[Wine] Re: running VBA code/macros within Linux

[Rob]

Albretch Mueller wrote:

>  Hi,
> .
>  I know you can run Windows applications using WINE (winehq.com), but has
> anyone tried, say, running Word or Excel VBA code/macros based on Windows
> run time libraries?
> .
>  the thing is that in their faq
> (http://www.winehq.com/site/docs/wine-faq/index) they don't even mention
> this possibility and searching on; VBA Word, doesn't give you any hits,
> even though WINE does link to windows native dll's
> .
>  Perhaps anyone hasn't tried that yet. Perhaps I haven't looked in the
>  right
> place
> .
>  Could you point me to examples/tutorials?

Albretch,

Firstly, I have disabled the automatic email response to you as I believe it
is rude to ask for help here and want any answers or further discussion
sent to you by email!

Back to your question.  Yes, VBA code can be run under MS Office products
under WINE - I did so some time ago.  The problem is that I have tried more
recently and the macros did *not* run reliably [with Word 97/Excel 97].  It
is possible that the original test was done under an evaluation copy of the
CrossOffice product environment - a commercial version of WINE optimised
mainly for MS Office products - I really cannot remember as it was a few
years ago :(

I'd suggest you try to get VBA & Word/Excel to run under a recent version of
WINE before you look elsewhere.

As well, I used a product called winetools to help set up the WINE
environment - greatly simplifies the process, but it's a bit long in the
tooth and apparently has problems in some areas.  I believe that there was
a new project (wine doors)  set up to effectively replace winetools, but
I'm not sure what has happended since I last looked - at least 6 months
ago.

A few sites to look at re WINE setup if you need them (not VBA specific
AFAIK):

http://www.wine-doors.org/trac
http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/
http://sidenet.ddo.jp/winetips/
http://frankscorner.org/index.php?p=ie6
http://mc1soft.com/linux/index.html

HTH

        Rob.