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Comment by marcodiego | Hacker News Reader

Didn't read it but, couldn't this be a "battlefield" where LibreOffice could have unbeatable advantage?

Python on LibreOffice appears to be more concerned with moving GUI elements and not enough with manipulating cells. There doesn't appear to be a straightforward library/module which helps me access specific cells and get their values. This would be a greater value proposition than allowing me to control Calc as a puppet using a Python script which seems to be their main idea.

Did you try the ScriptForge library shipped with LibreOffice: https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/sbasic/shared...

See the SFDocuments.Calc service there. ScriptForge makes it more convenient to work with the API.

Using it with Python: https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/sbasic/shared...

I hadn't come across the ScriptForge library before so I just looked it up. It looks pretty cool and definitely looks like how MSFT should have worked on including Python in Excel. From my quick look, it looks like ScriptForge is primarily a BASIC which supports Python(?). So I can only imagine how much more powerful a Python specific library could be given the differences in Python and BASIC themselves.

No need to use BASIC, you can use ScriptForge in LibreOffice Python macros directly. ScriptForge is also available for use with LibreOffice BASIC macros.

What's the state of things at Libre office regards to this? Do they support python or other languages for macros and for formula/expressions?

yes python supppoted in libraoffice

There's a Python wrapper for the Java API. Documentation is scarce. Also Libreoffice only supports any of the nice and new Excel functionality .... since last month: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=126573

Yes.

Delusional.

While I wish this was not the case, the consumers of my excel spreadsheets barely have enough excel skills as is.

The idea there is any value in scrapping all that for LibreOffice is completely and utterly delusional.

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