[GT] Tool(s) help needed.

[Andur]

OK, long story short, bought GT, and bought the the CR, ECL, and Lifeform .pdf and .xls packs. Here is my problem, these are the first files I have not been able to open with openoffice.org. Since I have neither winblows nor MS office is there any hope for me to be able to use the files?

I've tried simple rename, sent to office, used excel there, resaved and renamed them sent them back, scratched my head funny, and one other thing that I won't tell you about but it didn't work either.

The error message I get when opening one of them is this:

Read Error.
The file is password protected.

Any chance of a protected openoffice.org version of the files? I do understand the need to protect your intellectual property, but would like to get the functionality out of the files.

Any help will be appreciated

 

[Henry]

First trick - see if a friend can save them for you in possibly an earlier version of Excel (95 or 97). I'm guessing all the formulae are nothing fancy that was added in a more recent version, though not certain of it, and it's possible if Wulf made 'em on Excel XP or 2003, Openoffice might have trouble.

Second, if you have access to another copy of Openoffice (at work or similar), see if it's specific to your setup.

No offense to Wulf or Microsoft, but it would surprise me if it required a function that an earlier version of Excel didn't have.

 

[BryonD]

I can tell you that the file was developed in Excel 2000 and should be compatible with that or any existing later version.

I don't in any way speak for Wulf or Bad Axe, but the file was developed with Excel in mind only. I have no familiarity with Openoffice. But if the Openoffice developers claim it is compatible with Excel you should contact them.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Andur--

I'm very confused why you would purchase an Excel spreadsheet without Excel. At any rate I'm not prepared to offer support for a 3rd party emulator.

If you have a paypal account I will be happy to offer you a refund on both the Creature Creator and the Alien Lifeforms PDFs/spreadsheets. Please make sure that your PayPal email address matches the email address where you downloaded from RPGnow.com.

Wulf

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Eh, I might have done the same. I have unparalleled faith in my ability to hack anything. Sometimes I'm even right. Wouldn't expect the vendor to support it though.

I've got the latest OO beta here -- let me see what I can do.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Interesting. I have no trouble opening the Alien Lifeform spreadsheet in OO 2.0 beta, but there are a lot of fomula errors. Looks like differences in how the 'IF' function works. Some of the stuff looks good, but a lot of the formulas that use 'IF' are broken. It could probably be made to work with a little effort.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Interesting. I have no trouble opening the Alien Lifeform spreadsheet in OO 2.0 beta, but there are a lot of fomula errors. Looks like differences in how the 'IF' function works. Some of the stuff looks good, but a lot of the formulas that use 'IF' are broken. It could probably be made to work with a little effort.

And as anyone who has seen my code knows, I'm a complete ass with nested IF constructs.

Charles Dickens looks at a line of my code and says, "Man, that's a lot of text."

 

[sinmissing]

I have mad excel skills, and some experience with OO. The problem is that sometimes the excel formula do not translate correctly.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

And as anyone who has seen my code knows, I'm a complete ass with nested IF constructs.

Charles Dickens looks at a line of my code and says, "Man, that's a lot of text."

Lol.

Reminds me of a program I wrote back in the 80s (that was still in use as of 2000) - I had to do an If or If of If.... about a hundred times. I put a comment in the code apologizing to future generations...

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I have mad excel skills, and some experience with OO. The problem is that sometimes the excel formula do not translate correctly.

It's definitely fixable and not too difficult, just really time-consuming. Not sure why he wasn't even able to open the file, though. (I only have the Lifeform one, so wasn't able to test the others).