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<!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.1//EN" "../dtd/document-v11.dtd">

<document>
    <header>
        <title>Jakarta POI - Limitations</title>
        <authors>
            <person email="poi-user@jakarta.apache.org" name="Glen Stampoultzis" id="GJS"/>
        </authors>
    </header>
    <body>
        <section><title>Version 1.5 limitations</title>
            <p>
                The intent of this document is to outline some of the known limitations of the
                POI HSSF API's.  It is not intended to be complete list of every bug or missing
                feature of HSSF, rather it's purpose is to provide a broad feel for some of the
                functionality that is missing or broken.
            </p>
            <ul>
                <li>
                    Charts<br/><br/>
                    You can not currently create charts.  This is planned for the 2.0 release.  You can
                    however create a chart in Excel, modify the chart data values using HSSF and write
                    a new spreadsheet out.  This is possible because POI attempts to keep existing records
                    intact as far as possible.<br/><br/>
                </li>
                <li>
                    Rich Text<br/><br/>
                    HSSF does not support rich text cells.  Rich text cells are
                    cells that have multiple fonts and styles in the once cell.  Any attempt to read
                    a spreadsheet that has rich text cells will throw an exception.  This feature may
                    be supported in the future but it is not currently planned.  Patches are welcome.<br/><br/>
                </li>
                <li>
                    Outlines<br/><br/>
                    It is not yet possible to create outlines.  Reading a spreadsheet with outlines
                    may work correctly but has not been tested.  Write support for outlines may
                    be added in the future but it is not currently planned.  Patches are welcome.<br/><br/>
                </li>
                <li>
                    Macros<br/><br/>
                    Macros can not be created.  The are currently no plans to support macros.  Reading
                    workbooks containing macros is supported but attempting to write those workbooks
                    will fail.  This is because macros are stored as extra file sytems within the
                    compound document, and these are not currently kept when the file is rewritten.<br/><br/>
                </li>
                <li>
                    Pivot Tables<br/><br/>
                    Generating pivot tables is not supported.  Reading spreadsheets containing pivot tables
                    has not been tested.
                </li>
            </ul>
        </section>
    </body>
</document>
