Calc file won't open by double-click

[JuanDeaux]

Ubuntu 11.10 - LibreOffice 3.4.4

Trying to migrate from Office 2007. One Calc file (the only one I am aware of so far), which was created in Excel, will not open in Nautilus by double-click or right-click–>Open with Calc; Calc opens with a blank worksheet (although the .ods file name is displayed in the title bar).

It also will not open in Calc if another spreadsheet file is already open. The only method that seems to work is opening a new instance of Calc–>Open–>Navigate to the file and double-click on it. Once open, everything appears to work as expected.

The original Excel file was saved as .ods on Windows, since that was the only way I could find to retain text in the cell Comments. The spreadsheet contains a macro, which generates a warning when opened.

Unfortunately, this file is related to finances/cashflow, and it is accessed often. Not being able to simply double-click or right-click on the file to open it is a royal pain. Any help will be much appreciated

[mahfiaz]

Does Save As to odt file format work? And if it is still a problem for you, you should update to 12.04

[qubit1]

Hi @JuanDeaux, Did you find an answer to your problem? If not, please let us know so that we may try to assist you further. Thanks!

[Timmi]

I don’t think it’s an ODF/ODT file problem. I have the same problem with it to open excel files. (see my case description below)

[spaetz]

What you could do it to load it into the online ODF file validator to see if it is a valid OpenDocument File or if Excel botched the export.

The validator is at: http://odf-validator.rhcloud.com/.

[Timmi]

I have this same problem in Windows7.
Some of the websites I visit may have an excel table to view. In the download file dialog, you can specify whether to download and save the file, or to open it with an application. I try to open the excel file with LibreCalc.
If I already have a LibreOffice file open (and I usually do, usually have spreadsheets) it will refuse to open the file.
The workaround, is I save the file to disk, go and open libreoffice, and file-open from there.
of course, it drastically increases the amount of steps, from just one, to a whole bunch (navigate to where to save the file to, open the application, open file, browse to find the file, select it, open). It’s very inefficient - when your browser should be able to launch it directly, even if a file is already open.

Here is the error message: “Another instance of LibreOffice is already running. please close other instances of LibreOffice before launching libreoffice portable.”

OK, just so you know, I ONLY have the portable version. No other. What I find ironic in the very error message teling you to close other instances (plural), assumes it is possible to have multiple instances open. (???)

Strangely, if I close all my LibreOffice files, and then try to have an excel file opened directly from a webpage, it workd, and loads one, then another, and another, no problem.

So it seems that LibreOffice gets jealous of some process that may be in control of it, not allowing another to launch an instance of it.

Surely there is a way to fix this on the programming end, or giving us instructions on some settings to change, as other apps can be launched in this way without any problem, when other instances of the app are already open.

[mahfiaz]

Would installing the regular (non-portable) version work?