Problem with OpenOffice and Ruby

I’ve been trying to automate OpenOffice from Ruby to carry out a batch format conversion of approximately 100 documents. I’ve researched a fair amount on the web, especially here, here and here, but I’m still having problems.

Specifically all works until I try and save a document using parameters (to tell OpenOffice to use an output filter), at which point the OLE Bridge is giving an error.

If anyone reading this has found and cured a similar problem I’d be interested in your thoughts. Code snip follows:

Ignore the escaping of the ” signs – this seems to be some oddity of my WordPress installation…

# oo tests

require 'win32ole'

$serviceManager = WIN32OLE.new("com.sun.star.ServiceManager")
$desktop = $serviceManager.createInstance("com.sun.star.frame.Desktop")

def newWriterDocument()
    document = $desktop.loadComponentFromURL("private:factory/swriter", "_blank", 0, [])
   document
end

def test()
   filter = "writer_pdf_Export"
   fprops = makeProperties("FilterName" => filter)
   document = newWriterDocument
   text = document.GetText
   cursor = text.createTextCursor
   text.insertString(cursor, "Hello World", 0)
   oURL = "file:///c|/test.pdf"
   document.storeAsUrl(oURL, fprops) # this line fails with OLE error
   #store a document in standard format - document.storeAsUrl(oURL, []) - works
end



def makeProperty(name, value)
   property = $serviceManager.Bridge_GetStruct("com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue")
   property["Name"] = name
   property["Value"] = value
   property
end
   
def makeProperties(hash)
   properties = []
   hash.each { | key, value |
   properties < < makeProperty(key, value)
     }
   properties
end

begin
  test
rescue

ensure

end

Question also posted to OpenOffice.org forum.

OpenOffice.org forum came up with the answer:
Replace

document.storeAsUrl(oURL, fprops) # this line fails with OLE error

with

document.storeToUrl(oURL, fprops) # this line works!