Manpages

NAME

ssconvert - a command line spreadsheet format converter

SYNOPSIS

ssconvert [OPTIONS] infile outfile

ssconvert [OPTIONS] --merge-to outfile infile1 infile2 ...

DESCRIPTION

ssconvert is a command line utility to convert spreadsheet files between various spreadsheet file formats. It is a companion utility to Gnumeric, the powerful spreadsheet program created by the GNOME project.

ssconvert accepts either file names or URIs as infile outfile. The special URIs fd://0 and fd://1 can be used for standard input and standard output respectively.

OPTIONS

This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with single letter options starting with a single dash (’-’) and longer options starting with two dashes (’--’).

Main options
--recalc

Recalculate all cells before writing the result.

--set CELL=CONTENTS

Set the value of CELL to CONTENTS. To put an expression in a cell, add an extra =, for example --set "A11==A10+1". This option may be repeated as many times as needed. The workbook will be recalculated after all cells have been set, provided that the workbook is set for automatic recalculation. If not, recalculation can be forced with --recalc.

-v, --verbose

Be slightly more verbose about what is going on.

--list-exporters

List the available exporters (file formats that can be written).

-T, --export-type=ID

Specify which exporter to use; see below for a list. This is only necessary when the right format does not follow from the output file name. The list of available export formats can be generated using the --list-exporters option. However, when image export is requested using the --export-graphs option, the list of image formats should be consulted instead. That list can be generated using the --list-image-formats option.

-O, --export-options=optionsstring

Specify parameters for the chosen exporter. optionsstring is a list of parameter=value pairs, separated by spaces. The parameter names and values allowed are specific to the exporter and are documented below. Multiple parameters can be specified

--export-graphs

Export the graphs (or charts) inside the input spreadsheet to numbered image files (SVG by default). The list of available image formats can be printed with --list-image-formats

--list-importers

List the available importers (file formats that can be read). -I, --import-type=ID Specify which importer to use; see below for a list. This is only necessary when the right format does not follow from the input file name.

--list-image-formats

List the available image formats for graph export

-E, --import-encoding=STRING

Specify an encoding for imported content.

-M, --merge-to=FILENAME

Merge a collection of workbooks into one. Sheet size will expand to the largest in all the workbooks. Names in the scope of individual workbooks will end up in the scope of the merged workbook. The merge will be aborted if there are name conflicts.

-S, --export-file-per-sheet

Export a file for each sheet if the exporter only supports one sheet at a time. The output filename is treated as a template in which sheet number is substituted for %n, sheet name is substituted for %s, and sheet object name is substituted for %o in case of graph export. If there are no substitutions, a default of ".%n" is added.

Help options
--version

Display ssconvert’s version.

-h, --help, --usage

Display a brief usage message.

--help-all

Show all help options.

--help-libspreadsheet

Show Gnumeric options.

LIST OF IMPORTER/EXPORTER IDS

The following IDs can be can be used both for import (reading) and export (writing).
Gnumeric_XmlIO:sax

Gnumeric’s XML file format (*.gnumeric)

Gnumeric_OpenCalc:openoffice

OpenDocument ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument ⟩ or OpenOffice Calc ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Calc ⟩ (*.sxc, *.ods) format. As an exporter, this is ODF/OpenOffice without foreign elements (*.ods).

Gnumeric_dif:dif

Data Interchange Format ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Interchange_Format ⟩ (*.dif)

Gnumeric_paradox:paradox

Paradox database ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_%28database%29 ⟩ or primary index file (*.db, *.px)

Gnumeric_stf:stf_assistant

Text (configurable)

Gnumeric_sylk:sylk

MultiPlan ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan ⟩ Symbolic Link (SYLK) ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYmbolic_LinK_%28SYLK%29 ⟩ (*.slk)

Gnumeric_Excel:xlsx

Microsoft Excel (tm) 2007 ("Office Open XML", OOXML ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLSX ⟩ ) format

LIST OF IMPORTANT IMPORTER IDS

Gnumeric_stf:stf_csvtab

Comma or tab separated values (CSV/TSV) (*.csv)

Gnumeric_html:html

HTML (*.html, *.htm)

Gnumeric_Excel:excel

Microsoft Excel (tm) (*.xls)

Gnumeric_Excel:excel_xml

Microsoft Excel (tm) 2003 SpreadsheetML

LIST OF OTHER IMPORTER IDS

Gnumeric_QPro:qpro

Quattro Pro ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattro_Pro ⟩ (*.wb1, *.wb2, *.wb3)

Gnumeric_applix:applix

Applix (*.as)

Gnumeric_lotus:lotus

Lotus 1-2-3 ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_1-2-3 ⟩ (*.wk1, *.wks, *.123)

Gnumeric_mps:mps

MPS (Mathematical Programming System) format ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPS_%28format%29 ⟩ Linear programming and mixed integer programming file format (*.mps)

Gnumeric_oleo:oleo

GNU Oleo ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Oleo ⟩ (*.oleo)

Gnumeric_plan_perfect:pln

PlanPerfect Format (PLN)

Gnumeric_psiconv:psiconv

Psion (*.psisheet)

Gnumeric_sc:sc

SC/xspread

Gnumeric_xbase:xbase

xBase ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBase ⟩ (*.dbf) file format

LIST OF IMPORTANT EXPORTER IDS

Gnumeric_OpenCalc:odf

ODF/OpenOffice with foreign elements (*.ods)

Gnumeric_glpk:glpk

GLPK Linear Program Solver

Gnumeric_html:html40

HTML 4.0 (*.html)

Gnumeric_html:html40frag

HTML (*.html) fragment

Gnumeric_html:xhtml

XHTML (*.html)

Gnumeric_html:xhtml_range

XHTML range - for export to clipboard

Gnumeric_pdf:pdf_assistant

Portable Document Format (*.PDF)

Gnumeric_stf:stf_csv

Comma separated values (CSV)

Gnumeric_Excel:excel_dsf

Microsoft Excel (tm) 97/2000/XP & 5.0/95

LIST OF OTHER EXPORTER IDS

Gnumeric_Excel:excel_biff7

Microsoft Excel (tm) 5.0/95

Gnumeric_Excel:excel_biff8

Microsoft S Excel (tm) 97/2000/XP

Gnumeric_GnomeGlossary:po

Gnome Glossary PO file format

Gnumeric_html:html32

HTML 3.2 (*.html)

Gnumeric_html:latex

LaTeX 2e (*.tex)

Gnumeric_html:latex_table

LaTeX 2e (*.tex) table fragment

Gnumeric_html:roff

TROFF ⟨ URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troff ⟩ (*.me) format.

Gnumeric_lpsolve:lpsolve

LPSolve ⟨ URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpsolve/ ⟩ Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) solver

OPTIONS FOR THE PORTABLE DOCUMENT FORMAT (*.pdf) EXPORTER

active-sheet

Select the active sheet to operate on. The value for this option is irrelevant, but the equal sign is mandatory.

OPTIONS FOR THE CONFIGURABLE TEXT (*.txt) EXPORTER

active-sheet

Select the active sheet to operate on. The value for this option is irrelevant, but the equal sign is mandatory.

charset

The character encoding of the output. Defaults to UTF-8.

separator

The string used to separate fields. Defaults to space.

This deals with the difference between a cell’s contents and the way those contents are formatted.

Consider a cell in a Gnumeric input document that was input as "4/19/73" in a US locale, with a format set to "d-mmm-yyyy" and thus formatted as "19-Apr-1973".

With the default format setting of "automatic" it will be output as "1973/04/19". With "preserve", the formatting will be preserved and it will be output as "19-Apr-1973". With "raw" it will be output as "26773" (Gnumeric’s internal representation: days since an epoch).

transliterate-mode

How to handle unrepresentable characters (characters that cannot be represented in the chosen output character set). Acceptable values: "transliterate", or "escape".

quoting-mode

When does data need to be quoted? "never", "auto" (puts quotes where needed), or "always". Defaults to "auto".

quoting-on-whitespace

Controls whether initial or terminal whitespace forces quoting. Defaults to TRUE.

EXAMPLE

To convert the Gnumeric file foo.gnumeric to a Microsoft Excel(TM) format file foo.xls:

ssconvert foo.gnumeric foo.xls

The export format can be specified explicitly, to override the default (which is based on the file extension):

ssconvert --export-type=Gnumeric_stf:stf_csv foo.xls foo.txt

To convert an Excel format file statfuns.xls to a text file, specifying the semicolon as the separator character:

ssconvert -O ’separator=; format=raw’ samples/excel/statfuns.xls statfuns.txt

To export the charts from the input file input.gnumeric to numbered SVG files:

ssconvert --export-graphs input.gnumeric ’output.%n.svg’

To export the charts from the input file input.gnumeric to numbered PNG files:

ssconvert --export-type=png --export-graphs input.gnumeric ’output.%n.png’

LICENSE

ssconvert is licensed under the terms of the General Public License (GPL), version 2 or 3. For information on this license look at the source code that came with the software or see the GNU project page ⟨ URL: http://www.gnu.org ⟩ .

COPYRIGHT

The copyright on the Gnumeric software and source code is held by the individual authors as is documented in the source code.

AUTHOR

ssconvert’s primary author is Jody Goldberg <jody [AT] gnome.org>; ssconvert builds on the Gnumeric codebase.

The initial version of this manpage was written by J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) <jdassen [AT] debian.org>.

SEE ALSO

gnumeric(1), ssdiff(1), ssgrep(1), ssindex(1)

The Gnumeric Homepage ⟨ URL: http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/ ⟩ .

The GNOME project page ⟨ URL: http://www.gnome.org/ ⟩ .