DonationCoder.com Forum
Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: erikts on December 17, 2010, 01:09 AM
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I prepared worksheet for a client using Excel 2007. I locked certain cells and protected the sheet using Review|Protect Sheet menu.
For compatibilty, I opened it in OpenOffice.org Calc (version 3.2.0) and found out that it canceled the Excel's sheet protection; all locked cell can be altered.
Is it a bug in Excel or in Calc?
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That's strange. I have the opposite problem. There's a spreadsheet made in Excel that when opened in Calc cannot edit some cells that are editable in Excel.
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That's strange too. Can anyone open the file here (mediafire) (http://www.mediafire.com/?jw4n9wnddw7bxyi) or here (Let's Crate) (http://lts.cr/Brr) in your version of Excel / Calc and confirm the behaviour?
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Protection can be removed in Libreoffice 3.3 RC1. Reason is probably this http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=34865
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There's a distinct possibility the reason Oo doesn't recognize a protected or locked Excel element is because Microsoft has a patent on the method by which the cell is protected. So rather than infringe by recognizing a protected cell, Oo just ignores the read-only status.
BTW - didn't somebody (CA?) actually get issued a patent for a method to write-protect a spreadsheet cell back in 2001 or thereabouts? I seem to remember reading about that and the flap it caused.
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But is it not weird that cell is in full working order though? Can be fixed so easily? How can Open/Libreoffice remove what must be tiptop protection code? Not worth much I guess.
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How can Open/Libreoffice remove what must be tiptop protection code? Not worth much I guess.
-Bamse
In this case, I suspect the "protection" consists of little more than a flag which tells Excel not to put the contents of the cell into the edit window. I don't think it's the same mechanism they use to protect an entire spreadsheet.
Not that MS Office's protection capabilities are all that strong. Or at least they weren't last time I had to help a client crack an Office document a disgruntled employee password-locked just before she quit. 8)