OO calc adds spurious columns to Office 2003 XML files

[David Lee Lambert]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

I'm attaching an Office 2003 XML file created by the BIRT "save as XLS" feature. When I open it in OpenOffice, extra blank columns show up between the data-columns (that is, data is in columns B,D and F), and most of the rows are two lines high because of wrapping. When I open it in Excel 2003, the data-columns are B, C and D, and most of the rows are one line high.

If I open the file in Excel and save it again, and then open that file with OpenOffice, the column-spacing looks just like in Excel.

Ubuntu version...
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1
Release: 8.04
(gutsy server CD + apt-get dist-upgrade + KDE)

package version...
openoffice.org-calc:
  Installed: 1:2.4.1-1ubuntu2
  Candidate: 1:2.4.1-1ubuntu2

[Parthan SR (parth-technofreak)]

As far as I checked with both the files, the placement of lines in different columns happens with the Office 2003 file only when the file is opened in Open Office as tab separated. If the same file is opened without being considered as tab separated (neither by any other delimiter), it shows up similar to how your second file edited with Excel shows up.

I suspect a change in how your file is delimited between the two files and I very much doubt whether this can be considered a bug as it might be a cause of file format change between the two.

[Parthan SR (parth-technofreak)]

As from your report, the Office 2003 file is created by BIRT's "save as XLS" feature. So, it can't be a bug on OpenOffice as the way in which BIRT created the XLS file might be the reason for the problem. Closing this as invalid, as there is a way to open the file as you expect it to be (similar to second file attached) by disabling the "tab" as the delimiter when opening the file in OpenOffice. Feel free to reopen the bug if you can confirm otherwise.

[David Lee Lambert (davidl)]

Enabling "tab" as the delimiter has nothing to do with the problem. The file isn't CSV or tab-separated-variable; it's XML conforming to the "SpreadsheetML" schema. When I rename it to ".xml" and open it with OpenOffice, I don't see any option in the interface to enable or disable "tab" as a delimiter.

One difference I notice between the BIRT-produced file and a file re-saved from Excel is that BIRT puts whitespace between the <Cell> and <Data> tags. OOo produces a file without any whitespace at all. However, whitespace there shouldn't matter; Excel doesn't care about it.