Ramon Cahenzli wrote:
Hello list
I remember reading some time ago about a mailing list or a group of people
that accepted MS Office files that were problematic in OO.o in order to
find out where the problems are and improve OO.o's compatibility and/or
have the MS Office files changed. I'm not sure if it was an official part
of the OO.o project or simply a bunch of interested individuals. Does
anyone know if that group still exists and how to reach them?
There is only one silly little Excel spreadsheet keeping several thousand
people here from switching to OO.o and thereby not only saving tens of
thousands of Euros of taxpayer money but also gaining better
interoperability and true independence. It would be fantastic to have an
expert analyze why the sheet is producing wrong results in OO.o.
Interesting tidbit: In NeoOffice, the same file works just as it does in
MS Office, so NeoOffice seems to have somehow improved OO.o's Excel
compatibility. Shouldn't these improvements trickle back into vanilla
OO.o?
The most frustrating bit is that the spreadsheet wouldn't even be
necessary, had the people in charge chosen a web-based system to
accomplish the same task. But due to this short-sightedness ("Let's do it
in Excel! _Everyone_ has Excel!"), we've been stuck with it for years, and
you know how slowly bureaucracies change...
I would be grateful for any pointers. If a deep analysis of the document
is necessary, we are not averse to compensating an expert in Excel and OO
Calc for their efforts. Be warned that the document and all macro comments
are in German, though.
Thank you! :)
Ramon
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I don't have Excel, nor a computer on which I'm willing to install it,
but if you are willing to upload a sample sheet to mytempdir
(www.mytempdir.com) and send us the file reference number ("ID") plus a
detailed description of what is wrong *and* what the correct answer
should be *and why* then I'll have a look - no guarantees. I'd hazard a
guess that if you did that then a few others on this list would also
have their curiosity whetted.
In the meantime, you might like to think about answers to the following
as part of your analysis:
1. **Exactly** what doesn't work when compared to Excel?
2. Are you *sure* that the Excel answer is right and the OO answer
wrong? For example, Excel thinks 1900 was a leap year when, in fact, it
wasn't.
3. Are you using the latest version (2.1) of OpenOffice?
Installing 2.1 will, I think, overwrite any 2.0.x version but will live
alongside 1.x versions. Please try 2.1 if you haven't already.
4. Are you aware that OpenOffice can save its documents in MS format?
What happens when you have Calc save the sheet in Excel format and read
it in Excel? I'm not suggesting this as a solution, only as a tool to
try to help figure out what is happening.
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
Please reply *only* to [email protected]
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