tree. desktop_elements lists the toolbar buttons, menu items, dialog fields and, for Writer, the paragraphs; desktop_read returns the document text. Prefer desktop_element_click and desktop_element_set_text over pointer clicks and typing.
• Menus: click the menu (File, Format…) as an element, then call desktop_elements again for the items that appeared. Dialogs (Save As, Export as PDF) are new windows: desktop_windows shows them; their fields and buttons are elements.
• Typing prose into Writer: desktop_element_click the document area, then desktop_type with the window set. Cell values in Calc: click the cell, type, press Return.
• Save: Ctrl+S with the window set (desktop_key), or File → Save as elements. Saving in an Office format shows a "Keep current format" dialog: choose the format the user asked for.

Tier: reversible for edits to files under the snapshot root; Confirm when overwriting a file the user did not name.

Verify

Reopen or convert the result (soffice --headless --convert-to txt on a document gives its text) and read it back before reporting.

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