I am trying to use OpenOffice 1.1.0 with spreadsheets from Excel 97 SR-2.  I am 
using a white-box pc with an Amptron motherboard, an AMD Duron 950mhz 
processor, 1gb ram, 40gb hard disk, and Windows XP Home (with all updates 
applied).

I have a budget cashflow spreadsheet with the following structure:
Rows 1-5: heading info
Rows 6: starting balance for the month 
Rows 7-189: detail as follows:
   col A-B: date
   col C:   check #
   col E:   amount
   col F:   running balance
   col G:   explanation

Column F contains the following formula:
   (row 8): =IF(E8=0,"",F$6+SUM(E$7:OFFSET(F8,0,-1)))
   (row 9): =IF(E9=0,"",F$6+SUM(E$7:OFFSET(F9,0,-1)))
   (etc thru row 189)

When I open this spreadsheet in OpenOffice.org (version 1.1.0)
the formula is corrupted to read as follows:
   (row 8): =IF(E8=0;"";F$6+SUM(#NAME!(E$7;OFFSET(F8;0;-1))))
   (row 9): =IF(E9=0;"";F$6+SUM(#NAME!(E$7;OFFSET(F9;0;-1))))
   (etc thru row 189)

As illustrated, there are 2 problems.
1) An extra function with a bad name is inserted inside the SUM function
2) The colon following E$7 is converted to a semicolon.

(Sometime back I tried out OpenOffice version 1.0.1, and it generated an 
identical problem.)