3.11. JODConverter configuration

In Sites Explorer or Activity Stream, users can preview documents of various types, without downloading it. To support this feature, eXo Platform uses the JODConverter service that requires OpenOffice or LibreOffice to be installed locally (in the same machine with the eXo Platform server).

Note

Currently, JODConverter does not connect to LibreOffice 4 on Windows. This is a known issue reported by eXo.

Installing OpenOffice/LibreOffice

Follow OpenOffice guideline or LibreOffice guideline to install.

Note that those softwares might be installed in some Linux distributions by the OS already.

Note

JODConverter is already built in eXo Platform, so you do not need to install it.

Sigar Framework

In Windows, Sigar is recommended. JODConverter uses Sigar - if available - to manage Office processes. Without Sigar, there is possibility that Office processes are not stopped successfully when you shut down eXo Platform, and it causes problem in your next start.

So download the following files and install them to the lib folder ($PLATFORM_TOMCAT_HOME/lib in Tomcat or $PLATFORM_JBOSS_HOME/standalone/deployments/platform.ear/lib in JBoss):

JODConverter version

eXo Platform uses JODConverter v3.0 that enhances processing different file types much.

Activating and deactivating

JODConverter is activated by default. You can deactivate it (and consequently not use the preview feature) by setting exo.jodconverter.enable=false in the following file:

Configurations

Note

In most cases, you do not need to configure JODConverter because it can work with default configurations. However, if you are using OpenOffice 4 (or later), or have installed the Office server untypically, you will need to specify exo.jodconverter.officehome by yourself. See Specifying exo.jodconverter.officehome.

JODConverter configurations can be edited in the following files. See Configuration overview if the file has not been created yet.

# JOD Converter
exo.jodconverter.enable=true
exo.jodconverter.portnumbers=2002
exo.jodconverter.officehome=
exo.jodconverter.taskqueuetimeout=30000
exo.jodconverter.taskexecutiontimeout=120000
exo.jodconverter.maxtasksperprocess=200
exo.jodconverter.retrytimeout=120000
KeyDefault valueDescription
exo.jodconverter.portnumbers2002 List of ports, separated by commas - those used by each JODConverter processing thread. The number of office instances is equal to the number of ports.
exo.jodconverter.officehomeSee here The absolute path to Office installed folder.
exo.jodconverter.taskqueuetimeout30000 The maximum living time of a task in the conversation queue. The task will be removed from the queue if the waiting time is longer than taskQueueTimeout.
exo.jodconverter.taskexecutiontimeout120000 The maximum time to process a task. If the processing time of a task is longer than taskExecutionTimeout, this task will be aborted and the next task is processed.
exo.jodconverter.maxtasksperprocess200The maximum number of tasks are processed.
exo.jodconverter.retrytimeout120000The interval time to restart the Office services after an unexpected crash.

Specifying exo.jodconverter.officehome

Again, the default configuration should work in many cases. Most likely you need to change it for OpenOffice 4.

Note

Note that EXO_JODCONVERTER_OFFICEHOME variable is not used as of 4.1.0. The customize script does not overlap JODConverter configuration anymore, so only use exo.properties for it.

Here are some examples of the property:

In Linux, if you do not know the path, you might check the followings:

Services details

To support as many as possible document types, it is recommended you install all available services of Open Office. However, if you do not want to do so, refer to the following table to know which packages are needed for which services.

File extensionsService namesOpen Office installation packageLibre Office installation package

doc

docx

odt

writeropenoffice.org-writerlibreoffice-writer

odf

mathopenoffice.org-mathlibreoffice-math
odgdrawopenoffice.org-drawlibreoffice-draw

odp

ppt

pptx

impressopenoffice.org-impresslibreoffice-impress

ods

ots

xls

xlsx

xlt

calcopenoffice.org-calclibreoffice-calc

See also

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