Re: Oddly enough that's not Microsoft Office's format
I, or rather, a client of mine had an odd experience with Excel some while ago. They maintain a daily Foreign Exchange spreadsheet which is emailed to all staff. Very simple structure - nothing odd about it at all. One day the calculations weren't working properly, I was called out, given a demonstration of the problem - in simplistic terms Excel was emphatic that 1+1=3. Scratching my head I tried a few things (e.g., the long forgotten Recalculate function, and taking into consideration the rows/columns recalculate order), but the problem persisted.
It was then that I noticed that the user had inadvertently saved the spreadsheet in one of the non-proprietary formats on the Save As.. list, rather than XLS* format. Going back to Excel format solved the problem, but this experience made me think that Microsoft are not participating in a level playing field here.
My thought is that they are concentrating on their own formats for testing and paying mere lip service to so-called Open Document formats. It calls into question the methodology MS use to develop applications with: it's almost as if they have an IF file_format='xls' then do_this ELSE do_that in their programs, which for me is a Big Red Flag.
Has anyone else encountered similar anomalies with MS applications?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
