Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 30356
charts are not exported to ppt correctly (MS Graph)
Last modified: 2013-02-24 21:21:47 UTC
Step to reproduce the problem: 1. open openoffice Presenetation, 2. create an empty presentation, 3. Inset a chart to the presentation by selecting Insert->Chart menu item, 4. Save the Presentation containing a chart as Powerpoint file, Notice that you can click the Chart Data tool bar to bring up a Chart Data window. 5. close the presentation in openoffice, 6. open the presentation in MS Powerpoint 7. double click the chart in Powerpoint Notice an error message is generated: "The server application, source file, or item cannot be found, or returned an unknown error. You may need to reinstall the server application." It seems that the data associated with the chart is not saved to powerpoint. I also tried on Openoffice2.0_680, it has the same problem.
Created attachment 15963 [details] file that illustrate error message when double-clicking
one for me
Duplicated on Win XP Pro 2002 SP1, OOo 1.1.2 Duplicated on Win XP Pro 2002 SP1, OOo 2.0_680
The chart is not an OLE-Server. Chart shouild be a OLE-server so that you can edit the chart in other applications.
Chart will not be implemented as OLE server in version OO.o 2.0.
Hello Björn, This issue concerns Chart. Please consider and decide this one too at the next Chart-planning discussion.
I just ran into this same issue. Its almost 2 years old, can someone tell me what if anything was discussed at the Chart-planning meeting. Is there a work around?
changed summary to somthing more meaningful
->mba: It looks like the chart would be exported as OOo OLE-object. Didn't you implement OLE-server capabilities for all OOo applications on Windows? It should also work for charts then. I remember something about charts being exported in binary format by sj's export filter (not sure if this is still the case). This could also be a problem.
Having the Chart object exported as an OOo OLE-Object does not actually address the problem. MS PowerPoint uses an MS Graph object to represent Chart data. By exporting a Chart object in an Impress presentation document as an OOo OLE-Object you are requiring that the MS PowerPoint user have OpenOffice installed to view/edit the Chart in his *.ppt file. This is completely asinine. If the user doing the exporting must assume that his target MS PowerPoint 97/2K/XP user also has OpenOffice installed, what is the point of exporting the document as a *.ppt file? If Presentation documents created in Impress are incompatible with MS PowerPoint then adoption of OpenOffice will be seriously impared.
Yes I also think that this issue is not about ole. ->Sven, the ppt export does lack the feature to create msgraph objects for charts. As this is a huge effort and MS is going to replace msgraph by excel charts anyhow I think in future we should support to import/export that new excel charts from ppt (the implementation then somehow could be changed with the chart export from calc). As an inbetween solution it would be maybe good to just export/import a metafile?
Another idea might be to replace all the Chart objects with images (svg?) when exporting to MS PowerPoint 97/2K/XP. At the very least, this will remove the dependency on OpenOffice and allow others to use your *.ppt files (even if they cannot edit the Chart object).
added me to CC
I managed to find a client side way to convert the OLE2Shape into a GraphicObjectShape suitable for exporting as MS PowerPoint 97/2k/XP file. The Java code can be found here: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?p=194170 It seems like this is a reasonable way to export Chart objects when saving a presentation as a PPT file. Even if the plan is to eventually support conversion of Chart objects into MS Graph objects, doing something like the above as an interim solution will ease transition from MS Office to OpenOffice.
Conversation with Daniel (dr) about exporting Chart2 objects to MS Graph from within PowerPoint 2008/9/4: 09:33 < drr_> unlord: the code that converts a chart2 in the excel filter creates an embedded chart object in the excel file. I know that the file format of MS Graph is equal to the format used in Excel, but there is no stand-alone filter yet. There are some differences between applications, e.g. color handling, font handling and so on. 09:44 < unlord> drr_: how difficult would it be to get that export filter working from w/in ppt? 09:45 < drr_> no idea... do you want to create standalone chart data, or an embedded excel file? 09:51 < unlord> drr_: is it possible to create some standalone chart data from a chart2? 09:51 < unlord> is that api exposed somewhere? 09:58 < drr_> unlord: that's the problem, there is no API, the export filter is deep inside the Calc core implementation... 10:01 < unlord> drr_: that is a shame, is it something you think can be refactored? 10:13 < unlord> drr_: do you mind if I paste this IRC conversation into the bug report for this 10:27 < drr_> unlord: don't mind. refactoring would take several months, currently refactoring the import filters is in progress 10:30 < unlord> for loading a chart? 10:31 < drr_> unlord: no I was talking about the entire Excel filter...
sj: First I will highlight the problem we have: "7. double click the chart in Powerpoint Notice an error message is generated: "The server application, source file, or item cannot be found, or returned an unknown error. You may need to reinstall the server application."" We have two possibilities to solve this. First is to provide also a chart server as we have for each other main application. Then if the ole object is double clicked in ppt an OpenOffice will be started to edit the chart. The right person to fix this would be someone from the framework team. The second solution would be to export a real MS Chart, then we need to have a Chart export filter. The proper person for this I think is dr. It is not complicate to export the Chart as shape collection, but this is no option, because then we lose the functionality of being able to properly edit the Chart in OpenOffice self. A save and reload of a Chart would result in having a conglomeration of shapes, I think this is not that what the majority of users would like to have. I think this issue should go back to dr.
ok, main task is to have a chart export filter that is independent from the Calc core