1. Use the “Save-as” tool in your office suite

I am not sure about all the office suite, but for Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice and LibreOffice, they allow you to save your document as a HTML file. And yes, all your data will be converted to HTML format too.

To do this, you just have to go to “File -> Save as” and select HTML web document from the list. The naming convention might vary for different office suite.

Once you have exported it, you can edit the HTML document or open with a browser to view it.

2. Google Docs

What if you don’t have office suite on your PC and you don’t have permission to install software on your system? Here’s a simple walk-around: use Google Docs (or Google Drive)

1. Upload your spreadsheet document to Google Docs.

2. Go to “File -> Download As” and select “HTML”. It will probably open your current spreadsheet in a new tab, in webpage format. All you have to do is to right click your mouse and select “View Source”. Copy all the source code.

3. Paste the HTML source code to a text editor and save it with a .html extension.

3. Using a web service – Tableizer

If you prefer a more manual method, you can make use of a web service to convert your spreadsheet to HTML document.

1. Go to Tableizer.

2. Copy the data in your spreadsheet document and paste it in the input field. Click “Tableize it”.

That’s it. It will generate the HTML table code as well as a preview of how it looks like on the Web. You can simply copy and paste the HTML code to your Web document.

I have tested Tableizer with several documents and it works well with most of them. For some instances, it has difficulties interpreting a carriage return within cells. Your result may vary.

Note: If you have used Macros or formula in your spreadsheet, they might not translate well in the HTML format.

What other ways do you use to convert your spreadsheet to HTML?

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catdoc (in C)

The first command line tool we are going to talk about is catdoc. The tool is written in C by V.B. Vagner.

1.1 How to install it:

Download the tool from here.  Go to your downloads directory and untar it. You can use the following commands (in case you are facing problem):

gunzip catdoc-0.94.2.tar.gz tar xvf catdoc-0.94.2.tar

Now we have a catdoc-0.94.2 directory. Go inside this directory and run the following commands to install it:

./configure 
make 
make install

The installation is an easy process and you should not face any problem here.

1.2 How to use it:

There are several option to run the command. I’ll tell the options that works best for the Microsoft Excel conversion:

xls2csv -x "Path_of_Your_XLS_File" -s cp1252 -d 8859-1 > "Path_of_Your_CSV_File"

Note the option “-s” and “-d” (stands for source and destination). These options are used to specify which character encoding is used in the source file and what would be the character encoding for the destination file. Here I have used cpl1252 which is Microsoft character encoding and 8859-1 which is used for Western European character encoding. You can use what other options are available by using the help command.

xls2csv --help

1.3 Pros and Cons:

Pros: Straight forward installation

Cons: No selective conversion in multiple sheet scenario, it coverts all the sheets present in the xls file (one workaround would be to explicitly specify a footer in each sheet and then use option -b in the command), problems with few European characters, problem with date fields (the date fields are messed up big times), messes with quotes.

xls2csv (in Perl)

The second tool we are going to talk about is a Perl script xls2csv written by Ken Prows in Perl.

2.1 How to install it:

Download the script here. Gunzip and tar it like we did in previous section and go the extracted directory and use the following commands to install it:

perl Makefile.PL 
make 
make test 
make install

Remember this Perl script uses a number of other Perl modules:

Locale::Recode Unicode::Map Spreadsheet::ParseExcel Text::CSV_XS

While installing xls2csv, it will give error that the mentioned perl modules have not been installed. It will ask you to download the modules. Download and install these modules when asked. All these module installation requires root privileges. If you do not have root access, then you should follow the instruction given here to install a Perl module.

2.2 How to use it:

The following command can be used to convert Microsoft excel to csv:

xls2csv -x "Path_of_Your_XLS_File" -b cp1252 -w WorkSheetName -c "Path_of_Your_CSV_File" -a 8859-1

Option x and c (means xls and csv) are used to specify the input and output files where as b and a (means before and after) are used to specify the respective character encoding. We have use the same character encoding as in previous tool.

2.3 Pros and cons:

Pros: Good with western European character conversion and date fields, supports selective multiple sheet conversion,

Cons: Several Perl modules need to be installed, first cell should not be empty (otherwise it skips the whole row), messes with quotes

There are couple of other ways as well. Some scripts in Python and Java are also available to use but they are not as good as these two discussed here. I hope the article solves your problem. Question and suggestions are always welcomed. Cheers :)

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I am typically use Google Docs for my word processing and spreadsheets, but do on occasion tinker with OpenOffice. I tend to use OpenOffice if I am on my netbook and not connected to the internet. I can use the word processor to write and not be tempted to go on Twitter or use Stumbleupon to find random sites.

At first, I didn’t realize you could use extensions; once I found that out, I was hooked. One of my favorites was covered in a previous post about OpenOffice extensions. It allows you to import, export and update documents you create in OpenOffice with Google Docs and other cloud office apps.

Below are several more extensions to help you tailor this opensource app to the way you use it.

1. MultiCloud File Manager

If you use an cloud storage provider like Amazon S3 or Mobile Me (among others), this is a must have. Access and save your files offsite incase of a hard drive disaster. Here is a link to their quick walk through video http://goo.gl/SV8h.

2. CropOOo

If you use Draw or Impress, you know cropping isn’t always the easiest thing to do. This extension helps cure that dilemma.

3. Compose Special Characters

When using Writer and Calc, you can type a few characters and use a keyboard shortcut to transform normal characters to special characters. This can save you having to look them up or remember the what the unicode value is.

If you already have those values memorized, you can use them with this extension as well.

4. Professional Template Pack II – English

This is a great pack of templates to get you going. It offers event posters, business cards, letters, invoices, projest planning and business correspondences. It is a great starting point to get your document headed in the right direction.

5. History Manager

This extension is not essential, but offers a the convenience of seeing more of your recently used documents. Super handy of you are working on lots of projects simultaneously.

6. Screenwright(R) screenplay formatting template

If you have aspirations of being a screen writer, you will want every advantage you can get. By adding this extension that formats your film script to industry standards, you can concentrate on your work.

7. OpenCards

One way to remember something is through repetition. Using flashcards is a common practice to help memorize things. OpenCards makes it easy to create flashcards as well as rank how you did.

8. Sun PDF Import Extension

Import and modify PDF documents for free, enough said.

9. Web2.0 OpenOffice.org collaboration & document management extension

Collaborating on documents can be a huge time saver. Giving multiple people access to edit a single file not only saves you from having a ton of emails, it also makes it easier to keep track of the most recent version of the document. The community license allows up to 5 users to use this service for free. If you have more collaborators, you will need one of the paid versions.

More info can be found at o3spaces.com

Leave a comment with your “must have” OpenOffice extensions.

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Slowly but surely Google has been adding a feature here and a feature there. Some have been bigger steps than others; all of them are chipping away at the reasons you need to buy an office suite. I’m not going to get on a soapbox and shout to the world. I will however, give you a few nifty tips to make using Google Docs spreadsheets a little easier.

1. Lookup

Much like other spreadsheet programs, Docs can do calculations and formulas. The question to ask is the other programs would be, “Do you have built in Google search?” No? Hmmm…. well anyway, here are a couple handy formulas to enter into the desired cell to utilize Google’s search. Make sure to keep the quotation marks surrounding the terms you are adding.

The values will automatically update as the information changes; imagine the possibilities.

=GoogleLookup(“entity”; “attribute”)

Replace entity with something like Ireland and attribute with population.

=GoogleFinance(“symbol”, “attribute”)

An example for this function would be:  =GoogleFinance(“AAPL”, “Price”) The result would end up being what ever the current stock price is.

=GoogleTranslate(“text”, “source language”,”target language”)

The translation function is really cool. It allows you to translate a word or a few sentences from English to Modern Greek or Chinese to Spanish. The most difficult part is having to use ISO 639-1 country abbreviations.

For easy access check out this list of all the functions available.

2. Google Doc Forms

A Google Docs Form is a very simple way to add a survey to an email or website. The basic idea behind these forms is to gather information and automatically aggregate the results into a spreadsheet. You also have the choice to get an email notification when someone completes the form or add a gadget to your iGoogle page to track all of your surveys.

Creating a form is really straightforward.

1. From the main Google Docs screen, choose New — Form

2. If you don’t like the plain blue and white color scheme, you can pick a new one by clicking Theme.

3. Click apply on the new theme to start editing.

4. From there, simply type in the question, choose the type of question you’d like it to be and if it is required to complete the survey.

5. If you click the Share button, there is an option to email the survey or even get the code to embed it into a web page on your site.

3. List View

List view is a fast loading version of a spreadsheet you can publish or embed to your website. The settings you determine in the Share menu will carry over to the spreadsheet you embed.

One of the coolest parts is the spreadsheet is auto-updating. If, for example, you have stock quotes or dollar amounts from a fundraiser; these will all be updated on the embeded version instantly.

If you are a Google Sites user, you can add a editable version of the spreadsheet onto the page by going to the Insert menu.

List view provides a few basic ways to modify data:

• edit cells
• add rows
• filter and sort data
• cells with formulas can’t be edited in this view

4. From Your Mobile

If you have an Android, iPod touch/iPhone or Nokia S60, you can access and manipulate your Google Doc spreadsheets. I was a little disappointed there isn’t a Blackberry or Windows Mobile access, but I’ll live.

• Create shortcuts to your spreadsheets on your home screen
• Edit cells
• Add data
• Sort columns to give you relevant data first

5. Styling

Even though it isn’t an option in a drop down menu, the forms can be modified. You do have over 70 themes available, but if that isn’t enough for you, here are a few tips to spice them up even more by Gill Smith.

What are your productivity tips for Google spreadsheets and forms?

image credit: TaopaiC

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