Chapter 13: Writer Documents

Overview

Writer documents primarily deal with text content arranged in paragraphs. This chapter introduces appropriate methods to manipulate, traverse, search, format, and modify the content contained in an OpenOffice.org Writer document.

Conceptually, all document types have two components : the data they contain and the controller that determines how the data is displayed. Writer documents primarily contain simple formatted text. In addition to simple text, Writer documents may contain other content such as tables, frames , graphics, text fields, bookmarks, footnotes, endnotes, text sections, index entries, tracked document changes (called redlining), objects for styling, and objects for numbering. OOo uses the same methods and interfaces to interact with most of these capabilities. Consequently, learning to manipulate a few types of content will give you a solid basis for dealing with all of them.

Note  

In OOo, the data contained in a document is called the "model." The base model interface is com. sun. star. frame.XModel.

In OpenOffice.org, the data contained in a document is called the model. Each model has a controller that is responsible for the visual presentation of the data. The controller knows the location of the visible text cursor, the current page, and what is currently selected.

Tip  

While trying to determine which portion of the OOo API to use to solve a specific problem, first ask if the problem is display-centric or data-centric. For example, a paragraph boundary is specified in the data, but a new line is usually determined by the controller when the data is formatted.

Every text document supports the com.sun.star.text.TextDocument service. When I write a macro that must be user friendly and requires a text document, I verify that the document is the correct type by using the object method supportsService (see Listing 1 ).

Listing 1: Text documents support the com.sun.star.text.TextDocument service.

 REM If it really matters, you should check the document type REM to avoid a run-time error. If NOT ThisComponent.supportsService("com.sun.star.text.TextDocument") Then   MsgBox "The current document is not a Writer text document", 48, "Error"   Exit Sub End If 

 

An interface defines a series of methods. If an object implements an interface, it also implements every method defined by that interface. A service defines an object by specifying the interfaces that it implements, the properties that it contains, and the other services that it exports. A service indirectly specifies the implemented methods by specifying interfaces. The interfaces supported by the TextDocument service provide a good overview of the provided functionality (see Table 1 ).

Table 1: Interfaces supported by text documents.

Service	Description
com.sun.star.text.XTextDocument	Main text document interface.
com.sun.star.text.XBookmarksSupplier	Access the bookmarks.
com.sun.star.text.XChapterNumberingSupplier	Numbering rules for chapters.
com.sun.star.text.XDocumentlndexesSupplier	Access the collection of indexes.
com.sun.star.text.XTextEmbeddedObjectsSupplier	Access embedded objects.
com.sun.star.text.XEndnotesSupplier	Access endnote content.
com.sun.star.text.XFootnotesSupplier	Access footnote content.
com.sun.star.text.XLineNumberingSupplier	Numbering rules for line numbers .
com.sun.star.text.XPagePrintable	Print multiple pages on one page.
com.sun.star.text.XReferenceMarksSupplier	Access the document reference marks, which are used to refer to text positions in a text document.
com.sun.star.text.XTextFieldsSupplier	Access contained fields.
com.sun.star.text.XTextFramesSupplier	Access contained text frames.
com.sun.star.text.XTextGraphicObjectsSupplier	Access embedded and linked graphics.
com.sun.star.text.XTextSectionsSupplier	Access contained text sections.
com.sun.star.text.XTextTablesSupplier	Access contained tables.
com.sun.star.style.XStyleFamiliesSupplier	Access contained styles by type.
com.sun.star.util.XNumberFormatsSupplier	Access contained number formats.
com.sun.star.util.XRefreshable	Refresh data that can be refreshed from a database.
com.sun.star.util.XReplaceable	Replace text found with a search descriptor.
com.sun.star.util.XSearchable	Search a text range for a specific string pattern.
com.sun.star.beans.XPropertySet	Access document properties by name .