[Tutorial] Install/remove extensions

Home made tutorials, by users, for users
Forum rules
No question in this section please
For any question related to a topic, create a new thread in the relevant section.
Post Reply
User avatar
r4zoli
Volunteer
Posts: 2882
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:23 pm
Location: Budapest, Hungary

[Tutorial] Install/remove extensions

Post by r4zoli »

From versions 2.3, developers can create/add useful features to OOo through extensions.

Extensions can be added/removed easily through the user interface using menu Tools>Extensions... and Add/Remove buttons.

In some cases however, extensions may not work because of different OOo versions, be OS specific, or be incompatible with other extensions. Creators may not be aware of such situations, or just cannot test their extensions with in all conditions.

In that case, when extension installation/remove fails with user interface, you can try to install/remove extensions using the unopkg command line tool.
Go to the unopkg directory, and run the following commands:

Installation command:

Code: Select all

unopkg add /path/to/your_extension.oxt 
Remove extension:

Code: Select all

unopkg remove /path/to/your_extension.oxt 
NB: If an extension contains a license message, you must approve it.

The unopkg program can be found:
On winXP, Vista, Windows7 :

Code: Select all

 C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 3\program\
On GNU/Linux: it depends on the GNU/Linux distribution package methods:
OOo from OOo site (Sun version):

Code: Select all

/opt/openoffice.org3/program/  for OOo 3.x
/opt/openoffice.org2/programs/ for OOo 2.x
opensuse versions:

Code: Select all

/usr/lib/ooo3/program/          for OOo 3.x
/usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program/       for OOo 2.x
Debian, Ubuntu versions:

Code: Select all

/usr/lib/openoffice/program/
On Mac : please add path
Extensions can be updated through the user interface. In some cases the beta versions of extensions can be named differently than final versions, in that case, remove first the old version, close OOo and the Quickstarter (if running), restart OOo, and add the new version. It can prevent some very ugly bugs, which can cause troubles in OOo behavior, leading afterwards to reset the user settings, as final solution. See [Tutorial] The OOo user profile

On some GNU/Linux versions OOo the installation structure has been changed, and some extensions moved from extensions into separate but integrated packages, such as Sun Report Builder, PDF import, etc.
If you try to install an extension version from the extension page, installation can fail. Before adding/updating such extension on these GNU/Linux versions, first search in your repositories with the package manager for existing extensions packages.
Post Reply