libreoffice-rs

libreoffice-rs is a pure-Rust, std-only monorepo that builds a serious foundation for an office suite:

• Writer-like rich text documents with Markdown ingestion and TXT/HTML/SVG/PDF/ODT/DOCX export
• Calc-like spreadsheets with a formula engine and CSV/HTML/SVG/PDF/ODS/XLSX export
• Impress-like slide decks with HTML/SVG/PDF/ODP/PPTX export
• Draw-like vector pages with SVG/PDF/ODG export
• Math-like TeX-style formula parsing with MathML/SVG/PDF/ODF export
• Base-like tabular data with SELECT / WHERE / ORDER BY / LIMIT queries and HTML/SVG/PDF/ODB export
• ODF and OOXML packaging on top of a native Rust ZIP writer
• A UNO-like service runtime with property maps, an event bus, and built-in services
• A LibreOfficeKit-like in-process runtime (lo_lok): document handles, command dispatch, callbacks, tile rendering
• A desktop application surface (lo_app): start center, templates, recent files, preferences, autosave + recovery, macro recording/replay, per-window HTML shells with menubar/toolbar/sidebar
• A command-line front-end with office-demo and desktop-demo end-to-end commands

Important status note

This repository is not honest-to-goodness feature parity with LibreOffice. LibreOffice is a massive decades-old office suite with millions of lines of code, deep import/export compatibility, UI toolkits, rendering, printing, macros, scripting, accessibility, collaboration, databases, and platform integration. This codebase provides a coherent Rust architecture and a meaningful amount of real functionality, but it does not fully replace LibreOffice.

That said, it is intentionally structured to be a practical starting point rather than a toy:

• every crate is pure Rust and uses only the standard library
• ODF packages are written with a custom ZIP implementation
• the spreadsheet engine parses and evaluates non-trivial formulas
• the CLI can create/export actual .odt, .ods, .odp, .odg, .odf, and .odb-style archives

Benchmark Results vs Real LibreOffice

Tested against LibreOffice 26.2.2 on macOS (Apple Silicon). All generated documents were validated by opening/converting them with the real LibreOffice CLI (soffice --headless).

Speed Comparison

libreoffice-rs generates documents 19-62× faster than LibreOffice processes them. Sample numbers from tests/benchmark.sh:

Multilingual Support

Test Suite Totals

Per-Feature Accuracy (88/88 benchmark tests pass — 100%)

Writer (ODT) Features:

• Bold → Strong style
• Italic → Emphasis style
• Inline code → Code style
• Hyperlinks with URL and label
• Unordered lists
• Tables (arbitrary columns/rows)
• Headings (all 6 levels)
• Horizontal rules
• Page breaks

Calc (ODS) Features:

• Numeric, string, and boolean cell types
• Formulas with of:= ODF prefix notation
• All 16 formula functions: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, IF, AND, OR, NOT, ABS, ROUND, LEN, CONCAT, cell arithmetic, exponentiation

Cross-Format Compatibility (validated by soffice --convert-to):

Edge Cases (all pass):

• Empty documents
• XML-sensitive characters (< > & " ')
• Unicode: Arabic (RTL), CJK, math symbols, currency, diacritics
• 50,000-character single line
• 5,000 × 10 spreadsheet (5.8 MB ODS)
• Minimal single-column CSV
• Negative numbers, large numbers, quoted strings with embedded commas

Running the Benchmarks

# Workspace unit tests
cargo test --workspace

# Integration tests against real LibreOffice
bash tests/libreoffice_integration.sh    # 35 assertions
bash tests/office_demo_integration.sh    # 40 assertions  (DOCX/XLSX/PPTX/ODT/ODS/ODP/ODG/ODF/ODB)
bash tests/desktop_demo_integration.sh   # 38 assertions  (lo_app desktop surface + autosave + macros)

# Full performance + accuracy benchmark
bash tests/benchmark.sh                  # 88 assertions

Requires LibreOffice installed (brew install --cask libreoffice on macOS).

Workspace layout

• lo_core — common models, XML/PDF/SVG/HTML helpers, styles, document data structures
• lo_zip — minimal ZIP reader/writer in pure Rust + ODF/OOXML packaging helpers
• lo_odf — ODF package serializers for every document type
• lo_writer — Writer-style editing, Markdown/plain-text ingestion, TXT/HTML/SVG/PDF/ODT/DOCX export
• lo_calc — spreadsheet formula parser/evaluator, CSV import/export, HTML/SVG/PDF/ODS/XLSX export
• lo_impress — presentation builders, HTML/SVG/PDF/ODP/PPTX export
• lo_draw — vector drawing builders, SVG/PDF/ODG export
• lo_math — TeX-style formula parser, MathML/SVG/PDF export (ODF formula via lo_odf)
• lo_base — typed table model, SELECT / WHERE / ORDER BY / LIMIT query execution, HTML/SVG/PDF/ODB export
• lo_uno — UNO-like service runtime: ComponentContext, factories, event bus, property maps, built-in Echo/Info/TextTransformations services
• lo_lok — LibreOfficeKit-like in-process runtime: Office handle, DocumentHandle, command dispatch, callbacks, SVG tile rendering
• lo_app — desktop application surface over lo_lok: windows, preferences, recent files, templates, clipboard, autosave + recovery, macro recording/replay, start-center HTML and per-window HTML shells
• libreoffice-rs — CLI binary with office-demo and desktop-demo end-to-end commands

Examples

# Single-format conversions
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- writer new out.odt --title "Hello" --text "Hello from Rust"
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- writer markdown-to-odt notes.md notes.odt
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- writer convert notes.md notes.docx       # NEW
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- writer convert notes.md notes.html       # NEW
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- writer convert notes.md notes.pdf        # NEW
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- calc csv-to-ods sheet.csv sheet.ods --sheet Data --has-header
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- calc convert sheet.csv sheet.xlsx --has-header   # NEW
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- calc eval "=SUM(B2:B4)" --csv numbers.csv --has-header
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- impress demo deck.odp
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- draw demo diagram.odg
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- math latex-to-odf formula.txt formula.odf
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- base csv-to-odb table.csv People out.odb
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- package inspect out.odt

# End-to-end demos
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- office-demo  ./demo_out          # NEW: writes 28 files (every kind × every format)
cargo run -p libreoffice-pure -- desktop-demo ./demo_profile      # NEW: full lo_app desktop surface (start center, autosave, macros, …)

# In-process runtime examples
cargo run -p lo_lok --example demo                                # NEW: open / command / save / tile via the LOK runtime
cargo run -p lo_app --example desktop_demo                        # NEW: open template / save / shell-render via DesktopApp

Design goals

1. No C or C++ shims.
2. Native Rust models for all core document types.
3. Self-contained packaging and XML generation.
4. Easy-to-extend crate boundaries.
5. Honest status reporting.

Feature status

See STATUS.md for a candid feature matrix.