Excel Clone for Linux Now in Beta 393
Martin Kotulla writes "SoftMaker, a German software developer, has released the first public beta of PlanMaker 2004, a native-Linux spreadsheet that is highly Excel-compatible ... in fact, this app is basically Microsoft Excel ported to Linux, including Excel-compatible charting and even AutoShapes. Here is a chart comparing Excel, OpenOffice.org, and PlanMaker." Update: 05/07 19:07 GMT by M : Softmaker.de is temporarily down; the site can still be reached at softmaker.com.
What surprised me most (Score:4, Informative)
You may say that those features are part of the 80% of features that aren't used, but someone's using them. If those someones aren't able to use those features, OpenOffice is useless for them.
Google cache (Score:5, Informative)
Softmaker [66.102.7.104]
PlanMaker [66.102.7.104]
Re:What surprised me most (Score:4, Informative)
If an independent group created a bunch of hard to read excel files and they compared how many each displayed correctly -- then I'd believe that their support is better. For all I know they went out of their way to find limitations of OO.o and implement those features first so they could make those images.
Re:The wrong path (Score:5, Informative)
When people send me Excel files, I kindly ask them to re-send the file in CSV or some other format. Yes, there are things you can only do in native file format. But the vast majority of users never do those things.
Ah, yes. I can't remember the last time I saw someone use excel to create a chart or calculate something. The fact is that calculation and presentation of data are the two main points of spreadsheets and neither works with CSV files.
mirror of comparison chart (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Forget Gnumeric! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about Gnumeric? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What surprised me most (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, OpenOffice is good for what *most* people do. It certainly does not support everything that everyone uses. Just because it is "good enough" for some it certainly isn't what the rest of us want.
From what I saw in the screenshots only it *looks* good. I won't know until I actually run it. I am a bit leary of running any beta software that I don't have access to the source code.
Running strangely named binaries from
Re:Don't Forget Gnumeric! (Score:5, Informative)
I've used all three (gnumeric, kspread, and OOcalc). I do find that gnumeric is quite good, but not really any better at those data analysis tools than kspread is. Both gnumeric and kspread suffer (TREMENDOUSLY) in the charting arena. Gnumeric doesn't even have a broken rudimentary graphing capability while kspread ties into kchart which is a horrible charting app. OOcalc kicks both their butts on charting, but it doesn't match up to the charting possible from excel.
Of course, excel cannot hold a candle to the charting capabilites of DeltaGraph or CricketGraph (both Mac apps...do they have PC versions?). I have begged the koffice developers to fix the atrocious kcharting app so that it is actually of use (mostly hard-of-hearing ears if not outright deaf ears). I hope against hope that OO will improve its charting capabilities (C'mon! You CANNOT do proper charting if you don't do error bars). Gnumeric doesn't even enter the picture here. Nothing at all in the charting arena so all the nice data analysis done in gnumeric is for naught. There's no way to plot it out, no way to graphically represent it.
Re:Home use only (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Works on other free unixes (at least 1) (Score:3, Informative)
Did Microsoft gave the developers access to the Excel source code?
No, but MSDN lists almost every single function in the app, making cloning Excel just a job of implementing the functions.
Re:Works on other free unixes (at least 1) (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What about Gnumeric? (Score:4, Informative)
Agreed. Like OO.o, it doesn't have 100% coverage of everything in Excel. But I can say that for real world use, rather than contrived examples, it opens every spreadsheet I've tried it with, without problems[1]. It also has the benefit of being literally 10 times faster than oocalc.
[1] I'm talking about recent versions here. If you haven't tried it lately, give post-1.2 releases a shot. It's come a long way...
Weak charting (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
256 columns (Score:3, Informative)
RTFA please..Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project (Score:4, Informative)
I'm part of the public beta program for the Linux versions and am a happy customer using the Linux version of Textmaker.
Also Softmaker are perfectly happy sticking to the English and European markets... they're obviously doing well as they're still in existence after several years.
chart import (Score:3, Informative)
Re:data analysis lacking? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some of those tests are reasonable, many are no (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is usually not files that have only been edited in one version of Excel, but went through different versions and service packs of Excel, OpenOffice, Gnumeric, whatever. Maybe the files are not valid anymore according to the "official" specs, but as long as Excel (and PlanMaker) read them and display them correctly, they _are_ correct for the regular user.
P.S.: I still have that e-mail from you in my box. Sorry for not getting back sooner...
Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re:But what about the Macros? (Score:3, Informative)
Actual VBA macro support is our next step. PlanMaker for Windows and TextMaker for Windows have an OLE object model that is already close to Excel's and Word's, but we have to move that stuff to Linux as well.
Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re:What surprised me most (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks
Re:Another "Will Not Succeed" project (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, if you looked at the very top of the page, you'd notice that Slashdot only linked to the Linux beta page. There's a Windows [softmaker.de] version, plus a PocketPC [softmaker.de] version, and a Handheld PC [softmaker.de] version (whatever "handheld PC" means - I could only pull up the linked page, after that, the site died).
Of course, as to whether or not this will succeed - who knows. There probably is a market for 100% feature-complete Excel clone that runs on multiple platforms. You wouldn't believe how much Excel gets used in the buisness world - I've seen it used as a database before! It gets used a lot as a very powerful and very easy to use data storage and presentation tool. Plus the VBScript macros are very powerful - if a little on the slow side and annoying to write.
I'm currently writing an application in Excel. No, seriously. I'd rather use something else. (Anything else!) But the client wants to add some code to an existing Excel spreadsheet to get some added functionality. VBScript and Windows Forms allows me to do that job with just Excel. Of course, this ties the customer to Excel and Windows - giving them another option in the future that's cheaper than the Microsoft solution could very well gain customers.
Although I tend to agree - I doubt that this will have much effect against Microsoft or any of the other Linux spread sheets.
Re:Still Waiting on Solver (Score:5, Informative)
xls is documented (Score:4, Informative)
It is a persistent untruth that there is no documentation for these vast binary blobs. MS itself published their internal docs as what I assume was filler material in the 'Excel 97 Developers kit' they were not complete, and have been known to contain errors or miss features. However they are a decent starting point. The OOo folk have also done a wonderful job of writing up the format. The vast majority of the work reading xls has nothing to do with deciphering the bits. The real issue is mapping or figuring out the datastructures that the format implies. If you can use an internal representation that mirrors MS XL import/export is trivial. When there is an impedence mismatch
Re:The wrong path (Score:5, Informative)
As a little test, create a new Excel file and on Sheet 2 put the following data:
Now on Sheet1, insert a chart using the data on Sheet2. Now try to save it as "XML SpreadSheet (*.xml)". You will get a warning that all "AutoShapes, other objects and Charts" will be removed. What is the point of this "open" XML format if it cannot save complex spreadsheets? MS will never let their MS Office format go. End of story.Moved to a different site (Score:3, Informative)
Currently, I have moved things to:
Main page [softmaker.com]
PlanMaker for Linux page [softmaker.com]
Comparison page Excel, PlanMaker, OpenOffice.org [softmaker.com]
Let's see how quickly you slashdot those.
You cannot download the beta right now because the Python scripts point to softmaker.de which is currently no way. Just look at the pictures instead.
If someone wants to mirror us, please contact me at info (at) softmaker.de . Please. Pretty please.
Martin Kotulla SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re:The wrong path (Score:3, Informative)
Sure, the format's open now, but what do you do when the company decides to change their file format for the next release of their software?
What this argument fails to realize is that MS can't migrate 100% of its victims to the new format. Far from it.
I don't know about you, but in my part of the world the VAST majority of people is running Office 97 on Win 98.
Are they going to upgrade? Not in your life! A PC here costs serious money, and the most usual configurations couldn't even DREAM on having Win XP installed on them.
So, even the
The old versions of
And the fun part is, OpenOffice is rather good at opening MS Office docs.
Go figure! Soon OO will be the tool of choice for navigating the multiple, more or less incompatible MS formats.
Cheers,
Re:65k row limit (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Row Limit (Score:5, Informative)
As soon as we have optimized some of these routines, the row limit will be raised.
Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
It's commercial software, I need to make payroll every month. If you can get over this fact, the rest is really lenient. Remember Philippe Kahn's "just like a book" license? That's what our license is modeled after -- install on as many machines as you like, but only use as many copies concurrently as you have licenses.
If "free" is what you are after, get ahold of a copy of SUSE Linux 9.1. It ships with TextMaker Free Edition and PlanMaker Free Edition.
Re:bad business plan (Score:3, Informative)
I never complain to anyone about failed business ventures and, besides, Slashdot probably wouldn't accept the story...
Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH