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Author Topic: Q&A 2009: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office  (Read 5002 times)

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Offline GingerRobotTopic starter

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Q&A 2009: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« on: May 07, 2009, 08:47:12 AM »
One of the future steps mentioned in the Microsoft Mission Statement (I've re-attached a copy) was to create better ways to read and write Word and Excel documents.

Do you think this is something that would be realistically only seen on Windows platforms via some windows-only extensions or some link with the relevant applications on the server? Or are Microsoft really willing to open up their products a little more so that it is easier to create these popular formats on any platform?

I ask mainly because questions about reading from/writing to Word and Excel files pop up relatively frequently. And while there are one or two partial solutions, they don't tend to be very pretty.

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Offline ober

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Re: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2009, 09:22:43 AM »
I actually kind of asked this in the other thread... so I'll follow it up here.  I've found a very good library (I'll find the link later if I think about it) for Excel docs, but nothing for word, and it generates Excel docs on a Linux server, so I don't see why it couldn't be extended to other types of MS documents on any server.

After all, what I'm gathering from the approach of MS on this project is more about connectivity with MS products outside of the actual server.  It seems to me that they are expanding into this market to further the dominance of their file formats and other products, rather than just attempting to overtake the hosting/server market.
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Offline Mchl

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Re: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2009, 12:18:53 PM »
Hmpfff... I need some better way to connect PHP to MS Access... Encoding (UTF-8 vs Windows-1250) issues are killing me, and using column numbers instead of names is no fun.
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Offline ober

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Re: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2009, 12:19:31 PM »
I have a better idea... don't use Access for a PHP App.  :)
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Re: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« Reply #4 on: May 07, 2009, 12:24:19 PM »
That's a brilliant idea! Actually I've already thought about it.

Unfortunately it's not an option. I'm moving an Access app to PHP/MySQL, and until all functionality is moved to new software, they need to work side by side and synchronise data where possible.
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Offline ober

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Re: Regarding MS Mission Statement and Office
« Reply #5 on: May 07, 2009, 12:26:38 PM »
Ewwwww.... why not just code the new app up completely and then just do a one-time import and cut-over?  Seems cleaner and faster than screwing around with all of that other mess.

Oh, and just so you know, the only way I've ever connected to Access with PHP was via ODBC (yes, I've had to do it as well).
« Last Edit: May 07, 2009, 12:27:14 PM by ober »
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