title: Generate ODT/DOC(X) and convert to PDF, without OO.o/MS
body: <p>I have a WSGI application that generates invoices and stores them as PDF.</p>
  
  <p>So far I have solved similar problems with FPDF (or equivalents), generating the PDF from scratch like a GUI. Sadly this means the entire formatting logic (positioning headers, footers and content, styling) is in the application, where it really shouldn't be.</p>
  
  <p>As the templates already exist in Office formats (ODT, DOC, DOCX), I would prefer to simply use those as a basis and fill in the actual content. I've found the Appy framework, which does pretty much that with annotated ODT files.</p>
  
  <p>That still leaves the bigger problem open, tho: converting ODT (or DOC, or DOCX) to PDF. On a server. Running Linux. Without GUI libraries. And thus, without OO.o or MS Office.</p>
  
  <p>Is this at all possible or am I better off keeping the styling in my code?</p>
  
  <p>The actual content that would be filled in is actually quite restricted: a few paragraphs, some of which may be optional, a headline or two, always at the same place, and a few rows of a table. In HTML this would be trivial.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: Basically, I want a library that can generate ODT files from ODF files acting as templates and a library that can convert the result into PDF (which is probably the crux).</p>