Re: Microsoft Excel spreadsheet editing directly from within emacs.

[Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com>]

Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> writes:

> On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 5:40 PM Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> wrote:
>>
>> * Hongyi Zhao <hongyi.zhao@gmail.com> [2020-12-29 07:55]:
>> > From this point of view, if we want to have both full-features and
>> > powerful capabilities in manipulating spreadsheet, it seems that only
>> > the python based programmatic tools/packages, say, openpyxl
>> > <https://openpyxl.readthedocs.io>, can meet the requirements
>> > currently.
>>
>> What are you requirements?
>
> I use Linux as my working environment exclusively. So, I can't access
> the native MS Office supplied for macOS/Windows. But I sometimes
> really need to manipulate and process MS Office documents, especially
> DOCX and XLSX files. Though there are some free and open source office
> suites, e.g. LibreOffice, but none of them can completely compatible
> with the MS Office.
>
> So, I want to find a way that can be used to programmatically complete
> any possible work done by MS Office word/excel.

Who creates the spreadsheet first?  Is it you or someone else?

If it's you then things can be quite simple.  You can create a
comma-separated or tab-separated file in Emacs or something else.  You
can then import that file into Libreoffice and then save it as a .XLSX
or .XLS file.  You can make a script in Libreoffice to do the import
just the way you want it.

Things are more difficult if you are given a .XLSX or .DOCX file by
someone else.  In that case you have to use Libreoffice or something
like it straight away.  You also have to be very careful was re-saving
the file with changes because Libreoffice has some subtle
incompatabilities with MS Excel and MS Word. 

If you just want to add new sheets to existing spreadsheets that is not
too bad.  The problem is changing values in existing sheets.

BR,
Robert Thorpe