MS Excel XML File Format

["Browder, Tom" <Tom Browder fwb srs com>]

First, thanks to all the developers of gnumeric--I use it extensively to
check Excel files generated by John McNamara's fine
Spreadsheet::WriteExcel perl module.

I notice that gnumeric can open the new MS Excel xml format, but it
can't atomatically determine the format for files with an xml extension.
Is there a remedy for that?  Is there a preferred extension?

And I also notice that a valid Excel xml file (according to MS Excel)
has a reported overlapping merge range by gnumeric and it ceases opening
attempts.  Is that a bug?  Would you like a copy of that file?

I'm using gnumeric 1.6.3 under Fedora 7.

Thanks.

-Tom