Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Jennifer E Jobst]

I believe you can save or export Excel files as CSV (comma separated value)
files. This dumps to a flat text file where each value in a row is
separated by a comma, and rows are separated by carriage returns (e.g. each
row starts on a new line).

Of course, you have to get someone with Excel to save the file in CSV
format in the first place, which may be more trouble than it's worth. :(

Best of luck!

-j

Jennifer E. Jobst
Linux Information Development
IBM Linux Technology Services
(512) 838-8298, T/L 678-8298



                                                                                                                        
                    Gil Andre                                                                                           
                    <gandre@arkeia.com       To:     blinux-list@redhat.com                                             
                    >                        cc:                                                                        
                    Sent by:                 Subject:     Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux                       
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                    01/10/2002 11:51                                                                                    
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                    Please respond to                                                                                   
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This is the GNU solution you probably want.

http://www.xlhtml.org/

This utility converts Excel files into HTML file.

If you chain utilities, you should be able to convert Excel
files to HTML then to ASCII or some other format. Or you
could open it under lynx or some other apps.

Hope this helps!

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:35:19 -0600
"Martin G. McCormick" <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> wrote:

>          Is there any non graphical utility in Linux or UNIX that
> will read Excel documents?  I run up against one of these about
> twice a year or so on a very irregular basis.  It is possible to
> use the strings utility on the binary and at least tell what it
> is about, but it totally destroys any formatting and only serves
> to satisfy my curiosity as to what words, etc were in there.
> It's a really dirty way to access it so I am asking if there is
> anything better or if anybody who can tell me about it knows the
> format of an Excel document.  If I need to write such a utility,
> I would love to make it freely available so others can use it so
> I don't want to go the non disclosure route at all.
>
> Martin McCormick


/----------------------------------------------------\
| Gil Andre -- Technical Writer -- gandre@arkeia.com |
|        Knox Software: http://www.arkeia.com        |
|A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.|
\----------------------------------------------------/



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Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

Jennifer:

I'm quite new to using xl2html, but I believe it also supports this kind 
of export.
Very handy for those of us without Windows machines at hand (and no desire 
to go there, either).


On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Jennifer E Jobst wrote:

> I believe you can save or export Excel files as CSV (comma separated value)
> files. This dumps to a flat text file where each value in a row is
> separated by a comma, and rows are separated by carriage returns (e.g. each
> row starts on a new line).
> 
> Of course, you have to get someone with Excel to save the file in CSV
> format in the first place, which may be more trouble than it's worth. :(
> 
> Best of luck!
> 
> -j
> 
> Jennifer E. Jobst
> Linux Information Development
> IBM Linux Technology Services
> (512) 838-8298, T/L 678-8298
> 
> 
> 
>                                                                                                                         
>                     Gil Andre                                                                                           
>                     <gandre@arkeia.com       To:     blinux-list@redhat.com                                             
>                     >                        cc:                                                                        
>                     Sent by:                 Subject:     Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux                       
>                     blinux-list-admin@                                                                                  
>                     redhat.com                                                                                          
>                                                                                                                         
>                                                                                                                         
>                     01/10/2002 11:51                                                                                    
>                     AM                                                                                                  
>                     Please respond to                                                                                   
>                     blinux-list                                                                                         
>                                                                                                                         
>                                                                                                                         
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the GNU solution you probably want.
> 
> http://www.xlhtml.org/
> 
> This utility converts Excel files into HTML file.
> 
> If you chain utilities, you should be able to convert Excel
> files to HTML then to ASCII or some other format. Or you
> could open it under lynx or some other apps.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:35:19 -0600
> "Martin G. McCormick" <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> wrote:
> 
> >          Is there any non graphical utility in Linux or UNIX that
> > will read Excel documents?  I run up against one of these about
> > twice a year or so on a very irregular basis.  It is possible to
> > use the strings utility on the binary and at least tell what it
> > is about, but it totally destroys any formatting and only serves
> > to satisfy my curiosity as to what words, etc were in there.
> > It's a really dirty way to access it so I am asking if there is
> > anything better or if anybody who can tell me about it knows the
> > format of an Excel document.  If I need to write such a utility,
> > I would love to make it freely available so others can use it so
> > I don't want to go the non disclosure route at all.
> >
> > Martin McCormick
> 
> 
> /----------------------------------------------------\
> | Gil Andre -- Technical Writer -- gandre@arkeia.com |
> |        Knox Software: http://www.arkeia.com        |
> |A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.|
> \----------------------------------------------------/
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
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> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by Janina Sajka on January 10, 2002, at 16:25]

>I'm quite new to using xl2html, but I believe it also supports this kind
>of export.

If you can get the spreadsheet in comma-separated-values format, then you can
load it into sc, which is a braille and speech friendly spreadsheet program.
I worked with the guy who maintains sc to get it to work nicely for us blind
people, and he was very accommodating. If the latest you can find is sc-7.13,
then this patch isn't officially released yet. If this is the case, then, since
I have it, I'll send it to whomever wants it.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | Word of God. Please contact me
EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | if you're concerned about Hell.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

Ah, thank you Dave. I'd forgotten about sc, and it's not the easiest 
freshmeat search, since all kinds of words have 'sc' in them! <grin>

I'd be delighted for a copy of the latest and greatest. Thanks.



On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Dave Mielke wrote:

> [quoted lines by Janina Sajka on January 10, 2002, at 16:25]
> 
> >I'm quite new to using xl2html, but I believe it also supports this kind
> >of export.
> 
> If you can get the spreadsheet in comma-separated-values format, then you can
> load it into sc, which is a braille and speech friendly spreadsheet program.
> I worked with the guy who maintains sc to get it to work nicely for us blind
> people, and he was very accommodating. If the latest you can find is sc-7.13,
> then this patch isn't officially released yet. If this is the case, then, since
> I have it, I'll send it to whomever wants it.
> 
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by Janina Sajka on January 10, 2002, at 16:44]

>I'd be delighted for a copy of the latest and greatest.

The latest sc is 7.15, which does contain the patch to make it easier to use
for blind people. It can be found at:

    ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/apps/financial/spreadsheet

Create the file .scrc in your home directory, and add to it the one line:

    set braille

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | Word of God. Please contact me
EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | if you're concerned about Hell.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

Thanks very much.


On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Dave Mielke wrote:

> [quoted lines by Janina Sajka on January 10, 2002, at 16:44]
> 
> >I'd be delighted for a copy of the latest and greatest.
> 
> The latest sc is 7.15, which does contain the patch to make it easier to use
> for blind people. It can be found at:
> 
>     ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/apps/financial/spreadsheet
> 
> Create the file .scrc in your home directory, and add to it the one line:
> 
>     set braille
> 
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Angelo Sonnesso]

I would love a copy.
Thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@afb.net>
To: <blinux-list@redhat.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux


> Ah, thank you Dave. I'd forgotten about sc, and it's not the easiest
> freshmeat search, since all kinds of words have 'sc' in them! <grin>
>
> I'd be delighted for a copy of the latest and greatest. Thanks.
>
>
>
> On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Dave Mielke wrote:
>
> > [quoted lines by Janina Sajka on January 10, 2002, at 16:25]
> >
> > >I'm quite new to using xl2html, but I believe it also supports this
kind
> > >of export.
> >
> > If you can get the spreadsheet in comma-separated-values format, then
you can
> > load it into sc, which is a braille and speech friendly spreadsheet
program.
> > I worked with the guy who maintains sc to get it to work nicely for us
blind
> > people, and he was very accommodating. If the latest you can find is
sc-7.13,
> > then this patch isn't officially released yet. If this is the case,
then, since
> > I have it, I'll send it to whomever wants it.
> >
> >
>
> --
>
> Janina Sajka, Director
> Technology Research and Development
> Governmental Relations Group
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
> Email: janina@afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
> Chair, Accessibility SIG
> Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> http://www.openebook.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Martin G. McCormick]

	I got it and it works!  I installed it with not so much
as a whimper on a Freebsd system and also on a Debian Linux
system.  There are a number of options in running it and I have
not done much other than verify that it took a .xls binary and
produced a perfectly good html document that lynx read with no
trouble.

	My thanks to Gil and to others who have responded.  If I
had to edit and handle Excel documents every day, I would
probably have to use a JAWS work station, but right now, these
things show up just often enough to be annoying.  I am sure glad
to be able to read them now and I will have to play with the
options to see what all I can do.

Martin

Gil Andre writes:
>
>This is the GNU solution you probably want.
>
>http://www.xlhtml.org/

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[John J. Boyer]

Hello,
Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?
John


-- 
Computers to Help People, Inc.
http://www.chpi.org
825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Henry Yen]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 05:13:44AM -0600, John J. Boyer wrote:
> Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?

antiword (on freshmeat.net) converts word to text.

-- 
Henry Yen                                       Aegis Information Systems, Inc.
Senior Systems Programmer                       Hicksville, New York

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by John J. Boyer on January 10, 2002, at 17:13]

>Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?

mswordview

And while we're on the topic, there's also pptHtml.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | Word of God. Please contact me
EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | if you're concerned about Hell.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[John J. Boyer]

Dave,
These sound good, but where do I download them?
Thanks.
John
On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Dave
Mielke wrote:

> [quoted lines by John J. Boyer on January 10, 2002, at 17:13]
>
> >Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?
>
> mswordview
>
> And while we're on the topic, there's also pptHtml.
>
>

-- 
Computers to Help People, Inc.
http://www.chpi.org
825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by John J. Boyer on January 10, 2002, at 18:22]

>These sound good, but where do I download them?

I never remember such things. Knowing their names, I just go to google and look
them up. It's kind of like when I was in university and unable to take notes
(aren't the blind people of today, with notetakers and all, rather spoiled?). I
learned very quickly that I didn't need to remember all of the details, as long
as I remembered the underlying principles and knew how to derive any needed
detail.

-- 
Dave Mielke           | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario   | Word of God. Please contact me
EMail: dave@mielke.cc | Canada  K2A 1H7   | if you're concerned about Hell.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Dave Mielke wrote:

> [quoted lines by John J. Boyer on January 10, 2002, at 17:13]
> 
> >Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?
> 
> mswordview


Now know as wv, ostensibly because of pressure from those folks in the 
Northwest U.S.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Gil Andre]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 17:13:44 -0600 (CST)
"John J. Boyer" <director@chpi.org> wrote:

> Hello,
> Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?
> John

On my Mandrake machine, there is wvHtml. 

Official site is: http://www.wvware.com/

They have converters that can take a Word file and fubar
it into most Un*x format: PostScript, LateX, plain text,
you name it.

Very good stuff.


/----------------------------------------------------\
| Gil Andre -- Technical Writer -- gandre@arkeia.com |
|        Knox Software: http://www.arkeia.com        |
|A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.|
\----------------------------------------------------/

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, John J. Boyer wrote:

> Hello,
> Now how about a Word to html converter for Linux?
> John

Try http://www.wvware.org

> 
> 
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Jude DaShiell]

Let's see, Dave Raggett wrote tidy-gui available for several platforms and
it is capable of cleaning up the html word generates so that it conforms
to w3c standards.  After that I've heard of people using abbyword and
antiword to get text out of word documents.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Charles McCathieNevile]

Also K-office and openoffice/staroffice

chaals

On Sun, 31 Mar 2002, Jude DaShiell wrote:

  Let's see, Dave Raggett wrote tidy-gui available for several platforms and
  it is capable of cleaning up the html word generates so that it conforms
  to w3c standards.  After that I've heard of people using abbyword and
  antiword to get text out of word documents.




  _______________________________________________
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-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI  fax: +33 4 92 38 78 22
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Martin G. McCormick]

	Is there any non graphical utility in Linux or UNIX that
will read Excel documents?  I run up against one of these about
twice a year or so on a very irregular basis.  It is possible to
use the strings utility on the binary and at least tell what it
is about, but it totally destroys any formatting and only serves
to satisfy my curiosity as to what words, etc were in there.
It's a really dirty way to access it so I am asking if there is
anything better or if anybody who can tell me about it knows the
format of an Excel document.  If I need to write such a utility,
I would love to make it freely available so others can use it so
I don't want to go the non disclosure route at all.

Martin McCormick

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Gil Andre]

This is the GNU solution you probably want.

http://www.xlhtml.org/

This utility converts Excel files into HTML file.

If you chain utilities, you should be able to convert Excel
files to HTML then to ASCII or some other format. Or you
could open it under lynx or some other apps.

Hope this helps!

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:35:19 -0600
"Martin G. McCormick" <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu> wrote:

> 	Is there any non graphical utility in Linux or UNIX that
> will read Excel documents?  I run up against one of these about
> twice a year or so on a very irregular basis.  It is possible to
> use the strings utility on the binary and at least tell what it
> is about, but it totally destroys any formatting and only serves
> to satisfy my curiosity as to what words, etc were in there.
> It's a really dirty way to access it so I am asking if there is
> anything better or if anybody who can tell me about it knows the
> format of an Excel document.  If I need to write such a utility,
> I would love to make it freely available so others can use it so
> I don't want to go the non disclosure route at all.
> 
> Martin McCormick


/----------------------------------------------------\
| Gil Andre -- Technical Writer -- gandre@arkeia.com |
|        Knox Software: http://www.arkeia.com        |
|A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.|
\----------------------------------------------------/

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Janina Sajka]

I'm using xl2html available at:

http://www.xlhtml.org

It is possible to output to text from this application as well.

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Martin G. McCormick wrote:

> 	Is there any non graphical utility in Linux or UNIX that
> will read Excel documents?  I run up against one of these about
> twice a year or so on a very irregular basis.  It is possible to
> use the strings utility on the binary and at least tell what it
> is about, but it totally destroys any formatting and only serves
> to satisfy my curiosity as to what words, etc were in there.
> It's a really dirty way to access it so I am asking if there is
> anything better or if anybody who can tell me about it knows the
> format of an Excel document.  If I need to write such a utility,
> I would love to make it freely available so others can use it so
> I don't want to go the non disclosure route at all.
> 
> Martin McCormick
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Jude DaShiell]

Martin, gnumeric can import excel workbooks and handle them.  The problem
is, gnumeric is a gnome application.  Now, if it's possible to design jobs
for gnome and gnumeric which can be started outside of x and then have a
script do the startx command and pass the job along to gnumeric this
though it would be a difficult situation wouldn't be an impossible one.

Re: Reading Excel Documents under Linux

[Georgina]

Hi

Or you could do a apt-get install xlhtml, if your using Debian or use your 
favourite search engin for xlhtml.

Gena



>Martin, gnumeric can import excel workbooks and handle them.  The problem
>is, gnumeric is a gnome application.  Now, if it's possible to design jobs
>for gnome and gnumeric which can be started outside of x and then have a
>script do the startx command and pass the job along to gnumeric this
>though it would be a difficult situation wouldn't be an impossible one.
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list