Re: question about ODT export behavior

[Renzo Been <swangdoodles@gmail.com>]

Jambunathan K <kjambunathan <at> gmail.com> writes:

> >> Can you give me a hint where I can find some documentation about
> >> changing the styles.xml?
> >
> > You can have a look at contrib/odt/README.org.  Jambunathan points 
> > to this message, which can help:
> >
> >   http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2011-03/msg01460.html
> 
> Here is the relevant variable.
> 
> ,----[ C-h v org-export-odt-styles-file RET ]
> | org-export-odt-styles-file is a variable defined in `org-odt.el'.
> `----
> 
> Here is a specific example:
> 
> ,----
> | (setq org-export-odt-styles-file
> |       '("~/tmp-orgmode/Thu Thong Bao - Trai Ve Nguon XV (2011).odt"
> `----
> 
> I am seeing that customization interface for org-export-odt-styles-file
> variable is only partially done. If the customization interface doesn't
> do the right thing for you, you can use the setq form temporarily.
> 
> The default styles file used by the odt exporter is:
> org-root-dir/contrib/odt/styles/OrgOdtStyles.xml
> 
> There is also an automatic styles file in there.
> 
> If you are interested in customizing the styles you could do this:
> 
> 1. Export test.org to test.odt
> 
> 2. Open test.odt and use the OpenOffice stylist to change the
>    user-defined styles. The Org-specific user stlyes have `Org' as a
>    prefix. 
> 
>    Hint: One can use M-x occur RET Org RET in OrgOdtStyles.xml buffer to
>    see the Org specific styles.
> 
>    Caution: The style-names used in the styles.xml are the style-names
>    written out in content.xml. So it is important that the style-names
>    be not changed at all. 
> 
> 3. Save the newly styled test.odt as say ~/.emacs.d/org-odt/custom.odt
>    or ~/.emacs.d/org-odt/custom.ott file.
> 
> 4. Use one of the following:
> 
>    1. Customize org-export-odt-styles-file to the custom.odt or
>       custom.ott file.
> 
>    2. If you are a bit adventurous, you can open the newly saved
>       test.odt in an archive-mode, extract the styles.xml and save it to
>       ~/.emacs.d/org-odt/user-styles.xml.
> 
>       Then customize org-export-odt-styles-file to point to the above
>       styles.xml file.
> 
> I anticipate more questions and follow-on enhancements to styles
> interface as more and more people start using it. So all inputs are
> welcome.
> 
> Jambunathan K.
> 
> >
> > HTH,

Hi,

First of all; I want to thank you for this great addon to org-mode. Being able
to export directly to OpenOffice documents is good for sharing my document with
friends.

I just want to add one point that I did not find in the org-manual.  I tested
some of my org-files and exported them to the OpenOffice format. When I tried to
open these documents in OpenOffice, they were corrupt and could not be opened.

I soon found out why. If you want to export an org-mode file to .odt, you need
to explicitly set the file encoding to UTF-8 (I usually use iso-8859-1 encoding
for my files), like:
#-*- mode: org; coding: utf-8; -*-
After that OpenOffice could open the files without any problems.

Thanx again, and I will follow your explanation below, to create my own
styles.xml

Ciao,
Renzo