Migrating from MacOS Numbers to LibreOffice Calc

English
#1

I am in the process of migrating from MacOS to Linux. In particular, I have installed Kubuntu 25.10, which comes with LibreOffice. (I’m running Libre Office 25.8.4.2.) Other linux compatible spreadsheets would need to be installed. So Calc is my obvious choice.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any recent information about compatibility with MacOS Numbers. I found posts from 2019 reporting that LibreOffice had a filter that enabled it to open Numbers files, but it was afflicted with enough bugs at that time that if the info had been current, I’d have crossed Calc off my list immediately.

So here are my questions:

IMPORT

  • will my spreadsheets import, complete with multiple spreadsheets in one file, having formulae referencing values from other sheets?
  • failing that, can I get them to import essentially intact by having Numbers export them in Excel format? (They don’t say which generation of excel format they use.)
    USE
  • What can I expect to find unavailable, renamed, or otherwise inconvenient? (Yes, I know that’s hard to answer. I can’t reasonably expect you to know what Numbers can do.)
  • I’m looking at a blank calc spreadsheet now. It looks as if you simply don’t support multiple sheets per file. (At least, I can’t see how to create one.)
    a) is this true
    b) if it is true, can I have a spreadsheet in spreadsheet file foo reference values computed in spreadsheet file bar? (I have long chains of these in several cases.)

I’m coming from MacOS 15.5 (Sequoia), Numbers 13.2. These are a little bit downrev, but only by a year or two.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

#2

Doh.

Calc supports multiple sheets in a single file. I looked in the Insert menu for sheet creation, and didn’t notice the Sheet menu.

That reduces my concerns a lot.

#3

As you are starting with LibreOffice, you might find the Calc Guide and maybe the Getting Started Guide helpful, download from English documentation | LibreOffice Documentation - LibreOffice User Guides
Note that it is possible that some recent new functions added to Calc might not appear in the guide, in that case search in Help
.
The + beside Sheet1 will also add a new sheet

1 Like
#4

Thank you for the links. That should help a lot.

I’m a terrible critter of habit. Numbers has its Sheet1, Sheet2 etc. near the top of the screen, and I somehow failed to look at the bottom. (Same problem I had with knowing (sic) where to look for ‘new sheet’)

#5

I copied some numbers files from the mac to the linux system, and opened one.

So far I’ve found one easy-to-fix problem, one that could generate a lot of work for me, and am puzzled about something else.

  1. Some, but not all cell formatting was lost. A header line that had been 2 lines deep, with text wrapping, had neither when opened in Calc. The issue was obvious and easily fixable.

Oddly, all columns arrived at something fairly closely resembling their original widths. Only the heights of cells/rows, not their widths got messed up.

  1. Sheet 3 contained a lot of formula which used data from sheet 1. Those cells have the expected values, or something similar, but when I select one, I see things like =13 rather than the expected =SUM(cell ref:cell ref) But when I go to sheet 5 of this spreadsheet, and click on a value I know was computed from values within the same sheet, I see the expected =SUM(B2:B7)

This looks to me like off-sheet references from numbers aren’t understood by calc. Worse, it doesn’t show any kind of “please-fix-this-mess” warning for the mis-transferred cells. This isn’t quite a show stopper for me, but it’s sure to cause me a lot of work.

  1. I appear to have a save option, not just a save as, and the file name is displayed with a .numbers extension. Do I need to explicitly convert to .ods? Should I convert to .ods?
#6

Possibly Bug 154764 - LibreOffice opens Apple Numbers documents with formatting but without text in cells

Here is a list of bug reports for iWork files,

You might try exporting as .xlsx from Numbers and then opening the .xlsx in Calc. If the result is better then consider using that method.

In general, where you are editing files, always use the native .odf format otherwise you will get multiple conversions every time you save or open a document.

If you are storing other format documents, you could keep the original in its own format as import filters normally improve over time.

1 Like
#7

Importing via xlsx kept the offsheet formulae, and cell depth and width, but lost different trivial formatting details. The result is usable, though ugly, and should be easier to fix up.

I won’t declare the problem solved until I’ve poked around a bit more, and also imported another of my especially complex spreadsheets. (Most of my spreadsheets are trivial, with few or no formulae. But every once in a while i go crazy.)

With luck, I won’t find any more issues.

Many thanks for your help and encouragement.

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