<chapter id="importexport"> <chapterinfo> <authorgroup> <author> <firstname>Pamela</firstname> <surname>Robert</surname> <affiliation> <address><email>pamroberts@blueyonder.co.uk</email></address> </affiliation> </author> <!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS --> </authorgroup> </chapterinfo> <title>Importing and Exporting Foreign Formats</title> <para>&kspread; has a limited ability to import (read) and export (write) spreadsheet files with foreign formats. &kspread;'s capabilities at the time of writing are summarized in the table below, for more up to date information visit <ulink url="http://www.koffice.org/filters/status.phtml"> http://www.koffice.org/filters/status.phtml</ulink>.</para> <informaltable><tgroup cols="3"> <thead> <row> <entry> Format </entry> <entry> Import </entry> <entry> Export </entry></row> </thead> <tbody> <row><entry>Applix Spreadsheet</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> <entry>None</entry> </row> <row><entry>Comma Separated Values (<link linkend="csvdata"><acronym>CSV </acronym></link>)</entry> <entry>Good</entry> <entry>Good</entry> </row> <row><entry>dBase</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> <entry>None</entry> </row> <row><entry>Excel 97/2000</entry> <entry>Good</entry> <entry>None</entry> </row> <row><entry>Gnumeric</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> </row> <row><entry>HTML</entry> <entry>None</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> </row> <row><entry>Quattro Pro</entry> <entry>Beta</entry> <entry>None</entry> </row> </tbody></tgroup></informaltable> <para>To import a foreign file just load it as though it were a &kspread; native file with <menuchoice><guimenu>File</guimenu><guimenuitem> Open...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.</para> <para>To export a &kspread; file in a different format select <menuchoice> <guimenu>File</guimenu><guimenuitem>Save As...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> and select the format from the <guilabel>Filter:</guilabel> combo box. Although &kspread; automatically adds a <literal role="extension"> .ksp</literal> extension to the names of files saved in its native format, you should add the correct extension for foreign formats.</para> <sect1 id="csvdata"> <title><acronym>CSV</acronym> Data</title> <para>Tables of data are often held in text files with the values in a line being separated by a comma, space, tab or other character, for example <emphasis>123, 456, 789, abcd, efgh</emphasis>. Such files are commonly called <quote><acronym>CSV</acronym></quote> (Comma Separated Values) files, even though the separating character may not be a comma.</para> <para>If you ask &kspread; to open a text file it assumes that the file is in <acronym>CSV</acronym> format and launches a dialog box that allows you to specify the delimiter (separating character) used by the file, and shows how the data items will be placed into different spreadsheet cells.</para> <para>Other options in this dialog box let you define the <guilabel>Format </guilabel> of the spreadsheet cells, whether text quote characters should be removed, and whether the first line(s) of the file should be ignored.</para> </sect1> </chapter> <!-- Local Variables: mode: sgml sgml-parent-document: ("index.docbook" "book" "chapter") sgml-minimize-attributes:nil sgml-general-insert-case:lower sgml-indent-step:0 sgml-indent-data:nil End: -->