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 OfficeWriter Home > Customers Home > officewriter-222.aspx |
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System
Requirements:
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Server:
Windows NT4/2000/XP with IIS or PWS |
Client:
Web Browser and Microsoft Excel |
Note:
In
addition to the Windows platform, ExcelWriter also
supports the Java™ platform |
Formula One e.Spreadsheet Designer:
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PC:
Windows
98/NT4/2000/XP |
Formula One
e.Spreadsheet Engine:
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Server:
Windows
NT4/2000/XP, Solaris™ 2.6/7/8, AIX 4.3.3/5.1,
HP-UX 11.0/11i, Redhat Linux 6.2/7.1 with Java™
Development Kit and J2EE™ Web Server or Application
Server |
Client:
Web
Browser, MS Excel (not required for HTML or XML
reports) and Java™ Virtual Machine |
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The
machine used in this review ran the Microsoft Windows XP Professional
operating system with Internet Information Server (IIS) and Tomcat
J2EE™ Web server. Let's begin by discussing the installation
of both products. First, I installed ExcelWriter and the installation
went smoothly. The installation program created an IIS virtual directory
for the included samples and appropriate shortcuts for help documentation
and the sample Web pages on the start menu.
Next
I installed the e.Spreadsheet Engine and the e.Spreadsheet Designer
- this is actually two separate non-interdependent installations.
(Just a note: utilization of the e.Spreadsheet Engine does not require
the e.Spreadsheet Designer. However, there are some useful features
which one would not have access to without it.) I attempted to install
the e.Spreadsheet Designer first and received the following error
message:
"Launch
Anywhere Install Error: Can't launch executable. Could not
find a suitable Java™ Virtual Machine. See http://java.sun.com to download one. Try re-installing the Java™ VM used
by the application." |
So
I went to Sun's Web site and downloaded the latest Java™ Virtual
Machine. I installed it and then the e.Spreadsheet Designer installed
without any further issues. Next, I installed the e.Spreadsheet
Engine and it appeared to install correctly. I say "appeared" because
no shortcuts to the documentation and samples, as well as, a virtual
directory in IIS were created. Of course, I learned later that the
e.Spreadsheet Engine requires a J2EE™ Web server or application
server to run and is incompatible with IIS. e.Spreadsheet Engine's
documentation was very sketchy on system requirements.
Samples
The
samples that were included with ExcelWriter worked without any effort.
Each of ExcelWriter's key features is presented in a sample, showing
how they can be used in either Visual Basic .NET or C#. All of the
sample programs are nicely organized in folders and are well commented
with short descriptions as well. These samples can be run in the
online documentation. |
e.Spreadsheet, however, was a different story. There were no shortcuts to
the samples.And,
upon further research, I discovered that I needed to install a J2EE™
Web server. I went ahead and installed Apache Tomcat 4.1. The
Formula One e.Spreadsheet JSP Tag Library (f1taginstall.war) was a simple
drag and drop operation into the Apache Tomcat /webapps/ directory. I found
that none of the samples that used servlets had been compiled and, therefore,
were not ready to run out of the box. In order to run a sample you had to
change the directory path for the sample spreadsheet in the Java™
code and then compile the sample with a Java™ compiler. However, before
being able to compile any of these I had to download and install the Java™
Development Kit (JDK) from Sun. The JDK, in my opinion, did not completely
install automatically. After running the setup program I had to add the
bin directory to the path for my PC. After all of this I could finally run
the servlet samples that were included with e.Spreadsheet Engine. |
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| Feature
Comparison |
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Microsoft
Excel has an amazing number of features built-in that allow users to create
professional quality reports. Both ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine
have the ability to use most of these same features that Microsoft Excel
users are accustomed to. In view of this, I will be focusing mainly on the
differences between these two reporting solutions.
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Since
ExcelWriter reads and writes native Excel binary format, ExcelWriter's
file types are Excel Workbook (.xls) and Excel Template (.xlt). e.Spreadsheet
Engine supported read and write file types are e.Spreadsheet Workbook
(.vts), Excel Workbook (.xls) and write-only file types HTML and XML.
The HTML and XML write feature allows HTML reports to be generated
from a spreadsheet or other data source. |
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With
ExcelWriter, you can create styles and then apply these styles to
cells or ranges. e.Spreadsheet Engine does not use styles, but you
can apply formatting to a range of cells. |
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Both
ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine can create and insert charts
in spreadsheets. When using HTML, the charts generated by e.Spreadsheet
Engine can be displayed as gif, rle gif, or png images. |
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With
ExcelWriter, you can use SoftArtisans' HotCell Technology to update
a server side data source. e.Spreadsheet Engine claims you can update
a server side data source, but I could not find any working examples
that demonstrated it. The closest thing I found was a demo on their
Web site that was set up as an input form for an expense report. When
you submit the form your values are shown in html. Actuate says you
can easily add these values to a database, but do not demonstrate
how to do this. |
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JPG
images will not display in e.Spreadsheet Engine, but will display
correctly in ExcelWriter. When you embed a GIF or PNG in an e.Spreadsheet
Designer workbook and open the file in Excel, the picture displays
correctly. But if you insert a picture as a URL, the picture is not
displayed. So, you cannot link images to workbooks via a URL if you
want to pass them between e.Spreadsheet Designer and Excel. |
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| ExcelWriter-Only
Features |
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ExcelWriter
natively supports both Windows and Java™ platforms. e.Spreadsheet
only supports the Java™ platform. |
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ExcelWriter
supports all native Microsoft Excel features, including VBA and macros.
e.Spreadsheet does not support these two key features that power-Excel
users rely on. When e.Spreadsheet Designer opens Excel files the VBA
and macros are discarded, but macros on macro sheets are retained
for later export back to Excel. However, e.Spreadsheet Designer cannot
execute the macros. |
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Another
major Excel feature that is supported by ExcelWriter is pivot tables.
It is important to note that e.Spreadsheet Designer does not support
pivot tables. When an Excel file containing a pivot table report is
imported into e.Spreadsheet Designer, the pivot table report appears
as cells filled with data that are not linked to the original source. |
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| e.Spreadsheet
Engine-Only Features |
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One
of the interesting things about e.Spreadsheet Engine is that you can
use an XSLT file to transform a data source into a spreadsheet where
you can even add formulas and formatting. However, this can only be
setup through an e.Spreadsheet Workbook (.vts) created with the e.Spreadsheet
Designer and cannot be accomplished in code. |
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e.Spreadsheet
Engine can create and insert drawing objects to spreadsheets like
arcs, lines, ovals, polygons, rectangles and form objects such as
drop-down lists, checkboxes, text areas, radio buttons, buttons, list
boxes. These objects can be locked in place so that the user cannot
move them. Patterns or image backgrounds for each object can also
be set. |
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e.Spreadsheet
Engine has cell validation. However, validation rules are lost when
exporting to or importing from Excel. |
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| More
e.Spreadsheet Designer Compatibility Problems with Excel |
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e.Spreadsheet
will not import control objects such as buttons, check boxes, drop-down
lists, list boxes, radio buttons, and text areas when opening an Excel
file. Likewise, control objects that you create in e.Spreadsheet are
not saved when you export the file to Excel format. Also, formatting
of drawing objects, like fill patterns and textures, line styles,
and line widths, in e.Spreadsheet files might not appear as you originally
formatted them when you export the file to Excel. |
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Defined
names that look like cell references, beginning with the letters A
through AVLH followed by 1 to 1,073,741,824, created in Excel are
incompatible with e.Spreadsheet Designer. Formulas containing those
names cannot be entered or edited. |
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e.Spreadsheet
Designer preserves and writes out rotated text in Excel files, but
the text rotation may look different in Excel. |
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When
an e.Spreadsheet Designer file with cells that extends beyond row
65536 and column IV is exported to Excel, the data in the extra rows
is deleted so Excel can open the file. |
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e.Spreadsheet
Designer displays charts similarly to Excel, however, the automatic
axis label algorithm is different. To share files with Excel you have
to use another option for the axis label. |
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e.Spreadsheet
Designer opens Excel files containing 3D charts, but converts the
charts to 2D charts. |
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Some
e.Spreadsheet Designer math functions do not return exactly the same
results as Excel 97 functions. However, e.Spreadsheet Designer is
consistent with Excel XP. |
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| Programming
Interface |
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Both
ExcelWriter and e.Spreadsheet Engine will allow you to create or view Excel
compatible spreadsheets (including data, charts, images, and formatting)
using programming code only. In fact, both program interfaces allow you
to accomplish everything from code so that a graphical user interface is
not necessary. Except for e.Spreadsheet's Range Query Wizard, everything
that can be accomplished in e.Spreadsheet Designer can also be done in code.
I found using ASP scripts with ExcelWriter to be much simpler than using
JSP, Java™ Servlets, and Java™ Applets with e.Spreadsheet Engine.
An ExcelWriter report can be created using scripts in one ASP Web page.
With e.Spreadsheet Engine, some reports can be created using just one JSP
Web page and the Formula One JSP Tag Library. But the more complicated reports
involving spreadsheets seem to require both Java™ Servlets and Applets
in conjunction with a JSP Web Page. |
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| User
Interface |
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Designing
reports with ExcelWriter does not require any special training; you simply
use a program that most people are familiar with - Microsoft Excel.
e.Spreadsheet
Engine has a companion program, e.Spreadsheet Designer, that allows you
to create compressed workbook files (.vts) using a graphical interface
similar to Excel.
However,
learning to use e.Spreadsheet Designer will require some time and there
were a few quirks that I found annoying. For example, I love the fill
handle in Excel, but with e.Spreadsheet Designer if you start a series
of cells containing 1,2,3 and select all three cells and drag the fill
handle down it keeps repeating 1,2,3. In Excel you would get the next
numbers in the series, 4,5,6, etc. |
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| User Interface |
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ExcelWriter:
Built-in support for pivot tables, VBA, and macros; the
ability to update a server-side data source with HotCell
Technology; and using Excel to create template spreadsheets.
e.Spreadsheet
Engine:
Ability
to create and open e.Spreadsheet Designer compressed workbooks
that reduce download time and use of several reporting
formats including spreadsheets, HTML and XML. |
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ExcelWriter
and e.Spreadsheet Engine are both powerful Web reporting solutions.
I did
not test the applications with any benchmark software, but I feel
the need to report what was obvious. ExcelWriter's sample Web pages
opened quickly, but e.Spreadsheet Engine's Web pages loaded noticeably
slower.
If
you already use Excel, all of your spreadsheets will work with ExcelWriter.
On the other hand, converting your spreadsheets to the e.Spreadsheet
format will be very time intensive and could be a major headache
considering e.Spreadsheet's compatibility problems with Excel.
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