ssconvert - a command line spreadsheet format converter
ssconvert [OPTIONS] infile outfile
ssconvert [OPTIONS] --merge-to outfile
infile1 infile2 ...
ssconvert is a command line utility to convert spreadsheet
files between various spreadsheet file formats. It is a companion utility to
Gnumeric, the powerful spreadsheet program created by the GNOME
project.
ssconvert accepts either file names or URIs as
infile outfile. The special URIs fd://0 and
fd://1 can be used for standard input and standard output
respectively.
This program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with
single letter options starting with a single dash (`-') and longer options
starting with two dashes (`--').
- --recalc
- Recalculate all cells before writing the result.
- --set
CELL=CONTENTS
- Set the value of CELL to CONTENTS. To put an expression in a
cell, add an extra =, for example --set "A11==A10+1". This
option may be repeated as many times as needed. The workbook will be
recalculated after all cells have been set, provided that the workbook is
set for automatic recalculation. If not, recalculation can be forced with
--recalc.
- -v, --verbose
- Be slightly more verbose about what is going on.
- --list-exporters
- List the available exporters (file formats that can be written).
- -T,
--export-type=ID
- Specify which exporter to use; see below for a list. This is only
necessary when the right format does not follow from the output file name.
The list of available export formats can be generated using the
--list-exporters option. However, when image export is requested using the
--export-graphs option, the list of image formats should be consulted
instead. That list can be generated using the --list-image-formats
option.
- -O,
--export-options=optionsstring
- Specify parameters for the chosen exporter. optionsstring is a list
of parameter=value pairs, separated by spaces. The parameter
names and values allowed are specific to the exporter and are documented
below. Multiple parameters can be specified
- --export-graphs
- Export the graphs (or charts) inside the input spreadsheet to numbered
image files (SVG by default). The list of available image formats can be
printed with --list-image-formats
- --list-importers
- List the available importers (file formats that can be read). -I,
--import-type=ID Specify which importer to use; see below for a
list. This is only necessary when the right format does not follow from
the input file name.
- --list-image-formats
- List the available image formats for graph export
- -E,
--import-encoding=STRING
- Specify an encoding for imported content.
- -M,
--merge-to=FILENAME
- Merge a collection of workbooks into one. Sheet size will expand to the
largest in all the workbooks. Names in the scope of individual workbooks
will end up in the scope of the merged workbook. The merge will be aborted
if there are name conflicts.
- -S,
--export-file-per-sheet
- Export a file for each sheet if the exporter only supports one sheet at a
time. The output filename is treated as a template in which sheet number
is substituted for %n, sheet name is substituted for %s, and sheet object
name is substituted for %o in case of graph export. If there are no
substitutions, a default of ".%n" is added.
The following IDs can be can be used both for import (reading) and
export (writing).
- Gnumeric_XmlIO:sax
- Gnumeric's XML file format (*.gnumeric)
- Gnumeric_OpenCalc:openoffice
- OpenDocument ⟨URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
⟩ or OpenOffice Calc ⟨URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Calc ⟩ (*.sxc, *.ods)
format. As an exporter, this is ODF/OpenOffice without foreign elements
(*.ods).
- Gnumeric_dif:dif
- Data Interchange Format ⟨URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Interchange_Format ⟩ (*.dif)
- Gnumeric_paradox:paradox
- Paradox database ⟨URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_%28database%29 ⟩ or primary
index file (*.db, *.px)
- Gnumeric_stf:stf_assistant
- Text (configurable)
- Gnumeric_sylk:sylk
- MultiPlan ⟨URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan ⟩
Symbolic Link (SYLK) ⟨URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYmbolic_LinK_%28SYLK%29 ⟩
(*.slk)
- Gnumeric_Excel:xlsx
- Microsoft Excel (tm) 2007 ("Office Open XML", OOXML ⟨URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLSX ⟩ ) format
- sheet
- Name of the workbook sheet to operate on. You can specify several sheets
by repeating this option. This is ignored if the object option is
given.
- active-sheet
- Select the active sheet to operate on. The value for this option is
irrelevant, but the equal sign is mandatory.
- object
- Name of the sheet object to print. If this option is given any
sheet option is ignored. Only the first object given is
exported.
- paper
- Paper size. Valid values include "A4" for ISO A4 and
"na_letter_8.5x11in" for US Letter. If an individual
graph is specified through the object option, then a paper size of
"fit" reduces the size of the paper to the size of the
graph.
- sheet
- Name of the workbook sheet to operate on. You can specify several sheets
by repeating this option.
- active-sheet
- Select the active sheet to operate on. The value for this option is
irrelevant, but the equal sign is mandatory.
- eol
- End Of Line convention; how lines are terminated. "unix"
for linefeed, "mac" for carriage return;
"windows" for carriage return plus linefeed.
- charset
- The character encoding of the output. Defaults to UTF-8.
- locale
- The locale to use for number and date formatting. Defaults to the current
locale as reported by locale(1). Consult locale -a output
for acceptable values.
- quote
- The character or string used for quoting fields. Defaults to
"\"" (quotation mark / double quote).
- separator
- The string used to separate fields. Defaults to space.
- format
- How cells should be formatted. Acceptable values:
"automatic" (apply automatic formatting; default),
"raw" (output data raw, unformatted), or
"preserve" (preserve the formatting from the source
document).
This deals with the difference between a cell's contents and
the way those contents are formatted.
Consider a cell in a Gnumeric input document that was input as
"4/19/73" in a US locale, with a format set to
"d-mmm-yyyy" and thus formatted as
"19-Apr-1973".
With the default format setting of
"automatic" it will be output as
"1973/04/19". With "preserve", the formatting
will be preserved and it will be output as "19-Apr-1973". With
"raw" it will be output as "26773"
(Gnumeric's internal representation: days since an epoch).
- transliterate-mode
- How to handle unrepresentable characters (characters that cannot be
represented in the chosen output character set). Acceptable values:
"transliterate", or "escape".
- quoting-mode
- When does data need to be quoted? "never",
"auto" (puts quotes where needed), or
"always". Defaults to "auto".
- quoting-on-whitespace
- Controls whether initial or terminal whitespace forces quoting. Defaults
to TRUE.
To convert the Gnumeric file foo.gnumeric to a Microsoft
Excel(TM) format file foo.xls:
ssconvert foo.gnumeric foo.xls
The export format can be specified explicitly, to override the
default (which is based on the file extension):
ssconvert --export-type=Gnumeric_stf:stf_csv
foo.xls foo.txt
To convert an Excel format file statfuns.xls to a text
file, specifying the semicolon as the separator character:
ssconvert -O 'separator=; format=raw'
samples/excel/statfuns.xls statfuns.txt
To export the charts from the input file input.gnumeric to
numbered SVG files:
ssconvert --export-graphs input.gnumeric
'output.%n.svg'
To export the charts from the input file input.gnumeric to
numbered PNG files:
ssconvert --export-type=png --export-graphs
input.gnumeric 'output.%n.png'
ssconvert is licensed under the terms of the General Public
License (GPL), version 2 or 3. For information on this license look at the
source code that came with the software or see the GNU project page
⟨URL: http://www.gnu.org ⟩.
The copyright on the Gnumeric software and source code is
held by the individual authors as is documented in the source code.
ssconvert's primary author is Jody Goldberg
<jody@gnome.org>; ssconvert builds on the Gnumeric
codebase.
The initial version of this manpage was written by J.H.M. Dassen
(Ray) <jdassen@debian.org>.