At 13:08 21/04/2008 -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:
I routinely take Excel spreadsheets and convert them to Calc. The spreadsheets are functional specifications for a product I am working on. The problem is there are a number of columns that use date calculations that require the Excel DATEDIF() function. OpenOffice.org have roughly functions such as YEARS(). The ODF specification (ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0) does define the DATEDIF() function AFAIK. Actually, it is a minor pain to convert these as the total time is about 5 mins a couple of times a month. Actually, GNUMeric support datedif() but GNUMeric is not supported on RHEL 4 Update 3 that I am required to run. One of the big benefits for the spec writer using Excel and me using OO.o is that it catches some errors. The person writing the spec could use OO.o since it is installed on her Windows laptop, but others in the company only use Excel so we do need to maintain the document in MS .xls format.
I'm not an expert on Excel and don't even have it available to test, but I suspect that you may be going about this the wrong way. The Microsoft web site says that the DATEDIF() function in Excel is provided for compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3. I interpret this to mean that Excel has other facilities that provide all that is necessary and that you shouldn't need to use DATEDIF() if Lotus 1-2-3 is not part of your picture. Is it possible that by using these other techniques in Excel your work would transfer more effectively to and fro between Excel and Calc?
Note that you may not need a function to calculate the difference between two dates: it is obtained simply by subtracting them. You may then be able to treat the result appropriately (using standard functions?) to extract the precise information you need (which is not clear above).
I trust this helps. Brian Barker --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
