The Open OpenDocument Connector is a Perl-based application programming interface, which can be regarded as a way to build bridges between office documents and business applications. It allows the applications to directly create, retrieve, export, update or remove any content or layout element in OpenDocument-compliant files through a powerful scripting language.

This Perl extension, whose codename is OpenOffice::OODoc, provides a large set of read/write accessors to almost any data related to the content and the layout of various documents (texts, spreadsheets, presentations, or drawings). It allows the applications to create, update, or remove structured or hierarchical  containers (tables, lists), variable fields, bibliography entries, graphics, global metadata, styles, as well as flat text containers (paragraphs, headings). It hides the physical file access mechanisms (zip/unzip) and the UTF8 encoding issues behind an object-oriented interface (including about 400 documented methods).
 
In a few words, this toolbox is designed in order to allow back-office applications to get or set almost anything in the OpenDocument files in a database-like way.

Its main purposes are:
 - document generation or update by enterprise applications (ex: reporting);
 - data check and capture in documents by enterprise applications (ex: form processing).

This API works without connection with any desktop software, and it relies on portable, open source Perl libraries. It's platform-neutral and supports the most popular operating systems. The package is available through the CPAN or other Perl repositories (such as ActiveState Software, Inc). It's developed and maintained by Jean-Marie Gouarné and supported through a dedicated discussion forum and a bug reporting facility.