libreoffice-bin - where did pdfimport go?

Havin_it

So, it appears that pdfimport was dropped from the libreoffice-bin ebuilds at some point (and it's no longer in LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS so I guess it's not in the source ebuild either). I can't find much clue of when or why this happened; libreoffice-bin-3.4.3.2-r1 ebuild is the first not to mention the extensions explicitly, but others are still there in the current installed version so it seems pdfimport was singled out (though maybe others too). Why?

I do recall that it kept triggering revdep-rebuild (needed a different poppler version or sth), but this issue went away at some point so I'd assumed it was dealt with. Was it dealt with simply by throwing it out? (Alexander the Great would be proud!)

Most importantly: is there any way of replacing it? I kinda need it for an upcoming bit of work and, not realising pdfimport had disappeared, that deadline is now too close for comfort

Navar · Guru Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 353

Havin_it · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 9:07 am Post subject:

Hi Navar, thanks for clarifying that, I just saw the LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS that are on by default when I don't set any myself (not used for the -bin) and thought this was all there currently were.

It's definitely not in the 3.6.4.3 -bin version though (two re-emerges later to check), and the machine I've got for actually working on is only a netbook so there's no hope of building from source there.

I've been round the dev mailing list, bugzilla, changelogs, viewvc and even scarabeus's blog, but I can't see one mention of the removal from -bin. You'd think this would have been worth an einfo on the ebuild at least?

The only solution I can see right now is my WinXP install (unloved and neglected, but kept around for emergencies like this).

baaann · Guru Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 558 Location: uk

May be worth looking at

http://gpo.zugaina.org/app-text/pdf2oo ?

There are also many alternative pdf manipulation tools available, though they obviously depend on your use case.

As an aside, libreoffice appears to compile a lot quicker now(admittedly it is not even close to quick

)
It took approx 5 hours on a Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.20GHz with 3GB ram

Havin_it · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 3:16 pm Post subject:

baaann · Guru Joined: 23 Jan 2006 Posts: 558 Location: uk

Princess Nell · l33t Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 916

Havin_it, have you had any luck with pdf2oo? LO complains the generated file is corrupt, although it seems to load ok.

Also, it creates an odp file, and obviously, I haven't the slightest clue how to edit such a file. I cannot seem to get Impress to add text where I want it, it only ever shows up in the middle of the page.

dilfridge · Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 11:30 pm Post subject:

We disable pdfimport in libreoffice-bin because it would make the binaries far too sensitive to poppler upgrades.... The binaries would be broken quickly.

If you really need it, I suggest you turn off the heating and emerge the regular libreoffice ebuild with suitable use flag settings.

Havin_it · Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 3:22 pm Post subject:

@Princess Nell: sorry, never tried it; in the end I found another source for the resources I needed to extract from the PDF. I imagine I'd be all-at-sea if it left me with an .odp file too

@dilfridge: sad to hear that. It seems wrong to me that a library should so powerfully influence actual applications that use it, but I'm sure those of you at the sharp end have a better grasp of the situation than I. Out of interest, are a lot of packages picky about what exact version of poppler they use? Is there maybe an argument for slotting it? Or, probably an even less welcome idea, bundling its own static poppler lib?

I'm pretty sure the build would make my netbook actually catch fire - little too much heat for me

Princess Nell · l33t Joined: 15 Apr 2005 Posts: 916

Thanks, I figured it out after a while. Turned filling in a simple 2-page form into a 2-hour exercise :roll:

I suppose I can live with pdf import not being in the binary builds, I don't need it very often.

VoidMage · Watchman Joined: 14 Oct 2006 Posts: 6196

It's not so much about packages being picky (a few are, but that's not really the case here), it's just that while libpoppler-glib and libpoppler-qt4 are more or less ABI stable, libpoppler gets an ABI bump on every release by upstream choice. This just can't be dealt sanely with for a binary package.