How to use OpenOffice to compare Office documents

[rodolfog]

I see that to compare Excel files there is a .vbs that calls some Microsoft Office functions. I would like to use OpenOffice, if it is possible. Where can I find some documentation about it?

Thank You very much

Rodolfo Giovanninetti

[Chris]

The MS Word, Excel, and Powerpoint rules all use VBScript to call the appropriate office application to save an office document as plain text and BC compares the plain text file.

I don't know OpenOffice well enough to know if or how you would convert to plain text from the command line. If you can find a way to do it, it should be possible to call the command in BC for comparison of MS Office or OpenOffice documents.

One you've found a command to generate a text file, create a new rule by clicking New in the Rules section of Beyond Compare's Tools|Options dialog. Name the rule, and associate it with a file extension. In the Conversion tab, select "External Program" and specify the command line to the OpenOffice conversion command in "Run when loading:". BC will pass the source and target file names in the %s and %t variables.

[Ernie]

Just came across an article on launching OpenOffice with a macro to convert file formats: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2006/01/11/from-microsoft-to-openoffice.html

[rodolfog]

Thank You very much for the help. I will try to put together some script as soon as possible.

Thank You again

Rodolfo Giovanninetti