ELO DMS Export Tool

A PHP CLI tool for exporting ELO DMS archives to Nextcloud-ready folder structures. Preserves the original ELO folder hierarchy and converts image files to PDF format.

Features

• Extract documents from ELO MDB databases using mdb-json
• Convert image files (TIF, TIFF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF) to PDF using PHP Imagick
• Preserve original ELO folder hierarchy structure
• Copy unsupported file formats as-is
• Support for multi-page TIFF to multi-page PDF conversion
• Sanitize filenames for cross-platform compatibility
• Direct PDF generation without temporary files

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher
• PHP Extensions:
  • imagick - For image to PDF conversion
• System packages:
  • mdbtools - For MDB database access (provides mdb-json command)

Installation

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/four-bytes/four-elo-dms-export.git
cd four-elo-dms-export

# Install dependencies
composer install

System Requirements Setup

Linux / WSL 2 (Ubuntu/Debian)

Install MDBTools and PHP Imagick:

# Install MDBTools for MDB database access
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y mdbtools

# Install PHP Imagick extension
sudo apt-get install -y php-imagick imagemagick

# Verify MDBTools installation
mdb-json --version

# Verify Imagick installation
php -m | grep imagick

Windows

Install MDBTools and Imagick:

1. MDBTools: Download from MDBTools releases or use package manager
2. Imagick: Download ImageMagick and PHP Imagick extension for your PHP version

macOS

# Install using Homebrew
brew install mdbtools imagemagick
brew install php-imagick

Verify Installation

# Test MDBTools
mdb-json --help

# Test Imagick
php -m | grep imagick

Usage

Basic export command:

./bin/elo-export export /path/to/DMS.MDB /path/to/Archivdata --output=/path/to/export

Arguments

• database - Path to ELO MDB database file (e.g., Archivdata/DMS.MDB)
• files - Path to ELO files directory (e.g., Archivdata)

Options

• --output / -o - Output directory for export (default: ./nextcloud-export)

Example

# Export ELO archive to Nextcloud directory
./bin/elo-export export \
  /mnt/archive/Archivdata/DMS.MDB \
  /mnt/archive/Archivdata \
  --output=/home/user/Nextcloud/Documents/ELO-Archive

Output Structure

The tool preserves the original ELO folder hierarchy:

export-directory/
├── Invoices/
│   ├── 2024/
│   │   ├── invoice-2024-001.pdf
│   │   └── contract-abc.pdf
│   └── 2025/
│       └── invoice-2025-001.pdf
├── Contracts/
│   └── client-agreement.pdf
└── HR Documents/
    └── employee-handbook.pdf

• Folder structure mirrors the original ELO folder hierarchy
• Supported image formats (TIF, JPG, PNG, GIF) are converted to PDF
• Unsupported file formats are copied as-is with original extension
• Filenames are sanitized for cross-platform compatibility
• Duplicate filenames are automatically numbered (file_1.pdf, file_2.pdf, etc.)

ELO Database Schema

The tool works with standard ELO DMS database structure:

• objekte table - Main document objects
• objkeys table - Document metadata and keys
• dochistory table - Document version history

Key Fields

• Files are identified by objtype > 254 and objtype < 9999 (excluding root object)
• Deleted documents have objstatus != 0 (excluded from export)
• Folder hierarchy built from objparent references
• File path format: Archivdata/DMS_1/UP{(objdoc>>10)<<2 in 6-char hex}/{objdoc in 8-char hex}
• Example: objdoc=3101 → folder=(3101>>10)<<2=12 → Archivdata/DMS_1/UP00000C/00000C1D.TIF

Development

# Install development dependencies
composer install

# Run tests
composer test

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Author

4 Bytes Email: info@4bytes.de

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Support

For issues and questions, please use the GitHub issue tracker.