Calc file bloated!!

[wtillick]

18 months ago I saved a Calc file in .xls format, size 9kb.
A recent file of similar content saved at 58KB!! This struck me as being a most untoward increase, so I opened and re-saved the older file, and it now saves at 58KB also.

I don't remember which version of OpenOffice I was using 18months ago, but am currently on 2.2.1

I don't create a lot of spreadsheets but all the ones created in 2006 are much smaller than ones created more recently.
Has the format for saving Calc files changed significantly or have I missed something? (Incidentally, I tried MS Works Spreadsheet on the same data and got a much smaller file size than OO is now giving.)

This is an issue for me because I use Calc to create some tables for insertion into web pages, whereas I am unable to paste MS Works data into my web development program. The ability to create and format tables in Calc, then Copy and Paste straight into a web page has been very useful, but the huge increase in file size is killing the download speed!!

Can anybody please help mne.

Thanks,
WilliamT

[acknak]

It's a known problem, first introduced with OOo 2.0.3: Issue 67371.

It's targeted to be fixed for OOo 2.4, due out in March. The only workaround in the meantime is to use a version older than 2.0.3.

[wtillick]

Hi Acknak, thanks for the reply. That raises a couple of questions though...

1. I checked with Issue 67371 and see that it only refers to .doc files. Is it the same problem with .xls files?

2. I will see if I have 2.0.2 or earlier BUT, if I recall correctly, two versions of OO cannot co-exist on the same PC. Are you able to confirm or deny this, please?

Thanks again,
WilliamT

[acknak]

Good point!

What little I understand about the problem (there was a thumbnail image added) suggests that it would apply to all MS Office files, and indeed, there are similar issues filed for Calc spreadsheets that the developers have closed as duplicates of the Writer issue that I linked to. So it seems pretty clear that it's all the same problem (and fix, hopefully).

I'm not totally clear on that either, but I believe that major versions of OOo are designed to be installed simultaneously, although they may share the same settings. So 2.0 and 2.3 could both be installed at the same time, but you could not run them at the same time.

[AndrewZ]

WilliamT, do you use Windows or Linux? There are ways to install multiple OOo versions in parallel. Basically, you can copy the installation path (something like c:\program files\openoffice.org2.x or /opt/openoffice.org2.x) between systems without using the installer (.exe., .msi, .rpm, etc.). Then, you just run the soffice.exe (Windows) or soffice (Linux) executable to start the program. However, if you try to install multiple versions using the installer, it may give you a hard time. You can even have multiple versions running simultaneously.

[wtillick]

Thanks, Andrew. I use Windows XP, so have done the copying as you suggested. More precisely, I uninstalled 2.2 then installed 2.0.2 and copied it to my 2nd hard drive; then reinstalled 2.2.
All seems well, thank you.

WilliamT