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There's a lot of misunderstanding
Just seen this so I'm a bit late into the conversation here.
First I've not put myself up as a self-"styled [himself as an] anti-spreadsheet crusader." I absolutely don't resent Excel and never have. I merely insist on balance. I'll say it again - in the wrong hands - Excel is deadly. Your esteemed editor already knows that from some of the war stories. And in the wrong hands includes all accountants who don't have the discipline of documenting code.
Second, programming Excel (and what you do each time you build a spread is programming) is a waste of time unless you've got a template you can re-use time and again.
Third - I am allowed to change my mind and this is one such occasion. When I do, it is for considered reasons which are explained.
Onwards...to the real deal.
I ran into Robert Scoble of Microsoft in Paris earlier in the week. He's Microsoft's public mouthpiece but he's also a critic who gets to say what's wrong at Microsoft on his blog.
I then wrote up the meeting here where I pointed out the reasons for my being excited about wikiCalc but conceding parts of what Scoble had to say.
He provided reasonable answers to the issues I raised - which are summed up along with my reflections on the topics raised.
For reporting purposes - and that's the one I'm interested in, wikiCalc 'could' and I haven't said 'will' make an interesting and attractive potential alternative. Lots of reasons and which will be added to over the coming days.
There's a long way to go on this so don't write wikiCalc off yet - even though I realise Excel keeps you guys in beer and gravy and it must be of interest to attract the number of comments and reads!
And before anyone says - "You can't trust company mouthpieces" - I'd agree if it wasn't for the fact that my BS detector didn't go on high alert when I met Scoble. If anything, I found him an engaging person, in exactly the same way I find both Larry Ellison and Scott MacNeally engaging and honest. Ellison and MacNeally can afford to be that way, Scoble is paid for it.
But I'll leave the best 'til last - Ray Ozzie at Microsoft has said the company needs to get into software as a service. He's also said that includes parts of Office - of which Excel is a component.
Who says then that SaaS players don't have an advantage - especially as the new stuff from Microsoft is at least a year away?
does this help
http://www.ooomacros.org/user.php
towards the bottom of this page there is a text to columns macro link.
demonstrates the point that openoffice is opensource and a development environment!
hi tom
have you considered the text functions? mid left and right allow you to define portions of a text string, and if you want to get sophisticated then find or its equivalent, and length are also useful.
I would agree that this is not as easy as text to columns, but it is at least potentially as much fun as sudoku!
adding to the last post
over the years excel has added lots of functionality in menu items and in new functions, and of course in wizards such as text to columns, autofilters, and pivots. Of course it is possible to derive the more complex stuff from the simple stuff - this kind of reflects the development route it has taken. the challenge with wikicalc is to work out how to do the complex stuff with a much smaller function set, but the question then is why. Wiki adds something that excel does not have, and if you need that then you need wiki. Open office is similar paradigm to excel but different business model, so the choice is simpler, but the benefit of open office is that it is open source software, so you could produce the functionality yourself!
"pays your money and makes your choice"!
John
I don't suppose you know if OpenOffice has an Excel "Text to columns" equivalent, do you?