klee12 wrote:

> r.xls : Microsoft Installer

I would be suspicious of the file, unless you know for sure that you can
trust the source, and that the source meant to send it to you. You
might want to try "strings r.xls |more" to see if the contents are
indeed what you expect them to be.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Network and Systems analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

klee12 wrote:

> I would appreciate any help on how to open this file. I haven't got
> Gnumeric installed, and can't seem to find it on the Slackware in
> version 12.


Download a copy of OpenOffice. Their spreadsheet app is able to read Excel files.

-- anthony
--
http://www.whuddafug.com

On Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:07:22 +0000, Sylvain Robitaille wrote:

> klee12 wrote:
>
>> r.xls : Microsoft Installer
>
> I would be suspicious of the file,

That's a good idea for any file coming from external sources.

> unless you know for sure that you can
> trust the source, and that the source meant to send it to you. You
> might want to try "strings r.xls |more" to see if the contents are
> indeed what you expect them to be.

Let's put apart the fact that I believe someone that uses
..xls format while a .csv format could be used is probably
in need of a demonstration of what can be achieved thru a
simple malevolent macro (right, it is also true for scripts
and anything that's active ;-)

This point taken apart I can certify that most of the .xls
that I meet these days are spotted by 'file' as the OP
quoted ("Microsoft Installer"), so the idea of strings|more
is a good one.
In case the OP can directly read binary code and possible
readressing the use of 'od -Ad -c' (or xxd for the traitors
that use vim instead of elVIs ;-) can be a must but the best
way would be to do it in a sandbox, posibly a snapshot under QEMU
or family.

Now, if the source is identified, certified, etc. don't fuss
with paranoia and just try OOo or soffice, usually the next
problem is in the data adequation to reality, as this is a PoV
that has no POV you can forget it :-)

Thanks to all who replied.

I tried to install koffice and open it in their spreadsheet, but
wasn't able to. It might have been because I didn't load enought of
the KDE environmental packages, but I was in a hurry to leave for
Christmas and didn't want to take the trouble. I could have tried to
get an OpenOffice package on the net, but I heard that it was very
large and slow, and didn't want to go to the trouble. I solved my
problem by copying the file onto a floppy and having opening it on
another machine.

Good point about security. I assumed that macros that made system
calls for MS products probably wouldn't work under Linux. Is that a
safe assumption? I'm confident that the sender did not intend to
spread virus, but his computer could have been infected.

klee12