How does Open Office compress its files?

Documentation here. This steps worked for me:

  1. Uncompress the original document file (it's a normal zip file) to some directory:

    $ mkdir document
    $ cd document
    $ unzip ../document.odt
    
  2. Modify the uncompressed data.

  3. Create a new odt:

    $ zip -0 -X ../document2.odt mimetype
    $ zip -r ../document2.odt * -x mimetype
    

I have tried tokland suggestion, but I have founded that LibreOffice 4 require specific order (only for the first ones?):

  1. mimetype (uncompressed)
  2. meta.xml
  3. settings.xml
  4. content.xml
  5. Thumbnails/thumbnail.png
  6. Configurations2/images/Bitmaps/
  7. Configurations2/popupmenu/
  8. Configurations2/toolpanel/
  9. Configurations2/statusbar/
  10. Configurations2/progressbar/
  11. Configurations2/toolbar/
  12. Configurations2/menubar/
  13. Configurations2/accelerator/current.xml
  14. Configurations2/floater/
  15. styles.xml
  16. META-INF/manifest.xml

I create a script to do that folder2od.sh:

#!/bin/sh

# Convert folder (unzipped OpenDocument file) to OpenDocument file (odt, ods, etc.)
# Usage: ./folder2od.sh "path/to/folder" "file.odt"

cmdfolder=$(cd `dirname "$0"`; pwd -P)
folder=$(cd `dirname "$2"`; pwd -P)
file=$(basename "$2")
absfile="$folder/$file"

cd "$1"
zip -0 -X "$file" "mimetype"

list=$(cat <<'END_HEREDOC'
meta.xml
settings.xml
content.xml
Thumbnails/thumbnail.png
Configurations2/images/Bitmaps/
Configurations2/popupmenu/
Configurations2/toolpanel/
Configurations2/statusbar/
Configurations2/progressbar/
Configurations2/toolbar/
Configurations2/menubar/
Configurations2/accelerator/current.xml
Configurations2/floater/
styles.xml
META-INF/manifest.xml
END_HEREDOC
)

for f in $list
do
    zip "$absfile" "$f"
done

cd "$cmdfolder"

I've found some interesting infos here: http://www.jejik.com/articles/2010/03/how_to_correctly_create_odf_documents_using_zip/


Section 17 Of the OASIS OpenOffice Specification defines how OpenDocument Packages need to be packaged.

Section 17.4 MIME Type Stream reads like this:

If a MIME type for a document that makes use of packages is existing, then the package SHOULD contain a stream called "mimetype". This stream SHOULD be first stream of the package's zip file, it MUST NOT be compressed, and it MUST NOT use an 'extra field' in its header (see [ZIP])..

The purpose is to allow packaged files to be identified through 'magic number' mechanisms, such as Unix's file/magic utility. If a ZIP file contains a stream at the beginning of the file that is uncompressed, and has no extra data in the header, then the stream name and the stream content can be found at fixed positions. More specifically, one will find:

  • a string 'PK' at position 0 of all zip files
  • a string 'mimetype' at position 30 of all such package files
  • the mimetype itself at position 38 of such a package.