[Issue] Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

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grfilho
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Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:39 pm

[Issue] Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by grfilho »

Hello, I am having an issue with OpenOffice. I´ll try to explain the issue in detail.

I have an .ods workbook created with OpenOffice 2.4 in Windows Vista Home Premium. The workbook has 5 spreadsheets, some charts, several formulas and no macros. The whole file has around 2.5MB in size. It opens, saves and behaves perfectly with OpenOffice.

I have to make a .xls version of this spreadsheet to send it to a person that has only excel. I go to File -> Save As and in the 'Save as type:' dropdown box I choose 'Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (.xls)'. The file saves ok, but when I try to open it in excel I get this error. If I click ok Excel crashes and recovers a blank document.

I would appreciate any help you could give so I can save this properly in the .xls format and be able to open it in Excel XP.

I also uploaded a copy of the .ods file.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Tagged thread as Issue (link to a bug report).
OOo 2.4.X on MS Windows Vista + MS Windows XP SP2
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by Hagar Delest »

For the error message, it's easier to upload a screenshot here (see upload attachment tab at under the text area when you write a message):
Error message.png
I'm having the same error message. Seems that the file is too big for Excel.
My system: W2k on an Intel DuoCore CPU @ 2 GHz with 2 GB RAM.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
grfilho
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Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:39 pm

Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by grfilho »

I don't think the file is too big for excel. I have already opened 15MB spreadsheets in excel. This one is only 2MB.

Apparently the xls. converter in OpenOffice has some kind of problem. Maybe a developer can download the spreadsheet I uploaded and try to recreate the issue.

My gut feeling says that it might be a chart related issue.
OOo 2.4.X on MS Windows Vista + MS Windows XP SP2
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Hagar Delest
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Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by Hagar Delest »

grfilho wrote:I don't think the file is too big for excel. I have already opened 15MB spreadsheets in excel. This one is only 2MB.
Yes (I work with 30MB spreadsheets everyday at work! I mean there are data creating a loop somwhere.
grfilho wrote:Apparently the xls. converter in OpenOffice has some kind of problem. Maybe a developer can download the spreadsheet I uploaded and try to recreate the issue.
No developer here. See the Survival Guide for the forum. You can file a bug report.
grfilho wrote:My gut feeling says that it might be a chart related issue.
Then, try to remove some of them until you find the defective one.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
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Cambirder
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Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by Cambirder »

I don't know how you managed it but several of the charts on the first sheet, have no chart type allocated to them, they should either be scatter or line charts. Also none of your data extends beyond row 1468 but most of your charts data ranges go all the way to row 65532.

Correct both these things and it opens in Excel.
OOo 3.3 on Windows 7 & 3.2.1 on Mint 10
grfilho
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Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:39 pm

Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by grfilho »

Cambirder wrote:I don't know how you managed it but several of the charts on the first sheet, have no chart type allocated to them, they should either be scatter or line charts. Also none of your data extends beyond row 1468 but most of your charts data ranges go all the way to row 65532.

Correct both these things and it opens in Excel.
I have just seen this today. As for the charts I do not know what happened either. How do I allocate a chart type to these charts? Is it just a matter of choosing the type in edit mode and save it again?
Usually I keep the ranges until the end of the spreadsheet so I can add new lines of information and the chart is updated automatically. It works in excel, but apparently OpenOffice chokes on that.
OOo 2.4.X on MS Windows Vista + MS Windows XP SP2
grfilho
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:39 pm

Re: Cannot open a xls file saved by openoffie in excel

Post by grfilho »

I tried to reset the chart type but I cannot do it for 3 of the charts. The problem happens either if I use a line chart or scatter chart. It happens if I set one of the series as a scatter plot and the other as a line plot.

I also reduced the number of lines in the chart data range and now I can open the file in Excel. Thanks for the tip!!!

Anyway I opened a bug report in the OpenOffice bugtrack and I think someone will take a look at it. The annoying thing is that I have to reset the data ranges of the charts every time I append new data to the spreadsheets.

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=90679
OOo 2.4.X on MS Windows Vista + MS Windows XP SP2
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