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| <title>XMerge Pocket Word Plugin</title> |
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| <h1>XMerge Pocket Excel Plugin</h1> |
| <br> |
| <h2>Overview</h2> |
| The Pocket Excel plugin converts between OpenOffice StarCalc XML format |
| and Pocket Excel's binary file format. It currently supports |
| reading and writing of files in Pocket Excel format 2.0. A <a |
| href="http://xml.openoffice.org/xmerge/xmerge_src.zip">zipfile</a> |
| containing the complete source is available. If you just want to browse |
| the source online it is available <a |
| href="http://xml.openoffice.org/source/browse/xml/xmerge/java/org/openoffice/xmerge/converter/xml/sxc/pexcel/"> |
| here.</a><br> |
| <br> |
| <h2>Using the Pocket Excel plugin</h2> |
| <br> |
| The Pocket Excel plugin is invoked in the same manner as all other |
| XMerge plugins. Once the framework has been made aware of the |
| plugin, the only thing needed to use it is to specify its MIME type |
| as a source or destination type for conversion. The MIME type |
| is specified in the <code>converter.xml</code> file included in the<code> |
| pexcel.jar</code> file. Currently, this is set to <code>application/x-pocket-excel</code> |
| .<br> |
| <br> |
| For example, to use the Pocket Excel plugin in conjunction with the |
| test driver supplied with the XMerge framework:<br> |
| <br> |
| <blockquote> |
| <pre>% java org.openoffice.xmerge.test.Driver -from staroffice/sxc -to x-application/x-pocket-excel Test.sxc<br><br>% java.org.openoffice.xmerge.test.Driver -from application/x-pocket-excel -to staroffice/sxc Test.pxl<br></pre> |
| </blockquote> |
| <div align="left"><br> |
| <h2>Features</h2> |
| In addition to basic text and number conversion there are two main |
| categories of features supported in this converter. Below is a simple |
| table outlining the two categories and the features they support.<br> |
| <br> |
| <pre style="font-style: italic;">Summary of Supported Features</pre> |
| <span style="font-style: italic;"></span> |
| <table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#f0f0f0" width="50%"> |
| <tbody> |
| <tr align="center"> |
| <th bgcolor="#00315a"><font color="#ffffff" |
| face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2"><b>Category</b></font></th> |
| <th bgcolor="#00315a"><font color="#ffffff" |
| face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2"><b>Features Supported<br> |
| </b></font></th> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" bgcolor="#99ccff" align="center"><font |
| color="#00315a" face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2"><b>Formula</b></font> </td> |
| <td valign="top" bgcolor="#99ccff"><br> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Cell |
| References<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Add/Sub/Multiply/Divide<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Integers |
| + Floating Points<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Functions<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Name |
| Definitions<br> |
| </font></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" bgcolor="#99ccff" align="center"><font |
| color="#00315a" face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2"><b>Formatting</b></font> </td> |
| <td valign="top" bgcolor="#99ccff"><br> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Font<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Bold, |
| Italic, Underline</font></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Colour<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top"><br> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Alignment |
| (Horizontal & Vertical)<br> |
| </font> </td> |
| </tr> |
| </tbody> |
| </table> |
| <div style="text-align: left;"> |
| <pre><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></pre> |
| </div> |
| The first is formula features. In Pocket Excel like most other |
| spreadsheet applications any cell that starts with an "=" is considered |
| to be a formula. This formula is made up of operands and operators. In |
| addition to simple operators (such as addition, |
| subtraction,multiplication and division) this converter also supports |
| the 140 function operators available in pocket excel. StarCalc has of |
| course many more functions than this but in the case where a sxc |
| document has functions not supported in pocket excel the cell containing |
| them is converted to an error cell in the pocket excel document. |
| Operand support includes numbers, cell references (absolute, relative, |
| 3D and cell ranges) and name definitions.<br> |
| <br> |
| The second set of features supported in this converter relate to cell |
| formatting. All the basic formatting is supported in this converter. The |
| following is a list of these features<br> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Bold, Italic and Underline,</li> |
| <li>Colour (background and foreground)</li> |
| <li>Alignment (Horizontal & Vertical)</li> |
| <li>Font</li> |
| <li>Row and Column Width</li> |
| <li>Borders</li> |
| <li>Windows freezes and Splits</li> |
| </ul> |
| <br> |
| <h2>ScreenShots</h2> |
| Below are some screenshots to highlight the conversion capability of |
| this filter. <br> |
| <br> |
| <pre style="font-style: italic;">StarCalc view of a spreadsheet</pre> |
| <img style="width: 861px; height: 442px;" alt="" title="" |
| src="images/formula_sxc.jpg"><br> |
| <br> |
| <br> |
| <pre style="font-style: italic;">Pocket Excel view of the converted file</pre> |
| <div align="center"> |
| <div align="left"> <img src="images/formula_pxl.jpg" title="" alt="" |
| style="width: 352px; height: 496px;"><br> |
| </div> |
| <div align="left"> |
| <h2><a name="To_Do"></a>To Do</h2> |
| I would divide this ToDo list into two categories. The first would be |
| features which are already support but could be done better. These I |
| think should include.<br> |
| <br> |
| <ul> |
| <li> Handling of unsupported functions</li> |
| </ul> |
| <br> |
| The second area are features that are not yet implemented<br> |
| <br> |
| <ul> |
| <li> Number Formatting</li> |
| <li>Merge cells<br> |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| <ul> |
| </ul> |
| <h2>Building the plugin</h2> |
| The Pocket Excel plugin is built as part of the XMerge framework. |
| Its classes are stored in <code>pexcel.jar</code>. See <a |
| href="../index.html#build"> Building XMerge</a> for more instructions.<br> |
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