Thanks Don! This is quite nice -- and well documented! -----Original Message----- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Don Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 9:15 PM To: 'U2 Users List' Subject: Re: [U2] Building an Excel File [AD-FREE]
[AD] Completely free http://www.southeast-florida.com/ud/UD2EXCEL_CREATE_V2.zip Contains: - Perl Script to create XLS binary (97-2003) - Unidata Programs including a demo program - Limited Documentation Some features - Headers - Columns Headings - Sorting - SubTotaling and Outlining - Justification (Left / Right / Center) - Footers [/AD] This was written by me about 7 years. It's free, so please keep your comments about the horrible code to yourself. =) Additional Software need: PERL 5.8+ - PPM Module Spreadsheet::Write 2.20+ - PPM Module GetOpt::Long 2.3.7+ I will gladly answer questions offline at u2-usersrem...@thissoutheast-florida.com. Regards, Don Verhagen -----Original Message----- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Tony Gravagno Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 10:15 PM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] Building an Excel File Wil, while the OP asked about reading Excel on an iPhone, the title of the thread is "Building an Excel File". That prompted suggestions for how to create "Excel", including "use CSV". Yes, all spreadsheet clients including Excel will open a CSV file. But that led to my assertion that "CSV is not Excel" and that "CSV is not acceptable when people want Excel", though that is a common belief amongst MV developers because most end-users will just take what you give them ... and then they'll quietly start looking for people who will give them what they really want, Excel. This is a digression that you are welcome not to follow. About your statements - I'm intimately familiar with internals of Excel (Office in general), XML, CSV, and related document standards, and I have no idea what kind of middleware you're talking about below. CSV has no information about formatting, it's pure data. It's therefore impossible for any utility to do anything but autosize the columns, and that's trivial. As I said above, if all you're doing is opening the file, sure, that should work, but the result is hardly "Excel" outside of being text in columns and rows. You can't just simply 'change the "Excel" files into csv files'. Your statement doesn't survive the first attempt. Excel will warn you that it's going to lose detail if you do that. Again, CSV is not Excel. It doesn't provide borders, colors, images, cell references, merged cells, fonts, type styles, multiple sheets, named sheets, named ranges, file properties, page formatting, print pagination, fixed col/row settings, custom col/row sizes, or data typing. And while you can provide formulas in CSV, you'll lose them if you save Excel as CSV. [AD] And _that_ is the reason I created NebulaXLite, to allow programmers to do all of that from BASIC, on any OS, any DBMS, and with no underlying libraries. It's real workbooks for Excel, Open Office, and Google docs - when everyone else is ready to provide a delimited text file. T > From: Wjhonson > I think somewhere this jumped the track. No one is saying that CSV is > Excel Rather the OP wanted a way to read an "Excel" file on the > Iphone. Can the Iphone natively read Excel files? > > I know that it can natively read csv files, because we're doing it. It > puts the csv file into a neat table with a border, with columns and > rows all autosized and pretty with no effort whatsoever. > > So the solution could be simply to change the "Excel" > files into csv files and voila you have no problem anymore for the > Iphone. > > This doesn't address the issue of whether existing Excel files, or > Excel files you receive from others can be handled. > > It only addresses the issue of reading "Tables" (of some kind) on the > Iphone. _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
