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Got a Mac and a curious mind? Build your own Collabora Office and see the magic happen.

Build Collabora Office

The steps below are for building the Collabora Office in macOS (macos/).

Mac

The following instructions depend heavily on using Homebrew, as that makes the managing the build requirements much easier. It is of course possible to avoid it, and only depend on eg. self-built libpng, etc.

Setup

  • Node.js

    • Needed for building the JS parts (not needed if you build them on another linux machine)
  • Install node.js

    brew install node
    
  • Install poco

    brew install poco
    
  • zstd

    brew install zstd
    
  • for ./configure

    brew install libtool
    
  • zlib

    brew install zlib
    
  • libpng

    brew install libpng
    
  • cppunit

    brew install cppunit
    
  • install dependencies for the canvas@next

    brew install cairo
    brew install pango
    /opt/homebrew/bin/pip3 install --break-system-packages lxml
    /opt/homebrew/bin/pip3 install --break-system-packages polib
    
  • install canvas to avoid error during build (complains about node-pre-gyp)

    • NB. version 3.0 needed, it upgrades the API to fit the new node.js
    • npm install canvas@next
      • It might be that you should run the above in the browser subdirectory of your online directory: (cd browser && npm install canvas@next)
  • Install and/or update the Command Line Tools for Xcode:

    • xcode-select --install
    • After that you might need to update them in System Settings > General > Software Updates
      • For some reason for me it lists both 15.3 and 16.0 there. As I have Xcode 16.0, I choose just that one.

Build LO

You need the coda-25.04 branch of LibreOffice for this, and you must use the following autogen.input.

NOTE: Build with stuff installed via ‘brew’, and not via ’lode’; if you have too many things installed via ‘brew’, compilation may fail for you due to incompatible stuff.

autogen.input:

# Distro
--with-distro=CPMacOS-LOKit
--disable-mergelibs

# Overrides for the debug builds
--enable-debug
#--enable-dbgutil

--enable-werror
--enable-symbols
# If you don't want localizations
--without-lang

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/BuildingOnLinux

Configure Collabora Online

./autogen.sh && ./configure \
--enable-macosapp \
--enable-experimental \
--with-app-name="Collabora Office" \
--with-app-package-name=com.yourpackage.name \
--with-vendor="Your Name" \
--with-poco-includes=/opt/homebrew/opt/poco/include \
--with-poco-libs=/opt/homebrew/opt/poco/lib \
--with-zstd-includes=/opt/homebrew/include \
--with-zstd-libs=/opt/homebrew/lib \
--with-libpng-includes=/opt/homebrew/include \
--with-libpng-libs=/opt/homebrew/lib \
--with-lo-path=path-to-lo-core/instdir/your-built-lo.app \
--with-lokit-path=path-to-lo-core/include

Obviously you need to change the path-to-lo-core and your-built-lo above to match what you have. Also, on Intel Macs homebrew gets installed in /usr/local, not /opt/homebrew; but you may prefer your own built versions of POCO, libpng and zstd.

Build the JavaScipt bits

Just run make from the terminal.

Build the Desktop Edition

Open the macos/coda/coda.xcodeproj project in Xcode and choose Build and Run current scheme.

That’s it!

build make
  • Mac
    • Setup
    • Build LO
    • Configure Collabora Online
    • Build the JavaScipt bits
    • Build the Desktop Edition
Build Collabora Office for Linux

Build Collabora Office for Linux

Linux lover? Build Collabora Office and unleash your inner hacker.
Build Collabora Office for Windows

Build Collabora Office for Windows

On Windows and want to tinker? Build Collabora Office and level up your setup.
Build Collabora Online for Web

Build Collabora Online for Web

Are you interested in contributing but do not know where to start? Head over to the documentation or start by following these step-by-step instructions and build CODE from scratch.

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