https://github.com/elloza/pptx2pdfwasm
Crazy idea: use Libre Office wasm version for creating a pptx2pdf library in python compatible with several desktop platforms (Linux, MacOS, Windows)
https://github.com/elloza/pptx2pdfwasm
libreoffice pptx2pdf wasm zetajs
Last synced: 3 months ago
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Crazy idea: use Libre Office wasm version for creating a pptx2pdf library in python compatible with several desktop platforms (Linux, MacOS, Windows)
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/elloza/pptx2pdfwasm
- Owner: elloza
- License: mit
- Created: 2025-02-27T17:37:32.000Z (4 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-03-21T01:10:52.000Z (3 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-03-21T01:20:01.167Z (3 months ago)
- Topics: libreoffice, pptx2pdf, wasm, zetajs
- Language: Python
- Homepage:
- Size: 102 MB
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# 📄 pptx2pdfwasm
💡 **Crazy idea**: Use Libre Office wasm version for creating a pptx2pdf library in Python compatible with several desktop platforms (Linux, MacOS, Windows).
This could be overkill, but it is a fun project to work on. 🎉
## 🛠️ The problem
It turns out that converting a pptx file to pdf is not that easy on Python. There are several libraries that can do that, but they are not cross-platform. For example, `python-pptx` is a great library, but it only works on Windows. `unoconv` is another great library, but it requires Libre Office to be installed on the system.
In my humble opinion, the straightforward way to solve this problem is to use Libre Office, but it requires that the final user has Libre Office installed on their system, the binary `soffice` must be in the PATH, and the user must have the correct permissions to run the binary... this is not a good solution for a library. 😕
## 💡 The solution
The crazy idea and also a PoC is to use the Libre Office wasm version to convert the pptx file to pdf. This way, we can create a library that works on several platforms without the need for the user to install anything. 🚀
The idea is to create a Python library that uses the Libre Office wasm version to convert the pptx file to pdf. The library will be a wrapper around the Libre Office wasm version, and it will be compatible with several platforms (Linux, MacOS, Windows). 🌍
## 📚 The resources
1. **The office WASM version**: The most interesting resource is the Libre Office wasm version. Particularly, the version from [ZetaOffice](https://github.com/allotropia/zetajs). This version is a fork of the Libre Office wasm version, and it is more up-to-date than the original version. The Libre Office wasm version is a full version of Libre Office compiled to WebAssembly. It is a full version of Libre Office, so it can do everything that the desktop version can do. The Libre Office wasm version is a great resource because it is a full version of Libre Office that can run on the browser. This means that we can use it to convert the pptx file to pdf without the need for the user to install anything. 🌐
2. **Python libraries**: The main idea is to serve a website and browse it with libraries like Playwright or Selenium. All the conversion will be done on the browser and controlled from Python. This is no different from using a headless browser to convert a webpage to pdf. It is overkill, but it's working. 🖥️
## 🔧 The workarounds
To avoid the limitation of git of 100MB, the files of the web are compressed in a zip file. The zip file is extracted in the first run of the library. The zip file is stored in the package, so it is not necessary to download it again. It's not the best solution, but it's working. 📦
## 🚀 Status
**Status**: Finally, it's working on Linux! 🎉
**Pending tasks**:
- [ ] Test on MacOS 🍏
- [X] Test on Windows 🪟
**Prerequisites**:
Install Playwright:
```bash
pip install playwright
playwright install
```
For installing the package:
```bash
pip install git+https://github.com/elloza/pptx2pdfwasm
```
# How to use it 📚
```python
from pptx2pdfwasm import PPTXtoPDFConverter
converter = PPTXtoPDFConverter(headless=False, log_enabled=False)
converter.convert("example.pptx", "example.pdf")
```
Command line:
```bash
python -m pptx2pdfwasm example.pptx example.pdf
```
# Acknowledgments
Thank you to the ZetaOffice team for the Libre Office wasm version. 🙏
And their great work on the Libre Office wasm version and supporting the community. 🌟