LO calc creates malformed links to external Excel-sheets

[HarzG]

libreoffice:
  Installed: 1:3.5.3-0ubuntu1~lucid1
  Candidate: 1:3.5.3-0ubuntu1~lucid1
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.5.3-0ubuntu1~lucid1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

In LibreOffice Calc 3.5.3-0ubuntu1~lucid1 (PPA) and 3.5.2-6 (Debian sid unstable)
there are problems with malformed links to external Excel-sheets.
It's a serious problem imho in all 3.5.x-Linux-versions of Calc.
Linux-users with any 3.5.x-version can't cooperate at the office with MS Office users if they use links to external Excel-sheets.
[also reported there https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48463 2012-04-09 05:17 PDT]

Make a source.xls and a merged.xls.
Type in source.xls
[A1]number
[A2]A
[A3]B
[B1]value
[B2]11
[B3]22
Type in merged.xls
[A1]number
[A2]A
[A3]B
[B1]value
[B2]252-2ubuntu1
[B3]45
Make in merged.xls
[C1]diff
[C2]=B2-'file:///tmp/source.xls'#$sheet1.B2
[C3]=B3-'file:///tmp/source.xls'#$sheet1.B3

The sheet merged.xls shows now in [C2]14 and [C3]23.

If you close merged.xls and reopen it, you get a message "… contains links …
should they be updated?" and an error.
=B3-'file:///tmp/tmp/source.xls/'#$sheet1.B2

The path-name was saved (or reloaded) wrong into [C2] and [C3].
As LO-users will/must cooperate with MSO-users, they can't use LibreOffice 3.5
because the malformed links to external sheets.
To let all switch to ods-sheets is not an option "at the office".

There is no work-around atm with other formats like xlsx.

I tested in 3.4.4 links to other sheets - works fine there (tested with Oneiric).
(I heard also about normal behaviour in Debian wheezy testing LibreOffice calc 1:3.4.6-2.)

Can we go back to the behaviour of 3.4.x to make/save/reload links to external Excel sheets?

[Heimen Stoffels (vistaus)]

I've tested this on Ubuntu 12.04 with LibreOffice 3.5.3 with the steps you provided and indeed it shows an error, but it does work fine. So it's a non-trivial error message as it works like expected apart from the error message.

[HarzG (harzg)]

... also "available" here in

libreoffice:
  Installed: 1:3.5.4-0ubuntu1~lucid1
  Candidate: 1:3.5.4-0ubuntu1~lucid1
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.5.4-0ubuntu1~lucid1 0
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Nick Alderweireldt (nick-alderweireldt)]

I can confirm the bug using 3.5.4 in Mint (ubuntu 12.04).
When saving the file with the links as .xls I also see the malformed linknames (part of the name is doubled) giving an error function at reloading the file. Correcting the link with edit link is possible but the update does not happen.
With saving as .xlsx the link simply disappear by reloading the file.
It was the same behaviour with 3.5.2.
Maybe I should try the very recent 3.5.6.

[Nick Alderweireldt (nick-alderweireldt)]

I tried with libreoffice 3.6 from this ppa : http://www.muktware.com/4122/install-libreoffice-36-ubuntulinux-mint-ppa

The links are not any more corrupted using the .xls file format. The .xlsx file format still does not keep the links.