Integration. Getting Started. Plone

Help Center

Integration

About the ONLYOFFICE and Plone integration

ONLYOFFICE offers an official connector to integrate ONLYOFFICE Docs with Plone and edit documents within the content management system. You can download the ONLYOFFICE connector from PyPi.org and the ONLYOFFICE GitHub page.

To learn more about the ONLYOFFICE and Plone integration connector and how it works in detail, please visit our API documentation.

Main features

Creating, editing, and viewing text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Co-editing documents in real-time: two co-editing modes (Fast and Strict), the Track Changes mode, comments, and the built-in chat.
JWT support to secure your traffic so that no one can have access to your documents with the exception of the users with proper rights.

Supported formats

For editing and viewing: DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, DOCXF
For viewing only: PDF
For filling forms: OFORM
For converting to Office Open XML formats using the Conversion in ONLYOFFICE option: ODT, ODS, ODP, DOC, XLS, PPT

What's new in version 3.0.0

Added

The Download as option.
Documents conversion.
Connection to a demo document server.
Settings validation.
Mail merge from storage.
Comparing files from storage.
Inserting images from storage.
Advanced server settings for specifying internal addresses.

Changed

The document.title parameter for editor from file object title.
ONLYOFFICE Docs v6.0 and earlier is no longer supported.

The full change log is available here.

Connecting ONLYOFFICE Docs to Plone

Requirements

ONLYOFFICE Docs (Document Server) 6.1 or later
You need an instance of ONLYOFFICE Docs that is resolvable and connectable both from Plone and any end clients. It must be able to POST to Plone directly.

Please refer to the official documentation page to learn more about installing ONLYOFFICE Docs.

You can also use ONLYOFFICE Docs Cloud (SaaS version).
Python 3.4 and later
ONLYOFFICE integration plugin 3.0.0 or later for Plone

Installing the ONLYOFFICE integration plugin for Plone

If you have the previous plugin version installed (earlier plugin versions with the previous name onlyoffice.connector), please remove it before installing the new version. If you want to install an earlier version, use onlyoffice.connector instead of onlyoffice.plone when following installation instructions.

Add the onlyoffice.plone line to the eggs section of the ~/plone/zinstance/buildout.cfg file, so it should look the following way:
```
[buildout]
...
eggs =
        onlyoffice.plone
```
For the changes to take effect, re-run buildout from your console as a non superuser:
```
sudo -u plone_buildout /plone/zinstance/bin/buildout
```

Restart your instance:

sudo /plone/zinstance/bin/instance restart

Open your browser, go to your Plone page, log in as Admin and open Site Setup > Add-ons section. Find the onlyoffice.plone among the available add-ons and press the Install button to enable it.

Configuring the ONLYOFFICE integration plugin for Plone

To configure plugin:

Go to Site Setup.
Scroll down to the Add-ons Configuration section.
Press the ONLYOFFICE Configuration button.
In the Document Editing service field, specify the URL address where the ONLYOFFICE Docs is located.
ImportantThe address of ONLYOFFICE Docs must be accessible from Plone, as well as the address of Plone must be accessible from ONLYOFFICE Docs.
In the Secret key field, specify the secret used to sign the data.
Starting from ONLYOFFICE Docs v7.2, JWT is enabled by default and the secret key is generated automatically. You need to enable it on the Plone side as well: find your secret key in the ONLYOFFICE Docs configuration file, then specify the same secret key in the connector settings. For more details, see the Enabling JWT for the ONLYOFFICE and Plone integration section of this article.
In the Server address for internal requests from the Document Editing Service field, specify the address that is used to access Plone from Document Editing Service.
In the Document Editing Service address for internal requests from the server field, specify the address that is used to access Document Editing Service from Plone.

Enabling JWT for the ONLYOFFICE and Plone integration

To protect documents from unauthorized access, ONLYOFFICE editors use the JSON Web Token (JWT). The token is added in the configuration when the Document Editor is initialized and during the exchange of commands between inner ONLYOFFICE Docs services. The secret key is used to sign the JSON web token and validate the token upon the request to ONLYOFFICE Docs.

Starting from ONLYOFFICE Docs v7.2, JWT is enabled by default and the secret key is generated automatically. You need to find your secret key in the ONLYOFFICE Docs configuration file, then specify the same secret key in the connector settings.

Step 1: Find your secret key in the ONLYOFFICE Docs configuration file

Open the local.json file with any available text editor.

For Linux - /etc/onlyoffice/documentserver/local.json
For Windows - %ProgramFiles%\ONLYOFFICE\DocumentServer\config\local.json
For Docker – enter the ONLYOFFICE Docs container using the docker exec -it <containerID> bash command and open /etc/onlyoffice/documentserver/local.json
Alternatively, you can use the following command to find the default secret key without opening local.json:
```
sudo docker exec <containerID> /var/www/onlyoffice/documentserver/npm/json -f /etc/onlyoffice/documentserver/local.json 'services.CoAuthoring.secret.session.string'
```

The local.json file should look like this:

{
  "services": {
    "CoAuthoring": {
      "token": {
        "enable": {
          "request": {
            "inbox": true,
            "outbox": true
          },
          "browser": true
        }
      },
      "secret": {
        "inbox": {
          "string": "yoursecret"
        },
        "outbox": {
          "string": "yoursecret"
        },
        "session": {
          "string": "yoursecret"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

The true value is specified in three sections. It means that token validation is enabled.
- services.CoAuthoring.token.enable.browser
- services.CoAuthoring.token.enable.request.inbox
- services.CoAuthoring.token.enable.request.outbox
The automatically generated secret key is specified in three sections. You can replace the default secret value with your own secret key. The secret key must be the same in three sections.
- services.CoAuthoring.secret.inbox.string
- services.CoAuthoring.secret.outbox.string
- services.CoAuthoring.secret.session.string
If you make changes, save them and restart the services for the config changes to take effect.
```
supervisorctl restart all
```

Step2: Specify the same secret key in the connector settings

In the connector settings, specify the same secret in the Secret key field and save the settings.

Connecting to the demo ONLYOFFICE Docs

Starting from ONLYOFFICE connector version 3.0.0, you can try the ONLYOFFICE online editors within Plone without installing ONLYOFFICE Docs.

To turn the connection on, click the Connect to demo ONLYOFFICE Document Server checkbox and click the Save button.

This is a public test server that will be available during a 30-day period. Don’t share your sensitive data there.

Start using ONLYOFFICE Docs within Plone

To create a document:

On the Contents tab, click the Create in ONLYOFFICE menu option on the left.
Choose the needed file type: Document, Spreadsheet, or Presentation.
A new document will be opened for editing.

To edit a document:

Find the needed document on the Contents tab.
Click the document.
On the opened page, click the ONLYOFFICE Edit menu option to open the document for editing and/or viewing.

To convert a document to the Office Open XML format:

Find the needed document on the Contents tab.
Click the document.
On the opened page, click the Conversion in ONLYOFFICE menu option.

See the full list of the formats which can be converted into OOXML.
Click the Convert button.

To create a form template:

On the Contents tab, click the Create in ONLYOFFICE menu option on the left.
Choose the Form template option.
A new empty form template will be opened for editing.

To fill in a form:

Find the needed form on the Contents tab.
Click the form.
On the opened page, click the Fill in form in ONLYOFFICE menu option.

To learn more about forms please read the corresponding articles for creating and filling out forms.

To download a document in a different format:

Find the needed document on the Contents tab.
Click the document.
On the opened page, click the Actions menu option and choose the Download as menu item.
Select the necessary format from the list.
Click the Download button.