https://github.com/phlummox/pptx-to-md
Convert PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress files to Beamer-friendly, Pandoc-style markdown
https://github.com/phlummox/pptx-to-md
beamer document-conversion latex libreoffice markdown openoffice pdf powerpoint presentation-slides
Last synced: 10 months ago
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Convert PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress files to Beamer-friendly, Pandoc-style markdown
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/phlummox/pptx-to-md
- Owner: phlummox
- License: unlicense
- Created: 2020-02-10T12:26:38.000Z (about 6 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2020-02-10T13:34:07.000Z (about 6 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-04-15T07:09:20.207Z (about 1 year ago)
- Topics: beamer, document-conversion, latex, libreoffice, markdown, openoffice, pdf, powerpoint, presentation-slides
- Language: Python
- Size: 13.7 KB
- Stars: 11
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 1
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# pptx-to-md
Converts presentation files (PowerPoint/Impress,
or anything else that LibreOffice can read as a
presentation) to [Beamer](https://ctan.org/pkg/beamer)-friendly,
Pandoc-style markdown.
It's a two part conversion: one script (`pptx-to-yaml.py`)
converts from pptx (or ppt, odp etc) into an intermediate
YAML format, then another (`yaml-to-md.py`) converts the
YAML to Pandoc-style markdown.
As a convenience, a Bash wrapper script is provided (`converter.sh`)
which calls both of these, and handles a few other graphics-conversion
tasks (such as converting SVG files, which LaTeX can't natively read,
to encapsulated PostScript files, which it can).
## pptx-to-yaml usage
```bash
$ ./pptx-to-yaml.py [--use-server HOST:PORT] INPUT_FILE OUTPUT_FILE IMAGE_DIR
```
`INPUT_FILE` is the path to some ppt, pptx or Impress file.
`OUTPUT_FILE` is the name of the YAML file to be written.
`IMAGE_DIR` is a directory where images will be extracted to.
It will be created if it doesn't exist.
See [soffice-server](#soffice-server) below for details of
what `--use-server` is for.
## PowerPoint features supported
Title text, "outline" text (i.e. bullets) and embedded
graphics like JPEGs or PNGs are handled reasonably well.
Formatting such as italics, bold or colouring of text
is not preserved. Nor are numbered lists - they're
converted into bulleted lists.
Embedded "metafiles" (EMF or WMF vector graphics)
should get converted to SVG. (And thence to EPS, if you
use `convert.sh`.)
If it finds any tables, drawing shapes (arrows/boxes etc),
`pptx-to-yaml.py` tries to collect them all together
and export them as an SVG.
## soffice server
`pptx-to-yaml.py` attempts to start an `soffice` process
and communicate with it over port 2002 on the local host;
it's the `soffice` process that knows how to read
and manipulate PowerPoint files.
However, the `HOST:PORT` arguments can be supplied if you prefer
to run your own instance of `soffice` as a separate process.
Which you might want to, since:
a. If you have a lot of files to convert, you can just
keep one `soffice` process running, and re-use it,
avoiding the time taken to start a new process for
each document.
b. Sometimes `pptx-to-yaml.py` just doesn't seem to
start the `soffice` process up correctly - I have no idea why.
So you could start the server process using something
like the following:
```bash
$ xterm -e 'soffice --accept="socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;" \
--norestore --nologo --nodefault --headless' &
```
... which will open an `soffice` instance running in its own terminal
window; and then specify `HOST` and `PORT` to `pptx-to-yaml.py`.
## yaml-to-md usage
```bash
$ ./yaml-to-md.py INPUT_FILE OUTPUT_FILE
```
Just takes an input file and output file.
## utility script - convert.sh
usage:
```bash
$ ./convert.sh [INPUT_FILE..]
```
Convenience wrapper around pptx-to-yaml and yaml-to-md. Also converts
SVG files to encapsulated PostScript (EPS) for use by LaTeX,
and attempts to use Pandoc to create LaTeX and PDF files.
(If it fails, that means the .md file needs some tidying, so the
PDF file just isn't produced.)
## prerequisites
For `pptx-to-yaml.py` and `yaml-to-md.py`:
- Python 3.5 or greater
- LibreOffice 5.1.6. On Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial), this
can be installed with `sudo apt-get install libreoffice`.
- `python3-uno`. On Ubuntu, this can be installed with
`sudo apt-get install python3-uno`.
- pyyaml. Most easily installed with something like
`pip3 install --user pyyaml`.
For `convert.sh`:
- Requires bash, sed, [Inkscape](https://inkscape.org)
(for converting SVG to EPS) and [Pandoc](https://pandoc.org/)
(for converting .md to .tex or .pdf).
## idiosyncracies
Exported/graphics files are all referred to by absolute pathname,
so if you want to move your generated files around,
you'll have to edit any references to them in the
YAML/markdown, as appropriate.
## Portability
Not at all portable, and not tested on any other platform
other than Ubuntu 16.04, nor with any other version of
LibreOffice than 5.1.6.
## Reporting bugs
You can if you want, but there's no guarantee I'll fix them.
The scripts are really just offered as a starting point for
anyone else who wants to improve them.
## (Un)license
This software is in the public domain. Do with it what you will.
If you manage to improve it, it would be nice to hear from
you. Try contacting me on Twitter, handle
[`@phlummox`](https://twitter.com/phlummox).
## troubleshooting
### can't connect
If you get some error saying `pptx-to-yaml.py` couldn't connect to the
server -- kill any stray soffice process and try again.
If it still fails, possibly add a bigger `time.sleep`
in the script, or just run your own server process.
### can't open wmf/emf files in inkscape
Try opening them in lodraw.
### Pandoc/LaTeX fails to compile .pdf
Lots of things could have gone wrong. By default, Pandoc
uses pdflatex, which will choke on many Unicode symbols.
Graphics might not have converted. etc.
The only thing to do is take a look at the original
PowerPoint file, and the generated markdown, and see if you
can fix whatever went wrong.