I'm afraid there is no simple way to take care of your problem. What they are thinking about is most likely Staroffice which can handle Excel and word documents. One possibility would be to figure out what the format of that excel timesheet is. Export it in CVS or Tab delimited format, which you could somehow fill out with vi, or whatever other tool you use, or maybe a perl script and send in. They would need to import that file into Excel and print it out. I'm not sure how hard it would be to deal with Staroffice converting your CVS formatted file into excel format "blindly". Staroffice 6.0 is better in a sense that you can run it's spreadsheet independently from other parts unlike previous versions. I only have 5.2 at home so I can't tell if there is a possibility for command line translation from let's say CVS format to excel. I'm not aware of any text based spreadsheet tool like old Lotus 123 or such. I have hard time to understand that they cannot see a way around their rigid rules to accommodate people with different needs. If you work from home they have to trust that you put your time into work. I assume the results of your labor should be proof enough that you spent time doing your work. How much time you realy spent is a matter of comparing to others in similar situation. Birocrats! On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 11:30:10PM -0600, Cheryl Homiak wrote: > Sorry for the post to two lists; I meant to send to blinux originally and > accidently sent to blinux-newbie. > > I am being hired for a job which I do in my home; basically being payed > through Personal Care Medical Assistance for doing some of my daughter's > care. My problem is the timesheets.'The timesheets are just simple normal > timesheets where you put in the dates ad time/hours; they have all these > long lists of tasks you hae to check that you did, and you have to check > them on the one time sheet for each day. Each time sheet is used for a > week. > Since my job isn't in an office, I can't go into the office to fill them > out. I was asked if I had a friend who could come "every day" to help me > fill them out, to which I of course said I did not. At first they were > going to just let me mark for each day on a computerized text list of > tasks which I would then email in and would be transferred to a pre-signed > timesheet, but the idea of pre-signing a time sheet caused major waves > from the top. Their time sheets are in xcel; they are telling me there is > a linux program that can take the xcel timesheets and that I "save it as > xcel" but I am suspicious that this my require using Xwindows. They also > asked me about the possibility of doing an "electronic signature" about > which I know nothing. It's very frustrating; if I could just write up a > time-sheet with all the tasks listed and checked and all the other info > they need included on the seet, I probably could do it fairly easily; then > I'd either have to find a way to print it and mail it or find a way to get > around the signature problem. As it is, they seem to want this on their > time sheet, and I have major concerns about whether their timesheet is > going to translate into something meaningul for me, something where I can > actually have confidence that I am checking the right boxes. If you mess > up a time sheet, it not only delays your pay, but you have to go into the > office and sit there and re-do the sheet, if I understand correctly. With > my daughter's needs, having to do this would be a major problem. > Is there a text-based linux program I can use that will take xcel forms, > make them intelligible to me, and still spit them back out in the correct > form for my employer? > Can anybody tell me anything about "electronic signatures"? > Any other suggestions would be appreciated; even unreasonable ideas will > probably be given consideration at this point!!! > Thanks. > > -- > Cheryl > -- Rafael