OpenOffice on Windows 7 with Java

[cxo]

Dear friends, I could cry, and maybe you have an idea...

I have Windows 7 SP1 PC, it works well. Yesterday I installed OO 4.1.9, mainly to use Calc. It is important that I can save Calc files as Excel 2003 XML because I have to share the files with people who use modern Excel version.

It did not work from scratch, so I installed Java, first 64 bit then after reading more Java 32bit, and then I rebooted. Java is shown in the Java settings in Openoffice.

But when I save the file as Excel 2003 XML it takes a long time, and then I get an error message.

Bild_2021-02-25_090855.png (84.28 KiB) Viewed 5752 times

So officially everything is fine but still it does not work.

What can I do?

[robleyd]

The error message is in a language that I don't generally understand and I am not prepared to manually type it into google translate; I think it says something about writing/saving?. If so, it is possible that Windows Defender, or your antivirus, may be blocking you from saving in a particular folder(s).

Windows 7 sp1, OpenOffice 4.3.1

I assume you mean AOO 4.1.3 as the quoted version does not exist.

[cxo]

Yes, you are right with the version.

The error message says "Error while saving. The file could not be saved." This happens no matter where I save - hard disk, network volume, USB stick. It only happens when I save as Excel 2003 XML. Ohter formats work fine.

[robleyd]

If you save to the Desktop, do you still get the error?

[RoryOF]

"The file could not be saved" message often indicates that Windows Defender or some other program, perhaps an antivirus, is not permitting Saving to the target folder. As robleyd suggests, try Saving to your desktop. If that works, then the problem is confirmed to be a file permissions problem.

[Villeroy]

Since 10 years https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/li ... penoffice/ is the "new" OpenOffice. It supports OOXML (docx/xlsx) file formats. Forget OpenOffice. Forget Java.

[cxo]

If you save to the Desktop, do you still get the error?

Yes. It always happens when I save as XML, no matter where I save.

It never happens with other formats.

Apropos Libreoffice: I installed that first. I restarted. Launch Writer. Crash. Launch Calc. Crash. Launch anything else. Crash. I deinstalled it right away and installed OpenOffice. Maybe this is the source of all this trouble?

[NZ_LinuxStudent]

German -> English
Translation
Failed to save the document 201130_residentialareadetermination: Typo. The file could not be written.

Does the file name include ":", as I do not think this is allowed in Windows. <>:"/\|?* are all forbidden in filenames (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ing-a-file).

Are you using https://sourceforge.net/projects/openof ... e/download ?
Are you using the 32-bit Java https://www.java.com/de/ ?

Possible Solutions;
Remove all Java versions -> https://java.com/de/download/help/remov ... sions.html
Install 32-bit Java -> https://javadl.oracle.com/webapps/downl ... 7658ca1605
You may need to restart your Windows Computer.

Try to Save your .xml file in ApacheOpenOffice, does this work?

Try Reseting your User Profile -> viewtopic.php?p=58403#p58403. Does this work?

Uninstall ApacheOpenOffice, and reinstall (https://sourceforge.net/projects/openof ... e/download)
Does it work now?

Did you reset your user profile?
Hopefully this helped you, otherwise let us know.

If all working, make sure to install the 64-bit JRE for your other Windows applications. JRE 64-bit https://javadl.oracle.com/webapps/downl ... 7658ca1605

Hopefully you still have everything working

There also seems to be a forum listed at https://www.openoffice-forum.de/, perhaps this also could be of some use?

Edit:  Here is a page of all links, https://www.openoffice.org/de/foren.html Finally, you could try this possible solution. Instead of saving your document as "Microsoft Excel 2003 XML (.xml)" could you please save it as "Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (.xls)" and see whether the issue still arises. As a side note; Microsoft users should be able to open ODS files, but I understand why you would want to do the conversion at your end, to prevent confusion. You could also consider exporting your documents to PDF so they can be accessed across the majority of devices available to end consumers.  Edit:  You could potentially try using OpenJDK instead of the original Java. "OpenJDK is a free and open-source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition". Try from here OpenJDK JRE 8u272-b10 https://builds.openlogic.com/downloadJD ... ws-x32.msi , or to view all available https://www.openlogic.com/openjdk-downl ... get_id=All , but JRE 8u272-b10 should be right for your system

[John_Ha]

As you can save your file fred in other formats (eg as fred.ods) it isn't a file writing permissions thing.

It looks like a bug. I tried saving this trivial file test.odt. The save took about a minute and I then got an error message.

Search the forum with save excel 2003 xml for more.

Look at the date 2003 - that is 18 years old. Is the format obsolete? Can it handle function added after 2003? In principle I guess it should as XML is extensible and new tags can be added at any time. However you and your colleagues may be better choosing a different format.

wiki says it was made obsolete in 2007, fourteen years ago so don't hold you breath for any bug fixes.

The Microsoft Office XML formats are XML-based document formats (or XML schemas) introduced in versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007. Microsoft Office XP introduced a new XML format for storing Excel spreadsheets and Office 2003 added an XML-based format for Word documents.

These formats were succeeded by Office Open XML (ECMA-376) in Microsoft Office 2007.

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a discussion of some of the issues involved. It applies even more so to spreadsheet files.

LibreOffice does not offer Excel 2003 XML as an option.

[NZ_LinuxStudent]

Have managed to replicate the above OpenOffice Calc document, and saved successfully in "Microsoft Excel 2003 XML (.xml)" format, without any error.

Test system (Linux) LMDE 4 Debbie using AOO 4.5.0, and system uses "OpenJDK 11.0.9.1" (java-11-openjdk-amd64).

[Hagar Delest]

It is important that I can save Calc files as Excel 2003 XML because I have to share the files with people who use modern Excel version.

Then either do as advised earlier, that is try LibreOffice, or just stick to MS Excel. That's part of the vendor lock-in policy.
As long as users don't understand the point in using open formats, then you'll have to stick to whatever proprietary application you use.

[Villeroy]

It is an error in the AOO installer for MS Windows. By default the XML filters are not installed. Run the installer and select the missing package. I agree that a historic file formats can not be the solution. EIther you use MS Office for MS Office file formats or you install a recent office suite with a decent support of these crude formats. You never get 100% support for foreign file formats. Since too many years AOO lies in agony.

[cxo]

Does the file name include ":", as I do not think this is allowed in Windows. <>:"/\|?* are all forbidden in filenames (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... ing-a-file).

There are no forbidden characters in my file name.

Are you using https://sourceforge.net/projects/openof ... e/download ?
Are you using the 32-bit Java https://www.java.com/de/ ?

Yes and yes.

Possible Solutions;
Remove all Java versions -> https://java.com/de/download/help/remov ... sions.html
Install 32-bit Java -> https://javadl.oracle.com/webapps/downl ... 7658ca1605
You may need to restart your Windows Computer.

Try to Save your .xml file in ApacheOpenOffice, does this work?

Try Reseting your User Profile -> viewtopic.php?p=58403#p58403. Does this work?

Uninstall ApacheOpenOffice, and reinstall (https://sourceforge.net/projects/openof ... e/download)
Does it work now?

Did you reset your user profile?
Hopefully this helped you, otherwise let us know.

I did all of that in this order. Nothing changed except the error message:

seek.PNG (8.36 KiB) Viewed 5519 times

"The seek operation could not be executed."

There also seems to be a forum listed at https://www.openoffice-forum.de/, perhaps this also could be of some use?

Edit:  Here is a page of all links, https://www.openoffice.org/de/foren.html

I asked there first - no answer at all.

Finally, you could try this possible solution.
Instead of saving your document as "Microsoft Excel 2003 XML (.xml)" could you please save it as "Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (.xls)" and see whether the issue still arises.

That works.

[cxo]

It is important that I can save Calc files as Excel 2003 XML because I have to share the files with people who use modern Excel version.

Then either do as advised earlier, that is try LibreOffice, or just stick to MS Excel. That's part of the vendor lock-in policy.
As long as users don't understand the point in using open formats, then you'll have to stick to whatever proprietary application you use.

#1: I tried to install Libreoffice and can't even launch it. It does not work *at all*.

#2 I guarantee I will never in my life buy anything made by Microsoft again.

[cxo]

It looks like a bug. I tried saving this trivial file test.odt. The save took about a minute and I then got an error message.

This is exactly what happens here. First success: we can say that we can replicate the problem.

[John_Ha]

I now see it is not bug and, having had my memory jogged, remember a similar thread some time ago.

See

It is an error in the AOO installer for MS Windows. By default the XML filters are not installed. Run the installer [using Customised installation] and select the missing [Excel 2003 XML] package.

But you should stop using an obsolete format.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject. It would also help if you edited your Subject line to Cannot save in Excel 2003 XML format as the problem has nothing to do with Java.

[cxo]

Just asking: the standard file format for Excel 2016 is xslx, right? Openoffice can not write xlsx files, is that right, too?

[John_Ha]

Yes and yes.

Read [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for a discussion of the problems you will encounter (It discusses Calc / Excel files too) and for why you should always work in, and save Writer files as .odt, Calc files as .ods, Impress files as .odp etc.

[RoryOF]

.xlsx is the current file format used by Microsoft Excel; at present OpenOffice cannot write to it, and may have difficulty reading some files in that format. LibreOffice offers better support for that proprietary format, but if you must have absolute recognition of all files written by and edited by MS Excel, you are best advised to use MS Excel.

[Villeroy]

A simple spreadsheet like the one in the screenshot can be saved in the binary xls format (Excel 97-2003). No special extensions nor Java required. Every spreadsheet application can load simple xls.

"Simple" means:
- no strings that are meant to be numbers nor numbers that are meant to be strings
- no formatting stunts nor sophisticated layouts. xls supports cell styles.
- basic arithmetics and standard functions, i.e. no add-in functions

btw: LibreOffice 7 runs just fine on our last remaining Windows 7 box.

[NZ_LinuxStudent]

Dear OP and John Ha,

The issue here is with your system. See attached files;

[NZ_LinuxStudent]

As you are able to see, myself (and others) are able to generate files and save them sucessfully without any issues in the 'Excel 2003 XML (.xml)' format. Although, I cannot with the file 'John Ha' has generated. But I would wager you all can with mine..

[NZ_LinuxStudent]

.xlsx is the current file format used by Microsoft Excel; at present OpenOffice cannot write to it, and may have difficulty reading some files in that format. LibreOffice offers better support for that proprietary format, but if you must have absolute recognition of all files written by and edited by MS Excel, you are best advised to use MS Excel.

Apache OpenOffice can easily read .xlsx files. RoryOF, you are mistaken.

See attached files.

Also, Dear Reader, as you are able to see in the provided link the .ODS extenstion is widely supported across various platforms. https://fileinfo.com/extension/ods

[Hagar Delest]

Apache OpenOffice can easily read .xlsx files. RoryOF, you are mistaken.

It was not said that AOO couldn't open .xlsx.
It all depends on the complexity of the .xlsx file.

[robleyd]

may have difficulty reading some files in that format

There was no mention of AOO not being able to read any .xlsx files. See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for more information.

If you wish to "try to gently educate the users" (your words) please ensure that you provide complete information.