[Theodores]

Not true.

There are use cases where OpenOffice is a vastly better tool for the task at hand. For instance, reading a CSV file that happens to use extended UTF-8 characters with some fields that have important preceding zeroes. In these situations it is possible to import the data into OpenOffice without the prospect of it being mangled by 'clippy'. Sure you can create a new spreadsheet and import a CSV file from disk into it with the data read as 'just text' in UTF-8 but the people I send CSV files to do not do that with their Microsoft ways. Consequently you get so far in and realise you actually need to re-read the source data because it has been Microsofted with bizarre things like capitalisation.

Excel obfuscates data and obfuscates filenames. It also promotes arcane ways of working, e.g. vlookup things held together with blu-tak and string when a simple table join on the original data does what is required correctly with no hand-crafted nonsense.

Too often I see things being solved in Excel where a small bit of code does a better job of creating the report or things like Fusion Tables do a better job of fancy presentation.

I no longer lock in to Excel world, I don't see it as a professional tool.

[peteretep]

That there are some things Excel does badly does not magically mean other tools provide decent interchange with Excel users.