Re: Microsoft Excel spreadsheet editing directly from within emacs.

[Robert Thorpe]

Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 1:55 AM Robert Thorpe
> <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 5:40 PM Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> * Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> [2020-12-29 07:55]:
>> >> > From this point of view, if we want to have both full-features and
>> >> > powerful capabilities in manipulating spreadsheet, it seems that only
>> >> > the python based programmatic tools/packages, say, openpyxl
>> >> > <https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io>, can meet the requirements
>> >> > currently.
>> >>
>> >> What are you requirements?
>> >
>> > I use Linux as my working environment exclusively. So, I can't access
>> > the native MS Office supplied for macOS/Windows. But I sometimes
>> > really need to manipulate and process MS Office documents, especially
>> > DOCX and XLSX files. Though there are some free and open source office
>> > suites, e.g. LibreOffice, but none of them can completely compatible
>> > with the MS Office.
>> >
>> > So, I want to find a way that can be used to programmatically complete
>> > any possible work done by MS Office word/excel.
>>
>> Who creates the spreadsheet first?  Is it you or someone else?
>
> From/by others, in most instances.
>
>>
>> If it's you then things can be quite simple.  You can create a
>> comma-separated or tab-separated file in Emacs or something else.
>
> Do you mean export the org table with CSV/TSV formats? I noticed that the
> default orgmode table column separator is |.

I was thinking of editing using csv-mode, not using orgmode table.  But
if you have well behaved data it's not hard to change the separate with
a search-and-replace.  You've got to watch out for corner cases though
like commas being used in text.

>> You can then import that file into Libreoffice and then save it as a .XLSX
>> or .XLS file.  You can make a script in Libreoffice to do the import
>> just the way you want it.
>
> Sounds wonderful. Is there such an example script?

Last time I did this a few years ago at work.  I don't have the code
anymore.

You can find a few things like that at the Libreoffice extensions site
though https://extensions.libreoffice.org/ .

>> Things are more difficult if you are given a .XLSX or .DOCX file by
>> someone else.  In that case you have to use Libreoffice or something
>> like it straight away.  You also have to be very careful was re-saving
>> the file with changes because Libreoffice has some subtle
>> incompatabilities with MS Excel and MS Word.
>>
>> If you just want to add new sheets to existing spreadsheets that is not
>> too bad.  The problem is changing values in existing sheets.
>
> You're absolutely right.

BR,
Robert Thorpe