File Formats

This is the default file format and therefore has the best support of all the formats available. Every feature that can be created in the spreadsheet should be savable using this format.

The Gnumeric file format is handled using two different code bases. The older version is part of the application itself. The newer version is in a plugin called "EXPERIMENTAL SAX based XML" because the parser is based on SAX.

The Gnumeric file format stores the file contents in the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and compresses the file using the GNU project's gzip compression library.

The Gnumeric file format is designed to be flexible and powerful. The format is easily processed by computers. The format can readily be improved as gnumeric develops without breaking compatibility with older versions. The format is designed to be easily translated into text so that it can be read by humans.

Gnumeric automatically recognizes the version of the file format of any file saved since this format is contained in the file header. The table below is for information purposes only.

An outdated PDF document discussing the Gnumeric file format which should provide a useful starting point was developed by the JWorkbook project. The file can be downloaded from http://www.jfree.org/jworkbook/download/gnumeric-xml.pdf.

Direct manipulation of Gnumeric files is possible by transforming the files to text files and then using standard text file tools like document editors. In order to read the contents a Gnumeric file must first be decompressed and can then be opened. In GNU systems, the Gnumeric default file "Book1.gnumeric" can be uncompressed as follows:

zcat Book1.gnumeric > Book1.text

cp Book1.gnumeric Book1.text.gz
gunzip Book1.text.gz

XML manipulation tools can be used to transform Gnumeric files and access the data they contain, since the file format is XML. The file can be validated by an XML Schema Definition (XSD) . These are available via the Internet at http://git.gnome.org/cgit/gnumeric/plain/gnumeric.xsd.

The Java™ Language can be used to create, access, or manipulate Gnumeric format files using the JWorkbook project library. See the project's website for details.

The C# language, through the mono implementation can also be used to manipulate Gnumeric format files.

Saving Applixware files has recently been disabled due to lack of developer interest. Instead of directly saving a file in the Applix format, files can be exported to Applixware can be performed using the Excel file format.

Supported by the Applix plugin.

The CSV file format is only useful for the exchange of cell data and cannot be used for sheet objects like graphical plots. This file format cannot save the formatting of cell contents, backgrounds or borders.

Supported by the core Gnumeric program.

CSV files are simple text files where each row of the text file represents one row in the spreadsheet and where the cells within a row are separated from each other by a comma.

CSV files can be processed using any tool which operates on text files. The CSV format is also common as a format which can be opened by applications.

Since the DIF format only supports a single worksheet, Gnumeric only exports the top worksheet in the view used to save the workbook.

Supported by the “Data Interchange Format (DIF) module” plug-in.

The format is a text file, encoded in ASCII, with a header and body.

The file can be processed as a text file or imported to any program that recognizes the DIF format.

Supported by the 'GNU Oleo' plugin.

Only the cell contents of a worksheet are saved with sheet object elements, such as graphical plots, ignored.

Supported by the 'HTML & TeX' plugin.

All these files can be opened by any text editor. The HTML 3.2 and 4.0 format files can be opened by any web browser such as Mozilla.

Files which are generated as HTML fragments must be placed into an HTML file with a valid pre-amble and closing statements.

Gnumeric generates a LaTeX longtable structure which contains only the contents of the cells in the worksheet displayed in the view at the time the file was created.

Font coloring is supported. Thin cell borders are translated into single lines and thick cell borders are translated into double lines. Cell background colors are ignored.

Supported by the 'HTML & TeX' plugin.

The generated file includes extensive documentation in TeX comment fields, to explain how to use and alter the file. Lines in the file which are comments begin and end with double percent symbols (%%). Lines which are designed as user options begin with a single percent symbol (%) which can be deleted to make the LaTeX command on that line take effect.

The LaTeX files generated by Gnumeric can either be processed directly by a LaTeX processor or can be included as tables in other files. The files can be included by reference as explained below or can be pasted into other files at the appropriate location. The file can also be altered to change certain parameters. These alterations are explained as comments within the file itself and are presented below.

The file created by Gnumeric can be run directly through a LaTeX processor without any modifications. For example, if the file were saved as Book1.tex, the following command

pdflatex Book1.tex

The file can also be included within another LaTeX file to provide a single table. This requires, first, ensuring that all the packages which will be needed are included, and second, defining a LaTeX variable which is used as a dummy tag to exclude the preamble used to process the file on its own. The LaTeX file generated by Gnumeric requires using the following lines in the preamble

\usepackage{ucs}
\usepackage{utf8}{inputenc}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{calc}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{hhline}
\usepackage{ifthen}  

\usepackage{lscape}

\def\inputGnumericTable{}

\input{mygnumericfile.tex}  

An option is provided in the file allows the table to be presented in landscape mode which allows wider tables to be included. For files which are to be processed independently, the option can be changed in the document class definition

\documentclass[12pt%
	           %,landscape%
             ]{report}

\def\gnumericTableEnd{\end{landscape}}
\begin{landscape}

An option is provided to change the widths of the columns of the file generated by Gnumeric. By default, the file attempts to maintain the proportions between the columns in the Gnumeric worksheet, yet scale the resulting table for the width of the paper defined in LaTeX. To change the column widths, look for the section in the LaTeX file with lines that look like

\def\gnumericColA{107pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColB{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColC{98pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColD{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColE{89pt*\gnumericScale}

\def\gnumericColA{107pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColB{0.75in}
\def\gnumericColC{98pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColD{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColE{89pt*\gnumericScale}

An option to change the headers and footers of the table is provided as well. The file itself contains comments on how to alter these but the choices will require seeing the documentation of the longtable LaTeX package. See that documentation and the contents of the file generated by Gnumeric for details.

Supported by the 'Linear and integer expression (MPS) format module' plug-in.

The Argonne National Laboratory of the United States has a simple introduction to the MPS format on their web site.

The MIPLIB site has more information including a file named mps_format which is a brief introduction to the format and includes the following section:

The following template is a guide for the use of MPS format:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Field:    1           2          3         4         5         6
Columns:  2-3        5-12      15-22     25-36     40-47     50-61

          NAME   problem name

          ROWS

           type     name

          COLUMNS
                   column       row       value     row      value
                    name        name                name
          RHS
                    rhs         row       value     row      value
                    name        name                name
          RANGES
                    range       row       value     row      value
                    name        name                name
          BOUNDS

           type     bound       column     value
                    name        name
          ENDATA
---------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Advanced Linear Programming," by Bruce A. Murtagh
  "Computer Solutions of Linear Programs," by J.L. Nazareth

Supported by the 'Lotus 123' plugin.

Many spreadsheet programs support this format.

Supported by the 'MS Excel (tm)' plugin.

These are binary file formats.

A number of other programs are able to process files in the Microsoft Excel file format.

Supported by the 'MS Excel (tm)' plugin.

These are binary file formats.

A number of other programs are able to process files in the Microsoft Excel file format.

Supported by the 'MS Excel (tm)' plugin.

These are zip files containing SpreadsheetML files and binary files.

This file format is not very widespread and therefore support by 3rd-party applications is limited.

Most core features of the format are supported.

Supported by the 'MS Excel (tm)' plugin.

These are zip files containing SpreadsheetML files and binary files.

A number of other programs are able to process files in the Microsoft Excel file format.

Most core features of the format are supported.

Gnumeric can open files from most of the Microsoft Excel™ file formats and all of the recent file formats. The formats supported are:

Supported by the 'MS Excel (tm)' plugin.

These are binary file formats.

A number of other programs are able to process files in the Microsoft Excel file format.

Supported by the 'Multiplan (SYLK)' plugin.

Supported by the 'Open Document Format' plugin.

The file format is a zip archive containing several text and XML elements: a mimetype file giving the mime type, a content.xml file with the contents of the spreadsheet cells, and several other files with meta data, style definitions or information on the settings. The file contents can be extracted with the unzip command line program or with any of a number of graphical interface programs.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) has accepted this file format as the standard "OASIS Open Office XML Format". The published specification for the file format is available from the OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee web page. Other information is available from the OpenOffice.org XML File Format web page, part of the OpenOffice.org project.

Version 1.0 of ODF was adopted as an international standard by ISO/IEC as ISO/IEC 26300:2006.

Files in this format can be imported and modified by many different programs including the OpenOffice.org Calc and LibreOffice Calc spreadsheets or may be modified through XML processing.

Supported by the 'Open Document Format' plugin.

This file format is deprecated and is not widely used.

Supported by the 'Plan Perfect' plug-in.

The creation of PostScript files is supported internally by the printing sub-system.

The PostScript language was created by Adobe, Inc. The Adobe web site has a non-technical introduction, as well as a technical overview and the actual specifications.

PostScript files can imported into other documents by several programs. For the very advanced, PostScript files can be reprogrammed using a text editor.

The creation of PDF files is supported internally by the printing sub-system.

The Postscript language was created by Adobe, Inc. The Adobe web site has a non-technical introduction, as well as a technical overview and the actual specifications.

PDF files can imported into other documents by several programs.

Supported by the Quattro™ Pro plugin.

Supported by the 'SC/XSpread' plug-in.

The exporter can only create text files using a separator character and cannot create fixed-width structured files.

Supported by the core Gnumeric program.

Text file format files are simple text files containing the data for each cell of the worksheet organized in a systematic fashion.

Text format files can be processed using any tool which operates on text files, and many other applications can read or generate one or more of these formats.

Supported by the 'HTML & TeX' plugin.

Two examples of the TROFF system will illustrate how to use this file format. Both examples start with a simple worksheet which consists of a simple grid of cells with cell contents, which has been used to create a file called "myfile.me" in the TROFF file format.

A table in PostScript file format can be created starting from the file generated by Gnumeric. The command

groff -me -t -Tps myfile.memyfile.ps

A table in PostScript file format can be created starting from the file generated by Gnumeric. The command

groff -me -t -Tascii myfile.memyfile.ascii

Sheet 0


+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          | Operating System |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |       DOS        |    Linux    |    SCO     |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  January | $1000.00         | $900.00     | $500.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| February | $900.00          | $2500.00    | $300.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|    March | $800.00          | $4100.00    | $100.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|    April | $700.00          | $5700.00    | ($100.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|      May | $600.00          | $7300.00    | ($300.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|     June | $500.00          | $8900.00    | ($500.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|     July | $400.00          | $10500.00   | ($700.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|   August | $300.00          | $12100.00   | ($900.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|September | $200.00          | $13700.00   | ($1100.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  October | $100.00          | $15300.00   | ($1300.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| November | $0.00            | $16900.00   | ($1500.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| December | ($100.00)        | $18500.00   | ($1700.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |                  |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  Totals: | $5400.00         | $116400.00  | ($7200.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |                  |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+

















                              1

Supported by the 'XBase' plugin.

The xBase file format is a generic name for database files saved in the format used by Aston-Tate's (then Borland's) dBase database system. The system became widely popular and has been used extensively by other systems.

See the Xbase File Format Description by Erik Bachmann for more details on the xBase format.

Supported by the 'HTML & TeX' plugin.

The file is generated, encoded in UTF-8, in the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) XHTML 1.0 Transitional file format.

These XHTML files can be opened by any text editor and can be viewed using any web browser such as Mozilla.