[Solved] The password is incorrect-The file cannot be opened

[RenHoek]

I don't even know if I'm on the right board, but I'm posting a problem and a solution in case anyone else runs into the same issue. If I'm not in the right place, let me know.

I use Libre Office Calc Version: 5.3.7.2 (x64) OS Version: Windows 6.19
On a Win 10 machine

I tried to save a spreadsheet in the format Microsoft Excel 2007 - 2013 XML (.xlsx) (*.xlsx)
I checked "Save with Password", and entered and confirmed the password on the next screen.

Two seconds later, I tried to open the spreadsheet, entered the password I just created, and received the message:

"The password is incorrect. The file cannot be opened."

The problem is that Libre Office Calc only accepted the first 15 characters of my 20 character password when I saved the file. It doesn't beep or give an error message, it just stops accepting anything more than 15 characters. I wasn't looking at the screen so I didn't notice the little dots don't continue after it reached the 15 character limit.

When you try to open a file with a password, Libre Calc DOES accept more than 15 characters. So the password saved doesn't match the password entered.

The solution was to just enter the first 15 characters of the password to open the file, and it worked.

I hope this helps someone.

[Zizi64]

I tried to save a spreadsheet in the format Microsoft Excel 2007 - 2013 XML (.xlsx) (*.xlsx)

Do not strore your important document in a foreign file format. Use the native, International Standard ODF file formats.

[jrkrideau]

What happens if you use a 20 character password and save in .odt format?

[Lupp]

If you had given the password with overlength by pasting it after having copied it elsewhere LibO had truncated it to 15characters and had informed you of that.

An audible alarm or a refusal to save and close the file without an extra OK in addition might be a good idea.

Enhancement requests concerning LibreOffice are to address to https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ .

(The original cause of the problem seemingly are limitations of the MS formats / MS software generally.)

(There also is a dedicated askbot site concening LibreOffice: ask.libreoffice.org . It is, however, much less well structured than this forum.)

@jrkrideau: LibO had accepted the 20-character-password. No problem with that known to me. Same with AOO 4.1.5.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] Differences between Writer and MS Word files for why you should always work in and save files as .odt. It applies to .ods files too.