I have an interesting problem with WM5 Excel files - General Topics

I just got an HTC P3300 with WM5. I installed Active Since 4.2 (I believe) and started to sync my files. I use a few very important Excel files. They sychronized to the phone, no problem. But when I try to edit them on the phone and save, I get the following error: "Unsupported content and formatting may be lost if you save this workbook. ..." All I have to do is change one character and I get this message. The problem is that it only gives me the option to save as a new document, cancel or discard changes. I now have 4 versions of the same document. It's a real PIA! Anyone know how to resolve this?
BTW: I'm using XP Home with Excel 2002.

Partial resolution
Well, I found out that there is a way to avoid creating another file. Simply rename the new version with the same name and it will just replace the old one. It's still a pain to have to do that every time I want to edit a document but I guess I'll have to live with it.
Strange thing is, my wife has WM5 on her Wizard (MDA) and used to sync with an old version of ActiveSync (probably 3.7 or so) and she never had this problem until she upgraded to ActiveSync 4.2. I tried to download 3.7 and use it, but it wouldn't even recognize my device. Had a bunch of sofware issues trying to download it also. So, I'll just live with the extra step to save an edited file on WM5 Excel.

Related

Excel files and ActiveStink issues. Please help.

I'm just wondering if this is just my issue or if it's a common issue with WM5/WM6 and or the latest ActiveSync, 4.5. I'm having issues with syncing Excel files that used to sync just fine on WM2003. I have large spreadsheets that are about 325kb in size on the desktop. When I sync the file, it's the same size until I open it and try to make changes and save it. Then I get the following error:
"Unsupported content and formatting may be lost if you save this workbook..."
The only way I can save the spreadsheet is to rename it and create a new one with the same name. It then writes over the original file, taking up to 30 seconds to save. The file is then 969kbs in size. And every time I edit on the PC it goes back to 325kbs. Then when I edit on the PPC, it goes through this again, making the file almost a Meg.
Is there any way to just sync the file with just one format? This is really annoying. Also, sometimes my date formats are changed from month-day-year to day-year-month, or something retarded like that. Really freakin annoying to say the least. You buy MS products and they're not even compatible. I feel like I have a Palm trying to sync Apple documents or something. It's really ridiculous! I'm hoping that one of you genius' can point me to a setting that I've overlooked to fix this. Please help!
PS, I've tried to change the conversion settings in Active sync as well with no apparant effects.

Excel problem

I have an excel file I use for inventory, it's about 2.3mb in size. I opened the file, did inventory (which has lots of formulas to calculate different things), saved the file - it took FOREVER! Found out why - it became 19MB!!!!
I've been using a very similar file (same formulas) for several years, never had this happen. When I copied it to the PC and opened/saved in Excel 2002, it reverted to 2.4mb.
Separate annoyance, happens often, enter data into ANY excel file and if I've opened it on my PC previously, when I save the file on the PPC it says "Incompatible information" and prompts me to save it as a different file name. I simply write over the old name and never have any problems but IT'S FREAKING ANNOYING! Any thoughts?
AT&T Tilt running Dutty's WM6.1
on the PC - WinXP sp2, Excel 2002 SP3...
grr, nevermind, I forgot all the things pocket excel doesn't support - like MEDIAN... still don't know why that would cause it to balloon to 19mb, but...

is their a (Pimbackup.pib) extractor?

dear all!!!
really it's so hard to restore many pimbackup.pib files on a device...
i have been searching for an extracor, or kind of emulator that alow me to view the backuped file on my pc...
thankyou
best regards...
moiisse
If I remember correctly, you can rename the .PIB file as a .ZIP and then look at it with your "favourite archive tool".... Within the ZIP/PIB file there are loads of CSV format files for each of the messages/contacts/phone logs etc.
The only problem may/might/will be if you did the PIM backup in binary format; your best bet would be to post on the PIMbackup thread (here) and see if Dotfred or anyone else can help
Cheers,
Mark.
Dear Mark
I have tried this trick but the files I got were not .CSV one some other extension files. I am afraid if I am doing anything wrong.
The extension is not .CSV, but they are in CSV format. If you rename them to .CSV and open them with Microsoft Excel or Openoffice Calc (or whatever), they can be imported as semicolon delimited files (so strictly speaking, they're SSV - "Semicolon Separated Values" rather than CSV )
Hope that helps,
Mark.
That was a great tip!
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?
I think I may have found something........
sam_htc_touch said:
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was about to say I have no idea and I don't really care (about Android phones that is, not your problem getting your messages onto your Hero!), but then.......
I found this - Sprite Software's FREE (at the moment) migration software - which looks like the answer to your prayers
I've seen a report from someone who used it - apparently, it's pretty slow, but as it's a "one-time" transfer operation.....who cares how long "free" takes!!!???
Let us know how you get on - and post something in the Android-related forums so that other users can benefit.....
Cheers,
Mark.
(At times like this, I wish I had a Paypal "donate" button.....this gem of wisdom is surely worth a buck/quid/euro or two ....Ho hum!!!)
Excellent! That seems to be promising!
Just tried using that and tried to restore only the sms on my android, however it gave an error. Have emailed sprite software the relevant log file, lets see if they come up with the reason of failure. Guess it might have something to do with the threaded view on my win mob 6.5
PS : Paypal donate button shudn't be that difficult to get
And yes just thought that I would mention about the contacts - its actually very easy - just get them into csv file using the trick that you mentioned above and then import the csv file in gmail contacts! that's it! gmail automatically syncs the contacts thereafter!
Mark Crouch said:
I was about to say I have no idea and I don't really care (about Android phones that is, not your problem getting your messages onto your Hero!), but then.......
I found this - Sprite Software's FREE (at the moment) migration software - which looks like the answer to your prayers
I've seen a report from someone who used it - apparently, it's pretty slow, but as it's a "one-time" transfer operation.....who cares how long "free" takes!!!???
Let us know how you get on - and post something in the Android-related forums so that other users can benefit.....
Cheers,
Mark.
(At times like this, I wish I had a Paypal "donate" button.....this gem of wisdom is surely worth a buck/quid/euro or two ....Ho hum!!!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Mark (Am I Noob to Android)
It seems like, you have solved the issue here. I did have one question for you:
What if you allready had a PIM back of your old phone. Then the phone you have sold it. But you still the the PIM backup file on your SD card. Can you still go on to follow and start from 2 step and then step 3.
Or is the another way of doing this then?
Many Thanks.
yes u should be able too as long as the PIM file is on your SD card. you can just directly transfer it onto your PC, then rename it to a ZIP file and proceed as instructed above.
sam_htc_touch said:
Any idea how to import these into an Android Phone - just got an HTC Hero today. Took a backup of my existing contacts, sms etc from WM6.5 (HTC Touch HD) and could see the .pib (renamed as .zip) and individual files (which I renamed as .csv)..
Guess there might be a simple trick to restore them as well in HTC Hero?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tried it..
i just took the contacts.csv file ,tried to extract with gmail...
then
An unknown error occurred while importing your contacts.Learn more
.....oohhhh.....really needed help
Hello to everyone!
I had an HTC Touch HD and after a serious accident it's officially dead! I had a backup of contacts and messages to my sd card and i did what is described. I renamed it to .zip and i extracted it to my pc.. The result i get is files .pba, .pbl, .pbc, .pbx, .pbd and .pbt
Does anyone know what is all that and how i can use them in android phone????
please help me!
isovitis33 said:
Hello to everyone!
I had an HTC Touch HD and after a serious accident it's officially dead! I had a backup of contacts and messages to my sd card and i did what is described. I renamed it to .zip and i extracted it to my pc.. The result i get is files .pba, .pbl, .pbc, .pbx, .pbd and .pbt
Does anyone know what is all that and how i can use them in android phone????
please help me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is what I got also, I tried importing data to excel (with / without renaming to csv or ssv) but the text was not understandable in any language so I did not even proceed in selecting the separator and actually import the data.
Mr Black'd said:
that is what I got also, I tried importing data to excel (with / without renaming to csv or ssv) but the text was not understandable in any language so I did not even proceed in selecting the separator and actually import the data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Come on guys read a little more on the web, if you would have done so you would have figured out you have the binary backup files, not the text file, so what you need to do is convert. Now if you press the search button for the forum you would have found this interesting link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=424641
the title says: 'Convert PIM Backup binary file to text without using windows mobile device'
(considering yours broke like mine)
You can read there that you can convert it to a text file using an emulator on your pc and subsequentlyfollow the steps that were described here...
First of all what makes you think that none has bothered to use search button or at least Google the issue?
Second and last ok you have proved us stupid.
Anyway thanks for the link even though a late reply cause personally I have solved my issues.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA app.

Keepass PPC and key files

Ok, I’ve been holding back on this one for over a year, doing searches on this problem and coming up with nothing. I can’t believe I’m the only one with this problem.
I have an HTC Trinity running WM6.1
I use KeePass on my PC with a key file. On my ppc I cannot get the software to allow me to choose a key file. The drop-down selector will say “<no key file selected>” even though the box next to “Use Master Password AND Key File” is checked and the master password has been entered. No amount of selecting/unselecting/reselecting will allow the key file selector to give me any sort of file selector or input field.
I’ve been dicking around with this since I first got my device in July 2008, putting a few hours into it when I come across a new release (today’s version was 0.5.1). I’ve seen release notes from a previous version (0.4.5) that key file has been enabled. I’ve tried creating a new KeePass file on the PPC, and that will not allow me to choose/create a key file either. I thought it might have something to do with screen aspect affecting the selector widget, so I’ve switched to horizontal mode, shrunk the fonts to the tiniest size, but no difference (I do software QA).
My way of contending with the problem is to generate a dupe of my KP db that doesn’t require a key file. I don’t like doing that.
Actually this page http://stahovat.okamzite.eu/news.php?readmore=179
may be reporting the same problem, but the translation is not very good.
Try it in the Windows Mobile emulator.
If it doesn't work - KeePass is open source, you can probably find out why.
Or just submit a but to KeePass PPC port developers on sourceforge.
I was just faced to the same problem, but then renamed my PCKey-file from "keepass" to "keepass.key" in "My Documents" folder on my Storage card. After selecting the "My Documents", I can open the the key-file without problem and so I can use my encrypted database file.
Hope it still can help you, but I only now found this nice application.

Polaris Office corrupting .doc files

I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?
alan77ss said:
I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My PC is down right now, so I can't test, but I had edited a doc file that was emailed to me and sent it back without problems. Does this only happen when you edit an existing file or also with newly created docs?
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
alan77ss said:
I've found that if i import an ms .doc file into polaris, edit it and then transfer it back to my pc, i'm unable to open the file - i get an error "unexpected error occured while reading". I get the same result whether i open it in word, wordpad, open office etc.
tried this with a few docs, even tried an factory reset, but the problem still occurs. maybe it's just a bad install on my transformer but at the moment it makes polaris pretty much unusable - if i can't sync up my documents, or send them to other people to open on their computers, then it's pointless.
has anyone else noticed this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't get my PC to read a document I created and then transfered from the Transformer either. I could read it when I emailed it to myself and picked it back off of my email on the PC. Could be in the transfering?
DilloDroid said:
I couldn't get my PC to read a document I created and then transfered from the Transformer either. I could read it when I emailed it to myself and picked it back off of my email on the PC. Could be in the transfering?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tested with one excel and one doc document, didn't have any problems viewing them on PC.
Thanks for the response.
Seems to be an issue just on edited files. So it might be that the files on the PC are somehow corrupted. But then i don't have a problem editing and sending docs on my PC - it's only once edited through polaris that there's a problem.
i noticed that when i open up a doc polaris prompts me to 'remove protection' - no idea what that's about as i don't protect the files. maybe it's something to do with that.
Pretty sure it's not the transfer methods, i've tried bluetooth,ftp, drag 'n drop etc...same results.
In my line of work I have come across some interesting information about older office files (doc,xls,ppt). There was an update for office that basically broke them, if you opened an older format file and saved it corrupted them. This same problem may have gone across to Polaris.
Does Polaris allow use of the newer format files(docx,xlsx,pptx)? If so this might be a way around the problem.
Well i tried creating a new document on my PC, edited it in polaris then transferred it back and had the same problem. can't really try other file formats (odt, rtf) as polaris doesn't appear to support them. i might try a quickinstall/refund of one of the other office apps and see if the problem is replicated.
incidentally i can open the editd documents on the docs2go viewer app and i can upload to google docs. so it might be that i have an ancient version of word, but then surely open office should be able to open it ?
I had edited a file for work last week using Polaris (document file with images, headers, etc... ), so I tried opening it on my office PC using Office Word 2007 and it opens and renders perfectly.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Ok well the problem does seem to lie with polaris. i did a quick install/refund of quick office and was able to edit docs and view them on my pc with no problems.
i've got a feeling it's to do with the 'remove protection' prompt i get in polaris, didn't get that with quick office.
maybe it's just a bad install on my device as no one else seems to have the problem. I guess i'm gonna have to call up ASUS as polaris doesn't seem to offer any support on its site.
Same probs here. Gdocs let's me view but not edit. Kword crashes, libre office can't open.
alan77ss said:
Ok well the problem does seem to lie with polaris. i did a quick install/refund of quick office and was able to edit docs and view them on my pc with no problems.
i've got a feeling it's to do with the 'remove protection' prompt i get in polaris, didn't get that with quick office.
maybe it's just a bad install on my device as no one else seems to have the problem. I guess i'm gonna have to call up ASUS as polaris doesn't seem to offer any support on its site.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got that same message on the file I edited, but what I did was save a copy and worked off the copy. Not sure what the protection was, but that's what I did and it worked with opening the file on a PC.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
EP2008 said:
I got that same message on the file I edited, but what I did was save a copy and worked off the copy. Not sure what the protection was, but that's what I did and it worked with opening the file on a PC.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tried your method and it worked with one file but that didn't prompt me for copy protection, but the other file with protection still wouldn't open. also tried creating a couple of docs in polaris from scratch but they wouldn't open either. it's just far too unreliable,i can't risk using this for work.
kind of thinking, to hell with it, i'm gonna buy quick office, it may be a tener but at least it works and you can actually paste stuff into it from other apps, which polaris doesn't do.
Had exactly the same issue, could write things / edit but once i saved it.... nothing would open it. Compounded by the known issue that you can't copy n paste from polaris (why!?).
The work around I use (while considering what office app to buy) is to send to google docs.
In view mode (not edit mode) click the menu and send to google docs (you'll need to have the google docs app installed first obv. - it then imports it and you can save from google docs, or email a link to the doc.
Hope this helps.
(long time reader first time poster)
With further testing I've found older versions of MS Word and Open Office won't open files edited on Polaris - Newer versions of MS Word will.
Can anyone else test and confirm this?
I tried a trial version of the newer word and was able to open up documents edited in Polaris - but it flagged up a security warning teling me it might be unsafe to do so.
But these were older documents writtten in an older version of word so maybe that has something to do with it. It might be that Polaris isn't handling older word documents properly.
I've been using Polaris Office for school work. Any file created in or edited with Polaris Office is seen by LibreOffice as outright corrupt. Can't open it at all. I tried opening the file on the school's computers with Word (probably the latest version) and it prompted me to open the file in "Protected mode" informing me that the file could possibly damage my computer (I assume they mean it could contain malicious code or something). Seems ASUS needs to get some bug reports about this.
Yep, exactly same issue... Lucky I got a backup of the files cause, only Polaris can read them!... sucks
Hello. I am using the Endnote X5 for my thesis and it makes some automatic arrangements on doc file. When I transfer the file to my Asus, polaris reads it. But back to my PC, not! So I realized that the doc files that contain plain text doesn't make any problem with polaris.
Possible Solution
I have had the same problem.
I could still open the document on my Android smartphone but not on my computer. I am using an old version of Office 2000. My android had 2 office suites that would read the office document. Polaris Office and OfficeSuite. Polaris would not seem to save it in any other format but Office Suite let me re save it in docx format. I then synced with my desktop and was able to open the docx file with Office 2000- though you need to install Microsoft's free file converter to do that.
I use MyPhone Explorer to sync between Android and desktop. I think the issue is associated with Polaris rather than MyPhoneExplorer as I have no other problems with that. I did wonder if Polaris had changed the format to docx without changing the postscript but just changing it to filename.docx did not make any difference so the full conversion seems to be the solution.

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