# Library for writing ODF files **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [November 18, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/library-for-writing-odf-files/153570 "2008-11-18T21:58:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thiagoalessio)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/library-for-writing-odf-files/153570/1 "2008-11-18T21:58:40Z")
Last week I needed to generate a report in the format of an ODF spreadsheet and couldn’t find a suitable Ruby library for outputing ODF. There is something called RubyODF (at [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyodf/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyodf/) ), but it is capable only of reading documents, not writing them. After much searching I ended up writing my own library. For lack of a better name (and creativity), I called it rODF. It is not available as a gem yet, but the code is available in GitHub at > **[GitHub - westonganger/rodf: ODF generation library for Ruby](https://github.com/westonganger/rodf/tree/master)** > > master I did already use this library successfully to generate some spreadsheets and it pretty much works (if you need to do exactly what I needed, anyway). The files read correctly in [OpenOffice.org](http://OpenOffice.org) and KOffice, but I don’t think it is ready for mass consumption yet. I thought I would share this to find out if there is already another solution for this problem in Ruby that I wasn’t able to find or if I should go on with this effort. Cheers, Thiago A. ---
**Author:** ![thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thiagoalessio)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/library-for-writing-odf-files/153570/2 "2008-11-19T03:31:55Z")
- Thiago A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) [2008-11-19 05:54:18 +0900]: > Last week I needed to generate a report in the format of an ODF spreadsheet and > couldn’t find a suitable Ruby library for outputing ODF. There is something > called RubyODF (at [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyodf/](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyodf/) ), but it is capable > only of reading documents, not writing them. > > After much searching I ended up writing my own library. For lack of a better > name (and creativity), I called it rODF. It is not available as a gem yet, but > the code is available in GitHub at > [GitHub - westonganger/rodf: ODF generation library for Ruby](http://github.com/thiagoarrais/rodf/tree/master) Wonderful news! Look forward to being able to write other ODF documents (word processing esp.) using your library. Any plans for extending it for other kinds of documents? saji – Saji N. Hameed APEC Climate Center +82 51 668 7470 National Pension Corporation Busan Building 12F Yeonsan 2-dong, Yeonje-gu, BUSAN 611705 removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid KOREA ---
**Author:** ![thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thiagoalessio)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 10:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/library-for-writing-odf-files/153570/3 "2008-11-19T10:08:35Z")
By the way, there is a read-only library for Spreadsheets called ROO, which is more advanced then RubyODF. I know that the author is interested in writing capabilities but does not have the time to implement it alone. Maybe you should drop him a line. Regards, Florian G. ---
**Author:** ![thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/d6d6ee/32.png) [@thiagoalessio](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thiagoalessio)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/library-for-writing-odf-files/153570/4 "2008-11-20T05:21:42Z")
On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 11:25 PM, Saji N. Hameed [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Wonderful news! Look forward to being able to write other ODF documents > (word processing esp.) using your library. Any plans for extending it > for other kinds of documents? Spreadsheets are enough for me for the time being. As I said, I was already able to generate the reports I needed to generate using rODF. But other kinds of documents certainly will be requested some time in the future. My plan is to add features as needed and accept contributions in case they show up. Regards, Thiago A.