Gilberto
Can’t get back into Microsoft to change it to .ods
I can’t create hyperlinks into Calc, do you know any good videos. I’ve tried 5 or 6 without any luck
Nick
[Edit] In Calc, simply use the Menu File → Save As. Keep the same file name (so it will be easy for you to recognize), but let Calc supply its own file extension (.ods). Click OK.
You don’t need a hyperlink and I doubt very much that you can use Microsoft to change it to .ods.
I think the OP means that he no longer has MS Office, so he can’t go back and save as ODS from MS Excel, or possibly because his Excel is too old of a version to have ODS save option. I would recommend taking the original MS XLS spreadsheet somewhere a friend has 365. Load it and save it again as ODS from 365 (that is, from modern Excel). Then load that ODS in LibreOffice Calc and try it out.
Ah, if that is what the OP meant, I had missed it. Thanks for pointing that out. And your suggestion to save the file as .ods from a modern version of Excel is a good one.
It would be nice to hear from OP again, to clarify the situation.
Hmm.
Do you have a positive experience saving to ODF from MS Office products? Usually the interoperability is better, if import/export is done from LibreOffice, because we put great amount of work into the interoperability, while MS doesn’t improve it significantly over the years.
What I would ask is if @cheesypt tried to use another version of LibreOffice.
@mikekaganski – You are probably right. It would be better to do the conversion of the original .xls file to .ods while in LibreOffice.
@cheesypt – Have you tried the suggestions above? What has worked for you, and has your original problem been solved?
Not sure who I’m addressing here, but thanks to all for help. Msoft sheet worked [slowly] but they suddenly blocked me, asking for ancient product numbers. As I told Gilberto, I think I’ve lost 20 years work completely. I stripped all background colours & all hyperlinks, but it still freezes constantly - having to recover it every session
Why? Don’t you have a backup-copy of your original .xls-file (before you “transferred” it)? If you have you can start over with a fresh copy of this file anytime you like. And for files I used 20 years I suggest more than one backup…
Wanderer, hi
Got the .xls file; the problem was loading from Libre, after I was kicked out of Msoft. My guess is that Gilberto is right - the file’s too big
How big is it?? (In megabytes or some similar unit.)
Can you open LibreOffice OK from the start menu?
Do other spreadsheets crash or not load?
If they crash or not load, do they open and work OK in LibreOffice safe mode, Start Menu - LibreOffice - LibreOffice (safe mode) - continue in safe mode?
Does this problematic spreadsheet open OK in safe mode? If it does, then two likely candidates for changing might be Skia or OpenCL.
At what stage in the above do the problems occur?
ve3oat - Hi
.xls is 4,510 KB, the stripped-down .ods is 4,139 KB
EarnestAI - Hi
Loaded in 10 seconds in Safe Mode! Made a single tiny change, & the save operation took 20 minutes!
Sometimes Excel “features” unsupported in Calc seem to be better handled by Excel export than by Calc import. No harm in trying the alternate path. Either way, something may be lost.
One class of cases where the save to ods from Excel has a better track record in my book is when Excel “database ranges” with named “field references” are in use. Excel translates this to proper grid coordinates upon export, while Calc gives an error upon xlsx import. (It’s been a while since I last came across this, so things may of course have changed.)
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I would be inclined to open LibreOffice normally, without opening a file, click Tools > Options >LibreOffice > View and tick the box Force Skia software rendering and OK.
After that, see if opening the file is still OK. Then do a Save As [anothername].ods. After that is opening and saving the .ods file quicker?
Thanks again for the suggestion. However . .
14 seconds to load, but 8 minutes to save!
Can’t get any of the c.1,200 hyperlinks to work - is that maybe causing the problem?
In my own experience, file sizes like this will cause some slowness, but load and save times should be similar to each other. I don’t think that size alone is the problem; there is some other cause at work in this case, although possibly magnified by the file size.
Let’s start with a likely explanation, in Excel if you click on a cell with a link you immediately follow the link, In Calc you need to Ctrl+Click. There is usually a tooltip to say this but if the spreadsheet is slow then you might not see it. You can change the behaviour of Calc, click Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Security and in the part headed Security Options and Warnings, click the Options button. In the dialogue box that opens untick the box Ctrl-click required to open hyperlinks
The spreadsheet slowness is the main issue. With 1200 hyperlinks, I wonder if the data isn’t better suited to a database.
Do you have any Database Ranges defined? Click Data > Define range and check that you haven’t selected to the the end of the sheet as this can cause severe slowness. Edit the ranges to reduce them to an expected extent.
You can see the description of the slowness issue in LibreOffice Calc (not responding) in Title Bar for several seconds after an unremarkable edit. If you do try opening the sample there you will see a similar delay on opening as in your description. Don’t try editing any of the cells in row 16, just redefine the range (Data > Define range) to something like $Sheet1.$A$16:$Z$16 (or even to AMJ, the older width limit) from $Sheet1.$A$16:$XFD$16 and save. Close and reopen that file and it will be instant instead of 10 or so seconds.
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I experience the same in a type of sheet, where i modify an entry set of data over 5 sheets of same size to create my result. As some formulas have VLOOKUPS or similiar functions to columns of size 2000 to 4000 rows. a tiny change in a referenced row needs a lot of columns to update. This can be seen at changing sheets directly after edit and obviously on (first) save. However subsequent saves are quicker.
.
On thing to consider: Referencing the whole column like A:A is widespread in Excel, but a decent range (2500 and 4000 in my case) is maybe quicker.
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Bur as we know noting about your contents this is more or less idle talk…
EarnestAI - hello again
Spent all day chopping my life’s work in two, reducing the save time
to about 6 mins, which I could tolerate - just!
Hyperlinks - you’re probably right about databasing 1200 links.
Ctrl-click produces the curious error message " cannot be passed to an
external application to open it (e.g., it might not be an absolute
URL, or might denote no existing file). My picture files are in the
same folder as my .ods stuff; they are Faststone .jpgs, nothing
special. I DON’T understand the “Target in Document” box, so ignore
it!
Ranges - I learnt on Excel to minimize these, where it can cause similar havoc.
Thanks once more