November 21, 2009 - 9:22pm
Downloading Baker's Spreadsheets
I was looking through an older post on sourdough by JMonkey that mentioned a spreadsheet that Floyd developed for downloading. My Firefox browser opened up a small window that indicated it needed Excel for the download. I don't have Excel but I have heard about Open Office and thought that someone here on TFL just might know if this freeware would be able to handle the download and save it in an intelligible manner for me. I have the hard drive space so that problem is resolved but I need to know if that's the answer or should I be looking elsewhere?
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I don't think you'll find anything in Open Office that will handle the Excel based spreadsheet. I understand that there is a Excel template that will work with Open Office but I think it's $150 ... that's a lot of bucks for accessing a Baker's spreadsheet. You shouldn't have any problem using Firefox to download the spreadsheet once you get the Excel software in place. I used Firefox to download the files to my machine without difficulty.
Most Excel spreadsheets work just fine.
When you save the file, it may ask if you want to convert the spreadsheet to Open Office format or keep the Excel format. My advice would be to use "Save as ..," and save a copy in each format.
Let us know if it works for you. Or, if you want, post a link to the spreadsheet in question. I'd be happy to test it for you (and me).
David
You can also open the document in google documents.
TO do it the easy way, create a gmail account. Compose a message to yourself and attach the excel spreadsheet. When you read the "sent"message, near the bottom it will show the attachment and various options for opening. You should be able to see a google docs option.
Open office should be able to do it.
Open Office is an office suite and is available for Windows, OSX (Apple) and those hardy geeks who use Linux. It is free for download at http://www.openoffice.org - it comes in many languages besides English (in case English is not your native language).
I've used Open Office for years. It handles Excel spreadsheets well. It will automatically open an Excel spreadsheet. It has it's own native format but you can also develop a spreadsheet in Open Office and then export it (that is, save it) as an Excel spreadsheet.
Try it, you'll like it.
There are even more options for Excel spreadsheets. I use NeoOffice which is a free OpenOffice port for Mac OS X. You can also create an account at http://www.editgrid.com/ and upload Excel sheets there and use them online.
If you don't have Excel you can't run it on Firefox. It can not open it because there is no Excel available.
If Firefox doesn't know how to handle a link, it will ask you whether you want to download and save, or which application to use. Once you've chosen, it will let you select the option to use your choice as the default action for that type of file.
cheers,
gary
I managed to download Open Office successfully. If you have a dial up connection, look for a copy on disc, otherwise you'll be watching a very slow event since the download size is around 150MB.
It appears that the scalc.exe function opened up the spread sheet enough for me to view what was going on. It's going to take some time for me to learn how to use Open Office before I can judge how effective it will be in this situation. I didn't have any need or time to learn how to use spread sheet application while I was a letter carrier.
Open Office is an inexpensive to be able to do the things that Microsoft Office allows. Unfortunately there are some display formatting issues between the two. You should be able to have a look and get what you want.
If you need help with a specific form, let me know and I'll see if I can help.
Eric
I have a Bakers Pricing Software system that costs $29. You can also check this system out and see if it fits your requirements. http://pturo.com
We consulted with a Swiss baker who compared it to the Swiss Bakers Association System and found it superior. Take a look at it and if you have any questions, please let me know.
Patricia