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I got a corrupted Excel xlsx file when I opened and subsequently saved it using LibreOffice Calc. When I open it in Excel the message is "Excel found unreadable content [...]", but opening it again in Calc does not produce any errors.
Should I file a bug? Or is someone interested in the file in order to improve the xlsx saving abilities of Calc?
Cheers,
Roelof
Are you sure you /really/ saved it with Excel format, or did you just type the xlsx extension in the save as dialog (I ask because I did that same mistake once) ?
Am 07.09.2011 09:56, Roelof Oomen wrote:
I got a corrupted Excel xlsx file when I opened and subsequently saved it using LibreOffice Calc. When I open it in Excel the message is "Excel found unreadable content [...]", but opening it again in Calc does not produce any errors.
Should I file a bug? Or is someone interested in the file in order to improve the xlsx saving abilities of Calc?
Cheers,
Roelof
Please consider this when you collaborate with users of MS Office (Excel in this particular case):
- All Excel users can open xls.
- Calc and xls have more than a decade of common history, thus xls is supported by Calc almost perfectly, much better than the new shit.
- Any new features that may be saved in the new xlsx format do not exist in any software other than Excel. In other words: xlsx may include features you can not even see in Calc or errors that can not be fixed in Calc.
- Saving xlsx in Calc helps MS to spread a file format that has been bribed through the standardization boards to fight the existing ODF standard (odt, ods, odp, odg).
- For MS incompatibility is a feature.
"Compatibility" can not be a one-way street.
Solution #1:
Send back an xls version of that file and ask them to exchange spreadsheets in that format.
Solution #2:
They can install LibreOffice side by side with their usual office suite.
Solution #3:
http://www.freeware-downloads.org/download/programm.php?pro=sun-odf-plugin makes their office suite fully ODF aware.
On top of all this, I am convinced that LibreOffice must not write MS OOXML. This is an anti-feature against our own interests.
Greetings,
Andreas
Hi 
Yes, file a bug-report to try to help pin-point where the problem is so that
people can work on it. This guide can help with buig-reporting
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport
It's a good idea to do a search for similar bugs to see if someone has already
reported it. maybe you could add a comment to their report to help track-down
exactly what the problem is.
In general i would say avoid the newer MS formats until they work better in
other programs. The older ones are more widely compatible with other programs.
The new formats (ending with X) do have the advantage that you can rename the
ending to ".zip" and then open as though they were a normal compressed file.
This helps extract pictures and things which is especially useful if the file
has been corrupted. So, MS have caught up with OpenDocument formats in that
way.
Regards from
Tom
+1 to freedom!
how could this be a libreoffice bug?the 'saved' file could be opened
normally by libreoffice and not by MS office.so,the problem should be in MS
office.???
I have a LibreOffice Calc file that I use every day. I keep it as an ODF (.ods extension) file.
If I open it in Microsoft Office AS AN ODF FILE (not saved as .xls or .xlsx), I receive the following warning:
"Excel found unreadable content in 'myfile.ods'. Do you want to recover the contents of this workbook? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes."
When I click "Yes," the document opens fine with one important differences: All formulas are removed and only their last result is in the cells that had those formulas.
This is a known incompatibility between LO/OO.o. Microsoft supports ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.1 has no specification of formulas. So Microsoft implements and recognizes Excel formulas in ODF 1.1 Spreadsheets. Microsoft ODF 1.1 support does not recognize OpenFormula formulas, introduced in ODF 1.2 and now produced, I believe, by the latest versions of LibreOffice if not all of them.
It is my understanding that Microsoft Excel support for ODF 1.1 Spreadsheets also doesn't accept the OpenOffice.org-specific formulas used by OpenOffice.org Calc in ODF 1.1 documents. But the message from Microsoft Excel, if any, might not be the same for that case. I must try it.
I think the reverse is also true: that OO.o/LO do not recognize or at least don't promise to correctly process the formulas that Microsoft Excel produces in ODF 1.1 documents. (Note that I am not talking about .xls and .xslx documents, but ODF 1.1 .ods documents produced by current Microsoft Excel versions.)
- Dennis
Your reason[s] why the problem is there, you may just hit the target. Since MS's "x" formats did not become the International standard, as ODF formats did, it would make sense that MS would do their own thing with their use of ODF. MS wants the world to use their file formats that they control. So it comes to reason that the LO/OOo/etc. community would differ with MS's thinking on what is proper within ODF files.
I prefer ODF, but if you are going to need to use it with Excel as well as Calc, then you will need to save it as .xls [stay away from .xlsx please] so your MS people will be happy.
The fact that ODF is the International Standard for Office suite file formats over MS, even though it is still a "growing" format tells us a lot, or at least to me. It seems that the developers of ODF is slowly adding the parts that need "formal" definitions instead of doing it quickly and badly as MS sometimes does. I believe MS has tried to do everything they could to get on the controlling group of ODF and to have one more avenue for controlling the office suite market. [ MS - if we make ODF bad enough, then people will not use it or FOSS for their office needs and come back to "us" ]
So, after all the ranting and raving, if you need to use MS Excel for the spreadsheet client, just save it as .xls instead of .ods. I do not think MS will ever read/write the same version of ODF as everyone else uses unless they own/control the format, and that will never happen.
This had nothing to do with OOXML being accepted as an ISO Standard. It was and is.
It had to do with limitations of the ODF 1.0/1.1 specifications (and the ISO IS 26300:2006 standard for ODF 1.0) and deciding what to do about the formula specification in ODF 1.1 being totally implementation-dependent.
Wisely or not, Microsoft chose to have formulas that would preserve Excel functionality and round-trip via ODF from Excel to Excel, the same that OpenOffice.org Calc chose its own formulas that roundtrip-via ODF among OpenOffice.org-based implementations.
I was in the room when they ran that by a group of people in a Document Interoperability Initiative meeting and none of us thought how users could misunderstand what was happening. (The error messages, in particular, are less than helpful, but we had no idea about those at the time.) [In the meeting, the big topic was preservation of PowerPoint fidelity to ODF and back.]
Now that ODF 1.2 does have an agreed specification for formulas and requires that to be used in fully-conforming ODF 1.2 Spreadsheet documents, we will see how implementations line up as there are releases from everyone that support OpenFormula. I believe that LibreOffice is already using OpenFormula in current releases. Microsoft's support for ODF 1.2 is not known at this time, although there is a meeting in Brussels in April where Microsoft is expected to provide more information.
I repeat, the International Standard IS 26300:2006 for ODF 1.0 DOES NOT define spreadsheet formulas and leaves it implementation-dependent. The standard does specify how implementations are identified, though, and both Excel and OpenOffice.org accomplish that. (IS 29500, the International Standard for the Office Open XML (OOXML) has always had definitions of spreadsheet formulas and .xslx documents use those.)
Eike Rathke, here, was one of the major contributors to the definition of OpenFormula, now in ODF 1.2, that will also be in an international standard once ODF 1.2 is accepted by ISO.
- Dennis
pls. indicate change of subject.
Thanks,
Dennis E. Hamilton wrote (07-09-11 20:09)
Am 07.09.2011 09:56, Roelof Oomen wrote:
I got a corrupted Excel xlsx file when I opened and subsequently saved it using LibreOffice Calc. When I open it in Excel the message is "Excel found unreadable content [...]", but opening it again in Calc does not produce any errors.
Should I file a bug? Or is someone interested in the file in order to improve the xlsx saving abilities of Calc?
Cheers,
Roelof
Please consider this when you collaborate with users of MS Office (Excel in this particular case):
- All Excel users can open xls.
- Calc and xls have more than a decade of common history, thus xls is supported by Calc almost perfectly, much better than the new shit.
- Any new features that may be saved in the new xlsx format do not exist in any software other than Excel. In other words: xlsx may include features you can not even see in Calc or errors that can not be fixed in Calc.
- Saving xlsx in Calc helps MS to spread a file format that has been bribed through the standardization boards to fight the existing ODF standard (odt, ods, odp, odg).
- For MS incompatibility is a feature.
"Compatibility" can not be a one-way street.
Solution #1:
Send back an xls version of that file and ask them to exchange spreadsheets in that format.
Solution #2:
They can install LibreOffice side by side with their usual office suite.
Solution #3:
http://www.freeware-downloads.org/download/programm.php?pro=sun-odf-plugin makes their office suite fully ODF aware.
On top of all this, I am convinced that LibreOffice must not write MS OOXML. This is an anti-feature against our own interests.
Greetings,
Andreas
Hi Roelof,
Roelof Oomen wrote (07-09-11 09:56)
I got a corrupted Excel xlsx file when I opened and subsequently
saved it using LibreOffice Calc. When I open it in Excel the message
is "Excel found unreadable content [...]", but opening it again in
Calc does not produce any errors.
Could it be related to this bug:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39589
Should I file a bug?
Yes: either comment to the mentioned bug if it is the same / closely related, or pls file a new one:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport
Or is someone interested in the file in order to improve the xlsx saving abilities of Calc?
Yes too. You may add it to the issue.
Thanks for writing & your help,
Cor
Am 07.09.2011 09:56, Roelof Oomen wrote:
...
Should I file a bug? Or is someone interested in the file in order to
improve the xlsx saving abilities of Calc?
To reiterate, the priority for calc is improvement in native file
format behaviour. If you want to save in m$ formats why have you not
bought m$o???
- Saving xlsx in Calc helps MS to spread a file format that has been
bribed through the standardization boards to fight the existing ODF
standard (odt, ods, odp, odg).
This is an incredible distinction between m$ formats. The undeniable
fact is, saving any document in _any_ m$ format maintains the
dominance of these formats.
- For MS incompatibility is a feature.
"Compatibility" can not be a one-way street.
As proposed in previous posts, it should be for LO: import in any
format, create only odt/(x)html/pdf etc. formats.
Solution #1:
Send back an xls version of that file and ask them to exchange
spreadsheets in that format.
Better still, send in ods and ask the recipient to use LO. If the
suggestion is declined, buy m$o. When minor incompatibility is
discovered between m$ hardware and software, such bugs should be
published to m$ and not here!
On top of all this, I am convinced that LibreOffice must not write MS
OOXML. This is an anti-feature against our own interests.
Would be interested to hear your explanation why other m$ formats are
_not_ against the interests of LO (i.e. increased _visible_ usage of
odt. Using LO to write m$ formats should be considered invisible
usage, of what benefit exactly?).
Um, the guy I am replying to changed the subject.
Sorry, I get beat up by people who thread their mails every time I do that, although it didn't even occur to me here.
I'm done on this subject, whatever it is, anyhow.
- Dennis
e-letter wrote:
Solution #1:
Send back an xls version of that file and ask them to exchange
spreadsheets in that format.Better still, send in ods and ask the recipient to use LO. If the
suggestion is declined, buy m$o. When minor incompatibility is
discovered between m$ hardware and software, such bugs should be
published to m$ and not here!
You can't be serious. LibreOffice/OpenOffice has such low use in the
corporate world that I would be remiss to ask the other user to download a
~200MB software package just to view the document I send them. You just
don't play those kinds of games in the business world, not unless you want
to aggravate others for no gain (no, you won't increase LO/OO uptake by only
using non-Office formats, you'll just piss people off if you ask them to
install another software package for no discernible reason).
e-letter wrote:
Solution #1:
Send back an xls version of that file and ask them to exchange
spreadsheets in that format.Better still, send in ods and ask the recipient to use LO. If the
suggestion is declined, buy m$o. When minor incompatibility is
discovered between m$ hardware and software, such bugs should be
published to m$ and not here!at0mic
You can't be serious. LibreOffice/OpenOffice has such low use in the
corporate world that I would be remiss to ask the other user to download a
~200MB software package just to view the document I send them. >You just
don't play those kinds of games in the business world, not unless you want
to aggravate others for no gain (no, you won't increase LO/OO uptake by only
using non-Office formats, you'll just piss people off if >you ask them to
install another software package for no discernible reason).
Sending an .xls version and asking the person on the other end to keep the
document in that format is a valid point and can be substantiated by the
fact that even different versions of MSO have trouble reading each other's
version of .xlsx formats. Try swapping an .xlsx document with complex
formulae between office 2003 and office 2010. Sometimes it might work.
Trying to coerce or force others into using international standards instead
of MS standards will have a negative effect in the acceptance of these
international standards.
For increasing the awareness and take up of LO in business, the best results
I've had is by pointing out the extra functionality of LO that can't be
provided by MSO, such as the ability to load and modify and re-save .pdf
documents. This has been a big selling point in my organisation with around
twenty new users this year already. (only 380 users to go) The biggest
obstacle I have in promoting LO is younger IT staff who tried Open Office
several years ago during their uni days and have been scared off from trying
later versions by repeated and continuing MS propaganda.
I find the same attitude towards GIMP. Today I had our Helpdesk manager call
GIMP unusable rubbish. I asked him what his preferred Microsoft alternative
was and when did he last try GIMP. No answer, was the stern reply.
(e-letter's use of the $ sign in M$ is quite amusing and to the point.)
cheers,
Bruce Carlson
Am 08.09.2011 00:07, e-letter wrote:
Would be interested to hear your explanation why other m$ formats are
_not_ against the interests of LO (i.e. increased _visible_ usage of
odt. Using LO to write m$ formats should be considered invisible
usage, of what benefit exactly?).
If not for collaboration, there needs to be a bridge leading from their file formats to free file formats.
The binary formats are well known by the ODF developers since the early days of StarOffice.
The feature set of this office suite is adjusted to the feature set of MS Office, so both file formats can describe the same documents (more or less).
MS introduced their new OOXML to expand that commonly used feature set and because they too want something with "Office" and "Open" and "XML" in the name.
ODF applications should support the same set of features before writing OOXML, but wait --- do we really want that a new round in this rat race?
...
Now that ODF 1.2 does have an agreed specification for formulas and requires
that to be used in fully-conforming ODF 1.2 Spreadsheet documents, we will
see how implementations line up as there are releases from everyone that
support OpenFormula. I believe that LibreOffice is already using
OpenFormula in current releases. Microsoft's support for ODF 1.2 is not
known at this time, although there is a meeting in Brussels in April where
Microsoft is expected to provide more information.
The default specification for LO is 12extended that I am now using. So
supposing m$ suddenly provides support for ods12, does that mean I
would have to change the LO specification down from 12extended to 12
so that formulas are preserved for other ods12 programs?
Eike Rathke, here, was one of the major contributors to the definition of
OpenFormula, now in ODF 1.2, that will also be in an international standard
once ODF 1.2 is accepted by ISO.
It would be appreciated to receive notification when this
specification is accepted. Is m$ surreptitiously trying to
prevent/delay iso acceptance, or now bribing (sorry, wrong word,
"suggesting") iso to adopt some m$ooxmlooformula alternative?
Hi
This thread has gone waaay off-topic. Continuing with that = this wikipedia
guide might be interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization#Criticism
I think the question that started this thread has been solved but i'm not
completely certain.
Regards from
Tom
Ask them why they are using .xlsx instead of .xls? There was a movement in the business world to stop using the .xlsx format, since there was issues even within different MSO versions. Also, businesses that would rather not pay for every new version of MSO tend to stick with the ones they have, which could mean MSO2003 or earlier, so they would not be able to read .xlsx either.
.xls is a fine format to use withing the MSO business environment. I have not heard a really good reason to go to the newer one. To be honest, more non-MS software can read .xls than their .xlsx version.
I do not agree about telling business to use LO if they use MSO. I tend to use words like "try using LO and see if you like it". As for low use in the corporate world, LO is gaining market share. In the European and African market, LO/OOo is really moving and becoming the "default" office suite. Governments and businesses are seeing the advantage in switching over to LO/OOo over continuing with MSO. That is fact. Cost is only one of the reasons.
So see if the business would use .xls, then see if someone in that business would like to try the software that is gaining market share all over the world. So not demand, ask them to have someone try it.