I switched from jxl to poi since POI has more features. However, I wasn't able to process the xls files that were generated in the old format. Now I am getting this error:
org.apache.poi.hssf.OldExcelFormatException: The supplied spreadsheet seems to be Excel 5.0/7.0 (BIFF5) format. POI only supports BIFF8 format (from Excel versions 97/2000/XP/2003)
Now I am thinking to use both JXL as wells as POI depending on the xls version so for old format xls files I will use jxl while for newer versions I will use POI. Is this a good solution? Are there any alternatives?
For old Excel format files, you have the following alternatives:
POI
implementation of the Excel '97(-2007) file format.
OldExcelExtractor
, process the file at the record
level, and check for the co-ordinates on OldStringRecord, NumberRecord, OldFormulaRecord and friends. HSSF
but for some old formats it is the only way to extract the information.