Hi all,
I have a programmed spreadsheet to publish and and am unsure how to procede regarding the format. I use the ODS format and only LibreOffice or OpenOffice are able to both run it and display all information. With Gnumeric the main part works OK, but some embedded vector drawings don't display.
It is in this folder: http://data.umwelteinsatz.ch/T/en/Stonechat/
Microsoft Office (2010) displays the spreadsheet (also without drawings) but removes all the formulas, showing just the values, making the spreadsheet useless as a program. It makes no difference whether the ODF-Plugin from Sun (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Sun-ODF-Plugin-...) is installed or not.
With the plugin installed, it is possible to to save in ODS with MS Office. So I tried making an XLS Version with Libre Office, opening it with MS Office, and saving in ODS. Now the formulas work, but the cell sizes are distorted so much that it is again useless.
I cannot understand why the (75 MB!!) plugin from Sun works so badly. Surely Sun had no motivation for this. Presumably Microsoft has a motivation for making ODS not work properly.
What would you do, give in to Microsoft and publish in XLS or XLSX?
I also posed this question on our local FSFE mailing list in Switzerland. Here people suggested to either be pragmatic, i.e. publish in an Excel-Format, or to rewrite the program in HTML with Javascript so that it will run in a browser.
I am not very happy with these answers. The first means that Microsoft won and we can forget ODF or at least ODS. The second would be good for "consuming" users, but make it next to impossible for them to make improvements to the program, something which is rather easy in a spreadsheet. In fact, it would be too difficult for me as well, so I would have to pay somebody to do this.
Any other suggestions?
Best, Theo Schmidt
theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch escribió:
Hi all,
I have a programmed spreadsheet to publish and and am unsure how to procede regarding the format. I use the ODS format and only LibreOffice
or OpenOffice are able to both run it and display all information. With
Gnumeric the main part works OK, but some embedded vector drawings don't display.
It is in this folder: http://data.umwelteinsatz.ch/T/en/Stonechat/
Microsoft Office (2010) displays the spreadsheet (also without drawings) but removes all the formulas, showing just the values, making the spreadsheet useless as a program. It makes no difference whether the ODF-Plugin from Sun (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Sun-ODF-Plugin-...)
is installed or not.
With the plugin installed, it is possible to to save in ODS with MS Office. So I tried making an XLS Version with Libre Office, opening it with MS Office, and saving in ODS. Now the formulas work, but the cell sizes are distorted so much that it is again useless.
Hi Theo, My humble opinion: Sounds like you just did a bug report! -What you expect -What you got -Steps to replicate it (oprating system and version of soft used) You might be able to report it to the libreoffice team and people there might have a quick work around until they reverse engineer the problem. Or confirm that MS office is not playing ball with open document formats. I would make sure you are running the latest version of libreoffice as well. Maybe not as far as the developer version though.
Hi Andres, ...
You might be able to report it to the libreoffice team and people there might have a quick work around until they reverse engineer the problem. Or confirm that MS office is not playing ball with open document formats. I would make sure you are running the latest version of libreoffice as well. Maybe not as far as the developer version though.
Interesting. You suggest that the ODS written by LibreOffice is non-standard (as we know, strictly speaking), so that MS Office is not able to deal with it. I never thought of that. However I suspect that Microsoft does it on purpose in order to give ODF a bad reputation. What I don't understand is why Sun's ODF plugin doesn't work. With 75MB to play with! Maybe the developers were so occupied with ODT that they forgot about ODS.
Cheers, Theo
Hi theo.schmidt,
On Sunday, 2013-10-20 08:42:42 +0200, theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch wrote:
Microsoft Office (2010) displays the spreadsheet (also without drawings) but removes all the formulas, showing just the values,
Known. MS-Excel 2010 did not implement the formula part, to their "excuse" as it wasn't specified with ODF 1.0 (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and they purposely implemented only what was specified in the ISO standard. However, with Excel 2013 they implemented OpenFormula of ODF 1.2, so if you want ODF spreadsheet interoperability you need MS-Excel 2013.
Eike
Eike Rathke erack@fsfe.org escribió:
Hi theo.schmidt,
On Sunday, 2013-10-20 08:42:42 +0200, theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch wrote:
Microsoft Office (2010) displays the spreadsheet (also without drawings) but removes all the formulas, showing just the values,
Known. MS-Excel 2010 did not implement the formula part, to their "excuse" as it wasn't specified with ODF 1.0 (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and they purposely implemented only what was specified in the ISO standard. However, with Excel 2013 they implemented OpenFormula of ODF 1.2, so if you want ODF spreadsheet interoperability you need MS-Excel 2013.
Thank you!
Am 20.10.2013 13:18, schrieb Eike Rathke:
... MS-Excel 2010 did not implement the formula part, to their "excuse" as it wasn't specified with ODF 1.0 (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) and they purposely implemented only what was specified in the ISO standard. However, with Excel 2013 they implemented OpenFormula of ODF 1.2, so if you want ODF spreadsheet interoperability you need MS-Excel 2013.
Thank you, Eike! I have updated my "Readme":
Cheers, Theo
------------- The Soil Retaining Wall spreadsheet is developed and maintained in the ODS Open Document Spreadsheet formt (part of ODF 1.0 (ISO/IEC 26300:2006)) with LibreOffice. Only this and the similar OpenOffice and derivatives of this presently support all features.
To download LibreOffice or the similar OpenOffice for all platforms, see http://www.libreoffice.org http://www.openoffice.org
Mac users may find it works with NeoOffice: http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/
Gnumeric will run the calculation but not display included images: https://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/
The same applies to online programs such as Google Drive, which also requires registration.
Microsoft Office prior to 2013 will display the spreadsheet but not actually calculate anything. Excel 2013 should run the calculations. XLS/XLSX files made by any of the new programs should run in the older Excel versions.