ALV download to spreadsheet: ODS illegible for OpenOffice or Lotus Symphony

[Former Member]

I have been struggling with the following. I have posted an OSS-message, some weeks ago, but OSS has not found a solution yet. Maybe someone in the SDN community has a clue.

Recent support-packages have made some changes in the "download to spreadsheet" function in ALV (Basis 7.0 SP14, Basis 6.40 SP21).

One of the possible format is "Star Office / OpenOffice ODS" (according to OSS-notes 876916 and 1080608: Star Office 8 Calc or Openoffice.org 2.0 Calc).

I have tried this, because my employer is in favour of OpenDocument formats, but I cannot get it to work.

When in the "ALV grid display" mode (e;g. in transaction SE16), I do a download in OpenOffice format. The result is an ODS file. I cannot open this ODS file with OpenOffice nor with Lotus Symphony.

Versions:

SAP Basis 7.0 with SP18

SAP GUI 7.10 7100.3.13.3131

Lotus Symphony 1.2.0 20090417.1727

OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 OOO300m15 (build: 9379)

[Former Member]

OSS have replied that something might be wrong in the set-up of IGS.

I was surprised that IGS could play a role in this. After all, IGS is "Internet Graphics Server" and we're talking about a file that contains tabular data.

Another respondent in this thread has suggested that it might be a simple matter of gzip. Close, but no cigar. I renamed a valid ODS file to the ZIP extension and I was able to open it as a ZIP archive.

In other words, an ODS file is an XML file (to a specific schema), wrapped into a ZIP archive (with a specific structure).

Apparently the IGS is needed to do the zipping.

That makes sense. Our own system has no IGS and it produced an XML file (not valid ODS), the other system that I tried had an IGS and produced a valid ODS file.

Our system has no IGS. It is the result of an upgrade (from R/3 4.6C) and we saw no reason to add hardware for an "Internet Graphics Server". I think we will just carry on with the Microsoft formats.

[Former Member]

An additional twist: we are running SAP on "IBM i" (previously known as i5/os or OS/400) and - as I understand it - IGS does not even exist for that platform. If we really wanted IGS we would have to install some Windows servers alongside.

[Former Member]

I have found a clue that may be interesting.

I have had the opportunity to hook up my PC to another SAP-system and produce a correct ODS file (I could open it in OpenOffice and in Lotus Symphony).

In both cases I was using transaction SE16 on table TCOLL.

I used the same PC, the same SAP GUI and the same OpenOffice and Lotus Symphony.

The good file is small (3 KB) and - when I open it in Wordpad - is binary.

The bad file is larger (36 KB) and it is an XML file.

The good file was produced on a SAP-system that has Basis 7.00 SP15 and is running on Unix (AIX).

The bad file was produced on a SAP-system that has Basis 7.00 SP18 and is running on "IBM i" (previously known as i5/os or OS/400).

Is it possible that the code uses a logic that depends on something platform-specific? Or possibly on Unicode being turned on?

[Former Member]

Hi,

OpenOffice files are gzipped XML, try to ungzip your small file and look if the result is similar to big one. I guess that you can simple gzip your XML and then you'll open it using Open Office.

Pavel

[Former Member]

Hello Peter,

Its was working fine in my system, with below versions:

SAP Basis 710

SAP GUI 7.10 PL 13

OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 (build: 9399)

Best Regards,

Ashwini