On Mon, December 20, 2010 5:14 am, Scott Ballantyne wrote:
> Hi John,
>
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I have a situation now where I need to share a spreadsheet between
>> > unix, windows and mac users. They don't need to change it, but they do
>> > need to be able to read it.
>> >
>> > I see several EXCEL compatible choices in the file diagloue, but I
>> > don't know enough to pick the best one. There is this one, which might
>> > be good:
>> >
>> > MS Excel (tm) 97/2000/XP & 5.0/95
>>
>> Firstly, I don't see the connection between your first paragraph and the
>> second. Mac machines run a unix-like OS these days. Gnumeric is
>> available
>> for free on all those platforms. Why consider Excel at all?
>>
>> Secondly, "MS Excel (tm) 97/2000/XP & 5.0/95" means that you get a file
>> that has TWO copies of the spreadsheet data, one in the more modern
>> 97/2000/XP format (introduced in 1997), and the other in the ancient
>> 5.0/95 format. This means that it can be opened and used with any
>> version
>> of Excel from 5.0 upwards. However the older format doesn't support all
>> the features that the 97/2000/XP format supports. The main gotcha is max
>> 16384 rows instead of 65536; another is lack of Unicode support -- you
>> are
>> limited to one legacy "codepage".
>>
>> I would guess that 13 years after Excel 97 was introduced there would be
>> very few users who would need that crutch ... do you have any such
>> users?
>> What features do you need?
>>
>
> Thanks so much for your email. The problem is the Mac users, which is
> exacerbated by my own ignorance of the Mac platform. I am told that
> installing gnumeric on the Mac is not as simple as it is on windows,
> and involves installing X-windows and a lot of other stuff which they
> would need only for gnumeric, and they are very reluctant to do
> that. I can't say I blame them.  If this is wrong, please enlighten me
> --- it would be great to get this on the "Get Gnumeric Now!" page
> also.

Sorry, "Gnumeric on a Mac" is not my territory.

> It would be wonderful if someone would step up to provide a simple Mac
> solution.
>
> So I would like to build the spreadsheets in gnumeric, and have them
> be readable in excel. Andreas Guelzow suggested that the 97/2000/XP &
> 5.0/95 is the best choice since 2007 support is limited. Perhaps just
> the 97/2000/XP would work, certainly no one would need the 5.0/95
> format.
>

In that case, "97/2000/XP" is the best choice.

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