Apple Numbers

Targets macOS
1

Hello,

Is there a way, either with native Xojo or through the use of a third-party plugin, to manipulate Apple Numbers spreadsheets?

Thanks

2

Sorry, no.

But we do have a XL Plugin to read/write xls and xlsx files.

3

I suppose that you cannot ask your users to export Numbers spreadsheets to excel format.

4

Numbers (and pages and keynotes) are applescriptable apps (at least in the 09 version I have…)
you can pilot them via applescript

5

Thanks guys,

I’m writing some custom apps for a company that does all their spreadsheets in Numbers. But they need to run on some systems that don’t have Numbers installed (including a server with no desktop interaction), so controlling it with AppleScript is probably not the right solution.

Some of the formulas in these files are pretty complex and when I open converted files in Excel, they don’t behave the same way and I get incorrect calculations and errors.

Sadly, I can’t find any programming environment at all that works with Numbers files directly.

6

Well, Our plugin can create Excel files without excels.
People can download them and open them in OpenOffice or Numbers without problems.

7

You can run applescript on a remote machine
Application(‘eppc://127.0.0.1/Mail’)

8

Read guys. He wants to edit these files without Numbers being in the machine.

9

[quote=236079:@Antonio Rinaldi]You can run applescript on a remote machine
Application(‘eppc://127.0.0.1/Mail’)[/quote]

That is intriguing. So you would basically run applescript on a Macintosh box used as server ? That looks like a great solution.

10

But you still need Numbers running on the server and be logged in.

11

I don’t think what you want to to is feasible. Even with Excel this would be very hard. Numbers is going to be installed at least.

12

You can of course try to parse the file format and make changes yourself, e.g. If it is xml maybe replace placeholders with text like I do for word files.

13

You might be able to convert between numbers and Excel using Cloud Convert: (no affiliation)
https://cloudconvert.com/formats

14

take your number document
rename the .number into a .zip
unzip it
you get a folder with 2 files and a folder
the index.xml file contains all your datas, it is an xml file easy to handle
the question is: how is it easy to make back the .number from the xml file
but this is a good start.

15

That’s true for version 9 files.
Version 11 are prototype files (so iCloud can easily synchronize them)

The remote apple script solution could a solution (since is remote the “launching” server has to be a Mac but don’t need to have Numbers installed)
The bad new is that Xojo is not compatible with Javascript AppleScript, maybe is time to update this feature.
(it never returns anything…)

16

even if the OP uses numbers 11, he can generate version 09 files, that numbers 11 will open and convert ?

17

Indeed. But that seems like a solution, in the absence of a Numbers plugin.

18

[quote=236055:@Peter Michael]Hello,

Is there a way, either with native Xojo or through the use of a third-party plugin, to manipulate Apple Numbers spreadsheets?

Thanks[/quote]
Apple scripts
There’s no SDK for it

19

Use… AppleScript’s GUI commands