Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Discussions about using 3rd party extension with OpenOffice.org
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kcleung
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Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Post by kcleung »

For corporate users, one of the biggest barriers of adopting Libre/OpenOffice is their reliance of 3rd-party Office Add-ons from specialist software, that only supports Microsoft Office.

Fortunately, Microsoft Office now offers a Javascript-based Office add-on API:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office ... for-office

that allows the add-ons to be able to run on multiple platforms.

Therefore, to allow mass adoption of Libreoffice in corporate environments, we really need to get Libreoffice to implement / support the Microsoft Office Add-on API in order to allow Microsoft Office Add-on APIs to run on Libre/OpenOffice verbatim.

Currently, are there any projects implementing the Microsoft Office Add-on in Libreoffice?
Libreoffice 6.4.2.2 on Ubuntu 18.10
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Villeroy
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Re: Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Post by Villeroy »

Stick with MS Excel. Forever and ever.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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JeJe
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Re: Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Post by JeJe »

I don't know what's in the works for LO... but I suspect its always going to be up to those 3rd-party add-on creators (or someone else) to write a version for OO/LO as well. Which indispensable add-on/feature do you need?

There are some extensions for OO/LO here, if you don't already know:

https://extensions.openoffice.org/
Windows 10, Openoffice 4.1.11, LibreOffice 7.4.0.3 (x64)
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Villeroy
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Re: Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Post by Villeroy »

Now they can write add-ons for MS Excel in JavaScript like we can write add-ons for Libre/OpenOffice in C++/Java/JavaScript/Python and any language someone writes a comparatively simple bridge for. Some thousand lines of Python code make our API accessible from the Python language. Their add-ons are still for their products, our add-ons are for our products. Being "compatible" with any other product's API means nothing less than rebuilding the other product, a multi-billion dollar product in this particular case.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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Lupp
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Re: Supporting Microsoft Office Add-on API

Post by Lupp »

kcleung wrote:For corporate users, one of the biggest barriers of adopting Libre/OpenOffice is their reliance of 3rd-party Office Add-ons from specialist software, that only supports Microsoft Office.
Yes, and at MS they know this. And where it isn't a hard fact, they at least spread the saying.

Many add-ons, and in specific corporate VBA add-ons may mainly exist because MS very much encourages the Office+ concept where the "+" is standing for additives using VBA or whatever they got provided for MS-Office only.

I cannot judge for "serious" add-ons, but having read through a few hundred request of the kind "Help translate this VBA code to LibO." I got a feeling that most of it is low quality, and in fact often useless. In specific code for speradsheets sometimes is stilted stuff which could easily be replaced with built-in means, or even with simple formulas based on standard functions.

Why?
BEING INCOMPATIBLE IS THE RAISON D'ÊTRE of commercial software competing with free and open source alternatives.
As soon as LibreOffice actually is "fully compatible" one day (which hopefully will never come) MS will hire some 100 developers to ensure incompatibilty again the other day. MS can afford to choke every competitor with money if needed. Their softer statements concerning open standards and compatibility are just foully politics, imo.

What would you do if your income depended on selling something nobody needs?
On Windows 10: LibreOffice 24.2 (new numbering) and older versions, PortableOpenOffice 4.1.7 and older, StarOffice 5.2
---
Lupp from München
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