Small sized alternatives to MS Excel / OpenOffice Calc

Posted 26 January 2009 - 02:33 PM

Found a site with some interesting options when it comes to handle spreadsheets.

I needed a very simple spreadsheet editor that would work on Windows 98 (non-SE), OpenOffice and Excel 2003 didn't worked, nor did gnumeric so I used some of these listed alternatives:

http://www.aplusfree...readsheets.html

Includes spread32, abykus and Sphygmic.

Perhaps this might be of some use for other members.

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 03:03 PM

Yep.

FYI:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=126700
http://www.msfn.org/...o...126700&st=5

jaclaz

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 03:54 PM

OpenOffice.org Portable 2.4.1 (win98 compatible)
is still avaliable at
http://portableapps....office_portable
(look Download Details)

ps: new scripts ready for oo2 and oo3 and will be available soon

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 04:03 PM

@Lancelot

Thanks for the hint , but, nice as it is , OpenOffice.org cannot actually be categorized under " Small sized alternatives to MS Excel / OpenOffice Calc", particularly because it is NOT small, and because it cannot be an alternative to itself.



jaclaz

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 04:05 PM

The guys at portable apps should correct their minimum specifications, there is still a big difference between windows 98 and windows 98 SE.

Open Office 2.4.x doesn't work because some functions are missing on system32 libraries and I'm also avoiding it because this 1998 machine has 128Mb of available RAM and the person that will use it will only need to type some data and then export the .xls document using a pendisk. (we didn't found any diskettes that would still work.. ).

Also, in reply to Jaclaz's question over at MSFN:

Cannot say if Sphigmic is (or can be "convinced" into) working on 3.x:

The program was compiled having Windows 3.11 in mind, I noticed this detail from the old style setup install and the program's UI.

The only drawback is that the user will need to select "Save as.." and select the *.xls (excel 4.0) file format otherwise it will default to it's own spreadsheet file format.

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This OS also gave me some troubles to get USB properly recognized because it wasn't the SE edition.

Used this set of drivers to get it working without need to upgrade for SE:
http://techrepublic....ssageID=2293167

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 04:11 PM

This OS also gave me some troubles to get USB properly recognized because it wasn't the SE edition.

This should work as well.
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=2411

jaclaz

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 04:11 PM

Jaclaz
yep you are night , i didnt write for the topic head, i wrote for Nuno's comment on post1

OpenOffice and Excel 2003 didn't worked

, sadly nuno didnt wrote oo2 and oo guys didnt wrote win98se for minimum specification Things happens , thank you Nuno for updated info .

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 04:26 PM

i didnt write for the topic head, i wrote for Nuno's comment on post1

If one can go on that, surprisingly enough, one of the best Office suites around is actually Office.
IMHO:
Office 4.3 is rather smallish and works very well.
Almost the same can be said about Office 97.
Office 2000 is just 97 revamped.
2002 or XP office is 2000 bloated.
2003 is 2000 bloated and more bloated.
2007 is 2003 bloated, more bloated and worsened.

Office 4.3 or 97 can be found rather easily on sale used on e-bay.

jaclaz

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 05:01 PM

Thanks for the ebay suggestion.

I know MS Office was well coded for these older machines but we're only using freeware stuff around here for just about anything (except the OS) and cut any costs with licenses or stray away the temptation of resorting to piracy.

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Previously I had tried the DeLi Linux distribution but for some strange reason it wouldn't even boot from the CD.

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 06:57 PM

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 07:10 PM

I might try it tomorrow to see how it works compared to the other one.

Thank you for reminding this alternative!

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Posted 26 January 2009 - 10:17 PM

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