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Posted to dev@openoffice.apache.org by Paul Myers <pm...@pcug.org.au> on 2012/08/31 06:39:37 UTC

A direct answer to a direct question, please

I have not been able to locate a direct answer to the following direct 
question on any of your webpages or fora sites:

    How comparable is the OpenOffice "variant" of VBA to the original
    version developed by Microsoft for its "Office" components (Excel,
    Word, PowerPoint, etc)?

I ask this because my dad has just purchased a refurbished PC with WinXP 
SP3 and OpenOffice as the included software and I am using Microsoft 
Office, primarily Excel and Word.  I have adapted many of the Excel 
"Macros of the Month" that are published in the monthly Techlife 
(previously "Australian PC User") magazine by Helen Bradley and sue 
these with many of my financial, etc, spreadsheets and would like to be 
able to use them when I have to travel to Sydney (I'm in Canberra) which 
I have to do at least twice a year but my need to maintain these 
spreadsheets doesn't stop during these periods which are usually of the 
order of three (3) weeks each.  As such, it would be nice if "your" 
variant of VBA was as close to 100% compatible with the Microsoft 
variant as it is possible to be.

Looking forward to receiving your response.

Thanks,

Paul Myers
-- 
Paul Myers, JP(NSW), BSc(UNSW), MACS(Snr)
PO Box 7007 Karabar NSW 2620 AUSTRALIA
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Web: http://pmyers.pcug.org.au/

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Re: A direct answer to a direct question, please

Posted by Fernando Cassia <fc...@gmail.com>.
On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 1:39 AM, Paul Myers <pm...@pcug.org.au> wrote:
>  As such, it would be nice if "your" variant of VBA was as close to 100%
> compatible with the Microsoft variant as it is possible to be.

It is not 100%... and I doubt any cleanroom implementation of VBA
could ever be 100% guaranteed compatible with microsoft´s... that is
without licensing the technology from them, which wouldn´t be cheap.

see
http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/VBA

also see:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.0/#VBA_Support

"limited VBA support"

you might also want to read this old document (imho still relevand)
which details examples of how to port VBA macros to StarOffice Basic
the language in OpenOffice...

http://www.openoffice.org/documentation/HOW_TO/various_topics/VbaStarBasicXref.pdf

FC

-- 
During times of Universal Deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
- George Orwell

Re: A direct answer to a direct question, please

Posted by Andrew Douglas Pitonyak <an...@pitonyak.org>.
On 08/31/2012 12:39 AM, Paul Myers wrote:
> I have not been able to locate a direct answer to the following direct 
> question on any of your webpages or fora sites:
>
>    How comparable is the OpenOffice "variant" of VBA to the original
>    version developed by Microsoft for its "Office" components (Excel,
>    Word, PowerPoint, etc)?
The base syntax and keywords are mostly compatible but the office API 
differs significantly.

The end result is that macros that do not interact with a document run 
mostly unchanged, but anything that access a document will mostly fail.

-- 
Andrew Pitonyak
My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt
Info:  http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php