OpenOffice.org Calc Tips : Scaling prints

Here is an interresting use case. I have the following set of data: many lines and a few columns. You can have an idea of how the data looks in the screenshot (data range : A1:L159): What I want to do is to print all the columns on the same sheet and I don't care of the number sheets for the lines. How would you do that? Any hint? Currently, I see two way to do it.

The first one, is quite an easy one: use the "Page break preview". Select "View > Page break Preview". You should see something similar to the screenshot: Then, just click on the vertical blue line showing the end of "page 1" and drag it to the end of your data. And that's it.

The second method is not that easy to find. It does use the page formating dialog. Select Format > Page... and click on the sheet page. You should see something similar to this screenshot. In the "Scale" area, select "Fit print range(s) to width/heigth" and then just click on the hegth text box and remove the "1". It should look like the screenshot now: Then just click on the "Ok" button. By removing the "1", you explain to OOo that it has to take care of the number of pages for the heigth. To check the result, just have a look at the print preview.

PS: I agree, that having a value called "*", "I don't care" or anything else could make this easier for users. Maybe an issue should be reported about that ?

OpenOffice.org Calc Tips : drag & drop in a chart

Björn Milcke from Sun made me discover today a nice feature of the chart module : using drag & drop with charts. Have a look at the following picture : I would like to create a diagram displaying the three ranges A to C. As you may notice, I forgot to select the ranges B and C. So what will I do ? I will just select the two ranges B and C, and then drag & drop them on the chart using the "ctrl key". This will add directly my two ranges to the chart ! Nice, isn't it ? PS : to drag & drop the range, you first need to select it, and then click on it for some time before moving your mouse. This is the same behaviour as to move cells around a sheet. PS 2 : if the ranges do not have the same number of values, the result is... weird. but this will be corrected in some time ;-)

OpenOffice.org Calc Tips : Modifying borders around a table

Have a look at the screenshot below. As you might notice, this is a really simple invoice designed in Calc. Some of the formating of this array is already done using borders. Now, you would like to add borders around the invoice to make it look better (range B5:E12). By default, if you select the range B5:E12, and try to add borders using the borders icon in the UI, everything will be fine. But this is limited because you can not choose the width and the color of the borders. In order to modify the width and the color, you have to use the borders dialog (format > cells > borders). While using the borders dialog, one may try to add borders using the second icon beginning from the left in the dialog (see sreenshot above). This may be tricky as it deletes the borders around each article in our example above. To avoid it, there is a special feature in the borders dialog . The highlighted button in the screenshot below does exactly the trick : it will add borders but will not delete what you already did.

OpenOffice.org Calc Tip : typing data

In Calc, one often wants to enter data quickly on several lines. Hence, once you have entered the first line, you click on the beginning of the second line and so on for each line. As, using the mouse is too exhausting for power users, here is a trick for you : - Select a range of cells - Click on the tabulation key Each time you press the tabulation key, you will move to the next cell and once you are at the end of a line, the selection will go back at the beginning of the selection on the following line without clicking.