GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 103054
Excel crashes with a spreadsheet exported by gnumeric
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
I exporte a spreadshet from gnumeric to Excel, and I sent it to a friend of mine. However he can read it, because his Excel crashes with my file. He works with MS Excel '95. I don't have any MS Excel '95 to test it. MS Excel 2000 can read it whithout problems, but If export my file from MS Excel 2000 to MS Excel 5.0/95 inmediately I got a lot of #REF (I think the problem belong to here). If I save the file as 'gastos-old.xls' some cells gets: ='gastos-old.xml'!SUMA(...) with a Reference problem. (for instance the cell C5 in the spreadsheet attached) My formula don't make reference to any sheet. Sorry If I can't test it better and I still don't sure about it a real gnumeric export problem. I'll attach the file exported by gnumeric (From gunmeric I can read it well). At last, I saw some problems with gnumeric crash with Excel imports when some locales were misconfigured. I don't know if matters, and may be is another bug, if I wrote a cell with 'Germán' and I wrote the gnumeric file, the next time I'll get a UTF-8 cell (Germ??n). I don't if this can be important for the crash. gnumeric 1.0.12 from Debian sid package. Thanks.
Created attachment 13480 [details] excel file exported from gnumeric that crashes an Excel 95
There are 2 layers of problem. - problems with XL95 export in 1.0.x. Almost none will be fixed. It is not feasible to back port the changes from 1.1 there are just too many. - when gnumeric exports named expressions as XL95 MS Excel crashes sometimes. I've isolated a minimal test case but can not identify why XL does not like it. The problems stem from undocumented relationships with sheet references. Both gnumeric and OO can import the sheets, only XL can not. About the only solution I see is to report it as a bug to MS and see if they can explain why the sheet is invalid.
However, XL 2000 open the file without problem. My doubt is: when I open it with XL 2000, the tab 2002 cell C5 says: ='gastos-departamento.xls'!SUMA(C5:C10) and it works fine, it show the values as expected. It says SUMA instead SUM because is a spanish version. However, gnumeric only show me: =SUM(C5:C10) I my guess, in both cases should be say: =SUM(C5:C10) or at least: '2000/2001'!SUMA(C5:C10) because the tabsheet is named '2000/2001'. It's just courious.
I recently upgraded my gnumeric to 1.1.16 and open a similar xls file as attached. gnumeric "opened" 6 sheets instead "3" with the same names but between ''. I mean, the pages: Original: 2000/2001, 2002, 2003 was opened as: 2000/2001, 2002, 2003, '2000/2001', '2002', '2003' Could be this has some relation with the XLS '95 crashes? I'll send the new file exported to a friend who has excel '95 installed (he can't upgrade because the license cost). Anyway, I think, IMVHO, this bug should be closed and marked as WONTFIX or NOTGNOME.
There is definitely a problem with the way we export external references to XL95. Gnumeric and OCalc can read it but MS Excel crashes. Its unclear why. So the bug can not yet be closed. As to your problems with importing. Please open a distinct bug and add a sample. Sounds like the original sheet had some hidden sheets, but I'd have to see it to be sure.
I exported to Excel '95 with 1.1.16, the error still happen. The error is (in Excel) "No se puede abrir un documento dependiente que contenga references a hojas diferentes con el mismo nombre" (sorry is a Spanish version of Excel '95). The translation is: "Can't open a dependent(?) document that contains references to differents sheets with the same name". I guess this bug is related to #106038 I try differents things: 1. The file attached as id=13480 (exported by gnumeric 1.0.12) 2. The same file, opened with 1.1.16 and re-exported to Excel '95. 3. A new file with gnumeric 1.1.16. It has 2 sheets, one word in A1 on each sheet. All of them with the same results.
There have been a lot of fixes in this area. Could you please retry with a recent gnumeric like 1.2.12?
I re-exported the file using gnumeric 1.2.12. The problem persists. Also, I changed "suma" by "sum", because OpenOffice doesn't know what 'suma' is, and I thought this could be the problem. But the problem persist. However, I opened the file successfully with OpenOffice 1.1.1 and I saved as Excel 95 from OO, and it was opened without problems in Excel '95.
Created attachment 27678 [details] XLS file exported with gnumeric 1.2.12 Excel '95 still crashes with this file.
Created attachment 27679 [details] XLS file exported with OOo This file, exported with OO can be read successfully with Excel. The procedure was: 1. Export the file with gnumeric (excel-gn.xls) to Excel '95 only 2. Open excel-gn.xls with OO 3. Export excel-gn to excel-oo.xls from OO (Excel '95 only)
Ok, this was painful but I think I've got all the pieces working smoothly now. We can load what we write, as can XL and OO.
Patch will be in 1.2.13.