[Info-vax] WEENDOZE question

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 02/06/2018 08:44 PM, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article <fdugjiFi38kU1 at mid.individual.net>, Bill Gunshannon <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> writes:
>> On 02/06/2018 02:11 PM, VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> That said, Excel got it wrong.  The spreadsheets I write out display
>>> properly with Numbers, LibreOffice, Gnumeric and even an app called
>>> Shheets on my Android tablet.  So, please tell me again. why should I
>>> use WEENDOZE?
>>>
>>
>> Was your job to write out an Excel Spreadsheet or a
>> Numbers|LibreOffice|Gnumeric|Shheets Spreadsheet?
>> You originally said "an Excel Spreadsheet".  The
>> customer is a Windows customer so we can assume they
>> wanted an Excel Spreadsheet.  If the spreadsheet
>> you created doesn't work with Excel how is it that
>> Excel got it wrong?
> 
> http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/c071691_ISO_IEC_29500-1_2016.zip#en
> 
> Download it and read it.  Then, unzip an Excel .XLSX and look at its contents.

Wait, was the job requirement to provide a spreadsheet meeting some
ISO standard or an Excel Spreadsheet.  You said an Excel Spreadsheet.

> 
> I given the customer code to produce Postscript and PDF from VMS.  Since those
> are not Micro$oft formats, I suppose those should never ever be used either?
> It is the same war and struggle people have with web pages.  I've had to deal
> with that too over the years.  I'd verify pages with various web browsers to
> insure that pages displayed. M$IE was, invariably, the PITA.  Chrome seems to
> be the premier browser today.  According to your logic, I should be authoring
> web pages to appease M$IE

Only if that is what you are paid to do.

> 
> Excel is one "browser" in this case, the spreadsheets are produced according
> with the aforementioned standards doc.  The intended recipients of the spread-
> sheets the customer emails may be using Excel or they may be using some other
> spreadsheet "browser".  Essentially, these spreadsheets are invoices.  I was
> informed that Excel didn't properly format the data when viewed.  Four other
> spreadsheet tools "render" the data as intended and Excel was an odd man out.
> The standard is the best common denominator.

So, did the customer request an Excel Spreadsheet or an ISO Standard
Spreadsheet? If the customer didn't then you tell them to get the
proper tool for reading the spreadsheet.

bill