Libreoffice convert-to not working

Question

I'm trying to convert documents from html,txt to pdf,odt and vice versa.. But only odt to pdf seems to work.. No other file formats are converted

Here are my commands

libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf test.html [Not working]
libreoffice --headless --convert-to odt test.html [Not working]
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf test.docx [Not working]
libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf test.odt  [Working]

Answer 1

This is a known issue in LibreOffice that was fixed in version 5.3.0. Before this fix when an instance of LibreOffice is running --convert-to or any other command would silently terminate without doing anything.

If your version is older than that you could consider the solution suggested by Frank Yin here. That is close all open LibreOffice documents before running the conversion.

If you cannot close all open LibreOffice documents to run the conversion, or if you find it inconvenient, you could try a solution suggested in the comments to the original bug.

If you have LibreOffice version before 4.5 run

soffice -env:UserInstallation=file:///$HOME/.libreoffice-headless/ \
--headless --convert-to pdf test.docx

If you are running LibreOffice version between 4.5 and 5.3 run

soffice -env:UserInstallation=file:///$HOME/.libreoffice-headless/ \
--convert-to pdf test.docx

Here $HOME/.libreoffice-headless is a new profile directory different from your main LibreOffice profile.

Answer 2

Try closing all running instances of LibreOffice before executing the command. This was the root cause of my pain.

Answer 3

The real problem is that the libreoffice/soffice command line doesn't provide any error message or debugging information, so it's all guesswork. If you are up to it, then try strace for hints.

In my case (Linux), I didn't have the correct packages installed - for example, to convert spreadsheets, libreoffice-calc is needed (duh), and also libreoffice-headless (double-duh). But the command line won't tell you that - it just hangs, or runs and doesn't do anything.

Answer 4

The following works

libreoffice  --invisible -convert-to pdf myFile.html

libreoffice --invisible -convert-to docx myFile.odt

The option --invisible does not start up the GUI but gives some clues on the command line what is happening.

Tested on Linux Mint 13.

Answer 5

This worked for me on LibreOffice 4.2 / Linux:

soffice --headless --convert-to txt:Text /path_to/document_to_convert.odt

Credit: http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/14130/how-do-i-install-filters-for-the-soffice-command/

Answer 6

For me. The problem I had was that --headless does not work, AT ALL (just returns in 15 milli-seconds), if a local libreoffice process already has the document open.

Make sure you only do headless operations on a document that is NOT already open in LibreOffice.

Answer 7

For me, the following two packages were the minimum needed to get headless docx to pdf conversion working on CentOS 7 :

yum install libreoffice-headless  libreoffice-writer

Answer 8

On Windows I encountered the following problem: I tried to convert all DOC files to PDF using the following command:

soffice --invisible --convert-to pdf *.doc

It failed without any error message. But it worked when I put a filename of one of the files instead of *.doc. So apparently it was a problem with resolving wildcard in *.doc. What I did is execute exactly the same command as above but from Git Bash instead of normal command prompt (cmd.exe). It worked. What is more: in Git Bash it displayed progress information and informative messages!

So my advice is: if you're running soffice.exe on Windows and don't get any output, run the command from Git Bash (you can get Git Bash by installing Git for Windows)

Answer 9

One of the problems that I encountered with libreoffice was the problem with empty spaces. After I slugged the name ("test-document.docx" instead of test "documnet.docx") it worked perfectly. From version 4.2.8.2 - 5.3.

Answer 10

I had to install the xvfb package (yum install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb), it is the xserver dummy.