Converting 123 to Excel

[123user]

New user, I downloaded OpenOffice today hoping from the wiki write-up that it could help convert .123 files to .xls - something I’ve been looking for a way to do for a while.

But very disappointed. Opening the 123 file in OpenOffice is barely recognisable with charts all lost and formatting changed - actually not as good as saving the .123 as .xls in the 123 application itself.

Any help would be really(!) appreciated. Am I doing something wrong? I still need to convert the 123 files - is it possible with reasonable accuracy? Many thanks.
(using: OO 3.4.1 on Windows 7, Lotus 123 Rel 9, Excel 2003 SP3)

[squenson]

Welcome to this forum 123user!

There is not much we can do. The filters that read and write in different formats are as good as the official documentation that exists about these formats. You will certainly need some manual interventions on the files to translate them in .xls format.

[Villeroy]

This is how proprietary file formats are supposed to work. Each file type is controlled by one company. That's the deal when you use these file formats.

[123user]

Thanks very much for the replies. I've seen that IBM has given Lotus Symphony code to OpenOffice. Is it possible that the 123 code is in there and the OO capabilty on 123 could be improved...?

[RoryOF]

It is expected that some Symphony features will be integrated into future releases of Apache OpenOffice, but I would not like to hazard a guess of which features and just when.

[123user]

Is there some trick to using OO with Lotus 123 files? I also can’t open simple WK4 files. I get an ASCII Filter Options panel, but no matter what is selected there, it gives just pages of # characters with the occasional other character. I understood that OO could handle WK4 files... Any help much appreciated, thanks.

[RoryOF]

Use an external conversion site, such as
http://www.zamzar.com

Normally an ASCII filter message and file full of #### indicates a corrupt file; this often happens with bad transfers through external drives from older systems. If the files don't convert using zamzar then it most likely confirms such corruption.

[acknak]

Some of the foreign file support is bundled into a separate package that isn't installed by default: you may have to re-start the installation and explicitly select installation of the extra file "filter" support.

[123user]

Thanks for advice, appreciated. But now...
RoryOF: I can confirm the files are not corrupt - current files updated regularly in 123. And unfortunately zamzar says it cannot convert 123 files (
acknak: files are all English, with no foreign content. I took the standard installation.

Is this really such a dead end...? If OO development could possibly(??) introduce support for 123 files it would be a huge benefit to a large population of users - just a thought.

[Villeroy]

This is an issue with all proprietary file formats. Since decades most software vendors play these games with the precious data of their clients. Now the Open Source coding monks are expected take the responsibility for bad decisions of the past ("implement this or your product is useless")
OpenOffice will never be able to handle all proprietary office formats of the past decades. Developing such filters by reverse engineering with no support by the original vendor is extremely costly and difficult.
I remember Lotus 1.2.3 as quite different from Excel. An Excelish spreasheet can not support any of the features that existed in 1.2.3 but not in Excel.

[123user]

Thanks again for the response. I understand, but in closing this someone should correct the wiki page for OO to show that it does not support 123, so that others don't follow the path I took.

[RoryOF]

Can you please post a link to the Wiki page in question so that this can be dealt with?

[123user]

Rory, it's the obvious one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice . I thought you guys would have written it. Scroll down to the File Formats table. There may be other things you want to update... who else will keep it accurate. Good luck.

[RoryOF]

There are many wiki pages, so a definite URL removes any ambiguity. I have reported the thread and the URL to one of the Apache lists for their consideration. Most of us active on the Forum don't have much or perhaps anything to do with wiki pages; we are too busy on the Forum.

[thomasjk]

You might want to try Libreoffice http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. They list .123 files in the file open dialog.

[Villeroy]

You might want to try Libreoffice http://www.libreoffice.org/download/. They list .123 files in the file open dialog.

And so does AOO: "Lotus 1-2-3(*.wk1;*.wks;*.123)"
How can we know that the OP's file is not corrupted after spending his life for more than a decade on a floppy disk?
What can we expect from file support for a very old proprietary file format that changed with every major release?

Also remember 1-2-3 used 3 or 4 different formats in various versions
of the product, so well need specifics, wk1, wk3, wk4, .123, etc.
Presumably they are not all broken.

May be there is something unexpected in that specific file. Some unforseen combination of attributes which made perfect sense to the application developers (because they define what makes sense) but not for the guy who tried his best to reverse engineer software able to interprete these highly complex binary structures.
It's about proprietary file formats. Sooner or later they turn all your work into an unreadable mess.

[123user]

Villeroy, please note I confirmed before that the files are NOT corrupted - they are regularly used and updated .123 files on the hard drive. And I tried a few different ones - some quite simple, just calcs and graphs.

[thomasjk]

Try Libreoffice as I suggested earlier.