How to read Microsoft Excel (97, 2003, 2007) through OpenOffice API

Is there any way to read different MS Excel formats through OpenOffice API.
I am currently using Apache POI library, but many developers said OpedOffice API is much more powerful and having no constrains like Apache POI can only read String/Boolean/Numeric from a cell.

Regards,
Dhaval

The http://faq.javaranch.com/java/AccessingFileFormats page has some links to information about the OO Java API. It has a steep learning curve, though.

Hi Ulf, your suggestion was valuable and it served my purpose.

Thanks for the help.