ajaxXLS
ajaxXLS was just released. There could be some real benefits to an Ajax app like this. Excel is a rather expensive solution and it would be nice to load up a spreadsheet from anywhere. So that is exactly what I tried to do.
I went to the site and followed the simple instructions. For this test I used a very small spreadsheet I have to balance a checkbook. It is one page, 5 columns x 27 rows. The first image is the original XLS file.
Now, here is the file as it loaded into ajaxXLS.
As you can see the formatting is not right. Overall the math is right, cells are summed correctly. The cell colors and borders are not formatted properly, and at the bottom where there are cells of text there are strange characters and overlapping data as seen in the next snapshot.
I am confident the guys at AjaxLaunch will resolve these issues and deliver a working application.
From ajaxXLS :
On this first release of the ajaxXLS viewer, you can expect to open spreadsheet files with all your common cell formatting categories such as text style, decimals, currencies, date, and time. ajaxXLS will preserve your formulas, backgrounds and borders from the files created in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice. ajaxXLS is platform independent and can be used with any operating system.