Compatibility between M$ Office and LibreOffice

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 07 Apr 2015 23:30:41 +1000 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 2015-04-07 at 09:15 -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > M$ trash macros == major security hole, allowing macro viruses.  This feature 
> > is not present in OOo or LO.
> 
> Well, yes and no. LibreOffice programs *do* have their own embedded
> programming languagem it is a variant of Basic, and you *can* record,
> write and run macros. LibreOffice even partly supports VBA macros,
> though they need to be translated (or have headers added) before they
> will work in LO native format docs.

My understanding is the M$ put too much capability into their macro language 
-- gave it access to parts of the system that it really should not have, that 
is they did not properly sandbox it.  I suspect that LibreOffice's macro 
language is properly sandboxed, which probably means that some M$ macros won't 
work, even if translated.

> 
> If there is a macro in a spreadsheet or other document that you need,
> you will probably have to port the functionality. This may or may not be
> possible. Usually it is possible one way or another, but it is not
> always simple. Try googling for "libreoffice macros" or "libreoffice
> microsoft convert macros" and you will find heaps of information.
> 
> Regards, K.
> 

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