Open Office to Excel for Macros

[Myouzik]

Hello! I am trying to build a spreadsheet for a friend, and all of my experience is in Excel ( I've never used Open Office for spreadsheets). Being that I'm currently strapped for cash, I have the free online version of Office 365 so that I can use Excel. I've since come to realize however, that this version will not allow me to write macros (which I need), so I'm trying to find a way around this. My plan is now to try and build most of the sheet using Office 365, then open it in Open Office Calc to add the macros, followed by exporting the sheet as an Excel file so that I can provide him with the Excel sheet which he requested for his business. (Unless I am overthinking it?)

It's been 5 yrs since I last used Excel as I'm in a different business now, but I was at that time I was a "fairly advanced" user I would say... but certainly not at true expert level. As of now however, I'd call myself a "rusty" user! LOL! I had to start a new account here as I cannot recall which of my many email accounts I previously used for this site. So that said, here is my question.

Being that I don't want to do all of that only to find out at the end that it cannot effectively be done, are there any hiccups or restrictions that I will face which will prevent me from doing this as planned? Or is there a better and easier way that I am not aware of?

Thanks so much!

[robleyd]

Given that MS Office macros do not always play nicely with AOO, there is a strong likelihood that MS Office may not like AOO macros.

If your need is to write MS Office macros, then MS Office is the best tool.

[Myouzik]

Yikes. Ok thanks.

[FJCC]

I think robleyd is being overly optimistic. I think that if you write macros in OpenOffice and save that document in the Excel format, the macros will be stripped out.

[Myouzik]

If I could test that out, I would. But again I only have the free version of Excel I guess I wouldn't be able to see it even if it was not stripped out.

[robleyd]

Perhaps your friend with Excel would let you test?

NB: I have sent you a PM (private message).

[Myouzik]

Yeah, thought of that. I need to think about that, as I'm not sure I want to do that.

[Mountaineer]

Hello,

reading the following text the support for VBA in Open/LibreOffice is limited: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/VBA_in ... OpenOffice

reading this you can't develop vba-code in LibreOffice and save it back to excel
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en- ... ystem=UNIX

I doubt there is any support on ms-side to understand macros from the UNO-universe

So, if you friend needs help he can either use AOO in adfition to MSO or you should develop in excel.

If you want to try macros in AOO/LO: Forget most things you know of the VBA-API. UNO differs a lot.

J.

[JeJe]

You might be able to get an old version of MS Office very cheaply on Ebay - I got the 2003 incarnation for almost nothing.

[Myouzik]

Good call JeJe, thanks! I was actually already looking at that. Great minds...