Open Source Spreadsheets

By Jeff Alami

When making a document with my favourite spreadsheet, StarCalc,
I came to the realisation that there must be some equally-powered
Free Software spreadsheets. Many GNOME enthusiasts have heard of
and used Gnumeric, and KDE fans have known about KSpread, a
component of the KOffice suite of applications. In fact, a myriad
of Open Source graphical spreadsheets are available for Linux and
Unix users.

abs [GPL]

abs is a spreadsheet written with with Xaw athena widgets. It
provides a variety of charts, uses the ABVisual macro language
(compatible with Visual Basic macros), Microsoft Excel
compatibility, and printing with xfig.

abs home
page
abs features and
screenshots
Download abs
0.6a

Gnumeric [GPL]

Gnumeric is the GNOME spreadsheet, and it one of the slated
“killer apps” for the GNOME desktop environment. Gnumeric uses
CORBA (through ORBit) and guile, key components of GNOME, for
integration and a plugin system. The file format for Gnumeric is a
human-readable XML format, designed for simpler parsing and text
formatting.

Gnumeric home
page
Gnumeric
screenshots
Download
Gnumeric 0.25 sources (FTP)

GNU Oleo [GPL]

Oleo is a spreadsheet that could be considered ancient by
today’s software standards, but it’s been recently taken on by
several GNU project developers. A Motif/LessTif interface, graphics
using GNU plotutils, and internationalisation are among the
features of the updated Oleo spreadsheet. Oleo runs in character
mode as well as in a GUI, making it very flexible.

Oleo home
page
Download Oleo 1.99.2
sources

KSpread [GPL]

KSpread is the spreadsheet to be included in the KOffice suite, a suite of office
applications for KDE. KSpread is still under heavy development, and
many features are not yet implemented.

KSpread home
page
KSpread
screenshots
Download KOffice with
KSpread

Copyright
(C) 1999 Zeta Publications. (Reproduced from Bleeding Edge Magazine)