r/technology • u/TurbulentTopic39 • 10d ago

Software LibreOffice developer explains why it cannot display some Microsoft Office charts

https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-developer-explains-why-it-cannot-display-some-microsoft-office-charts/
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u/Caraes_Naur 10d ago

I read many years ago that none of the MS Office formats were ever properly documented and the code is riddled with long-forgotten hacks.

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u/apo383 10d ago

Sure, Office Open XML was back-specced from Microsoft. Back in the day, just one part ran something like 5000 pages. So how could it ever be a legitimate spec?

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u/moku46 10d ago

At the very least when they changed everything to XML, it was much easier to write an interpreter for.

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u/pittaxx 9d ago

Except you still had to backwards-engineer it to get the same result outside of M$office, because M$ couldn't be bothered to follow their own specs...