Linux Journal article, published March, 2004
OpenOffice.org (OOo), a featureful suite of office tools that includes applications for word processing, spreadsheet creation and presentation authoring, has seen an increase in enhancements and overall quality. OOo lives up to its name by making both source code and file formats completely open. This is a big plus for anyone wishing to manipulate documents without needing to have the creator application present. In general, two ways exist to access or manipulate document content. One is to automate the source application, letting a program substitute for a person entering commands. The other is to go directly to the document. An advantage of the first approach is you get to exploit the power of an existing application, saving yourself a good deal of time figuring out file formats and processing commands. OOo can execute internal macros and expose a scripting interface through UNO. The downside is you need to have the actual application handy, and even then it may not be able to do what you want. This article describes the second approach: accessing and manipulating documents by going directly to the source.
Read the article: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7236