Author: user

Edit cell content, modify existing cell content.

To edit or modify the content of a cell, double click on that cell. This will enable the editing for that cell. After this, delete the already present data in that cell using the backspace button from the keyboard and enter the new data as per the requirements. This is how the content of a cell can be edited or modified in Calc.

Use the undo, redo command.

The undo command undoes the effect of the recent changes which were made to the document in such a way so that the most recent change is undone first. The redo command performs the most recent change done to the document again.
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To use the undo or redo commands, click on ‘Edit’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Undo’ or ‘Redo’ as per the requirement to perform undo or redo respectively.

Use the search command for specific content in a worksheet.

To use the search or find option in Calc, click on ‘Edit’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Find’. This displays the ‘Find’ bar at the bottom of the Calc window. Enter the number or text value which you want to find in your spreadsheet here and then click on ‘Find All’.

This will open the ‘Search Results’ dialog, in which the sheet name and position of all the cells is displayed, which contain the search term provided.

The ‘Find Next’ and ‘Find Previous’ buttons from the ‘Find’ bar can also be used to go directly to the cells which contain the required content.

Use the replace command for specific content in a worksheet.

To use the replace command for some specific content in a worksheet, click on ‘Edit’ from the main menu bar. Then click on ‘Find and Replace’ from the resulting drop-down menu. This will open the ‘Find and Replace’ dialog.

In this dialog, enter the term which needs to be replaced in ‘Search For’ and the term with which this term needs to be replaced in ‘Replace With’. After this, click on ‘Replace’ to change the content of the cells one by one or click on ‘Replace All’ to change the content of all the cells in one go.

There are also some options provided in this dialog which can be selected as per the requirements. These options help in filtering down the data to be searched in the spreadsheet cells. An example is the ‘Match case’ checkbox. This option if enabled will only search for those cells whose data not only matches the content provided in ‘Search For’, but is also in the same case. These options can be viewed by expanding ‘Other options’.

Sort a cell range by one criterion in ascending, descending numeric order, ascending, descending alphabetic order.

To sort a cell range in ascending or descending numeric order, first of all select that cell range. After this, click on ‘Data’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Sort’. This will first open the ‘Sort Range’ dialog box. This dialog will ask if only the selected cells need to be considered or other cells should also be included. Select ‘Current Selection’.

This will open the sort dialog box. Here, select whether the sorting needs to be done in the ascending order or descending order. The sort key also needs to be selected. This is generally the column or row header in which the selected cells lie. After this, click on ‘OK’.

The selected numeric data will get sorted.

To sort textual data in ascending or descending alphabetical order, follow the same steps as mentioned above. Just select the sort key and the order of sorting in the ‘Sort’ dialog box and then click on ‘OK’.

The only thing which needs to be considered is that in the ‘Sort’ dialog box, under the ‘Options’ tab, the ‘Range contains column labels’ option should be unchecked if the selected cell range does not contain the heading for that range.

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Insert, Select

Understand that a cell in a worksheet should contain only one element of data, (for example, first name detail in one cell, surname detail in adjacent cell).

Any cell in a worksheet should always contain only one element of data. Even if we want to enter the name of a person; then the first name, the last name, and the middle name (if there is one), should all be entered in different cells. This helps in manipulating and analyzing data more effectively and efficiently.
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Recognize good practice in creating lists: avoid blank rows and columns in the main body of list, insert blank row before Total row, ensure cells bordering list are blank.

When data is contained in a Calc spreadsheet in the form of a table, then the most important point is to format your data in such a way so that it can be identified as a list. When the data is manipulated in Calc, then you just need to select any cell within the list and the tool automatically picks up your list based on some rules.

Any empty row or column, or the upper or left border is considered as the boundary of the list. This is why it is very important to never have empty rows or columns within a list. At the same time, individual lists should be marked by a boundary of empty rows or columns. Also it is generally considered to be a good practice to have a blank row before the total row, the total row being the row where the total of the values of other rows gets calculated.

Enter a number, date, text in a cell.

To enter a number in a cell, double click on the cell and type the number using the keyboard. Numbers are right aligned by default.

To enter a date, select the cell and type the date in the appropriate format which is required. The date elements can be separated with a slash (/) or a hyphen (-). The date format will automatically get changed to the format which has been selected for Calc. We will learn about formatting in the subsequent chapters.

To enter text, double click on the cell and type the text. The text values are left aligned by default.

Select a cell, range of adjacent cells, range of non-adjacent cells, entire worksheet.

To select a cell, simply click on that cell. It should just be a single click and not a double click. Upon selection, the cell will get surrounded by a thick dark border.

To select a range of adjacent cells, click on the first cell in that range and without releasing the mouse button, drag the cursor to the last cell in the range. This will select the entire range of adjacent cells.

To select a range of non-adjacent cells, click on one of the cells and then press the ‘ctrl’ key on the keyboard. Without releasing the ‘ctrl’ key, click on all the cells which need to be selected. If some of the cells are adjacent, then these can be selected by dragging the mouse over them. But the ‘ctrl’ key should not be released throughout. This is how we can select a range of non-adjacent cells.

To select the entire worksheet, click on any one of the cells in that worksheet. After this, press ‘ctrl + A’ from the keyboard and this will select the entire worksheet.

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Set basic options/preferences in the application: user name, default folder to open, save spreadsheets.

To set the basic options in the Calc application, click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Options’. This will open the ‘Options’ dialog box.
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In the ‘Options’ dialog box, under ‘LibreOffice’, in ‘User Data’ we have options to enter user info. The user name can be set here.

In the same dialog box, under ‘LibreOffice’, we have ‘Paths’. Here, we can set the different default paths for the folders to open and save files.

Use available Help functions.

All the components of LibreOffice offer extensive help system to the users. Calc is no different. To get the complete help system, click on ‘Help’ button from the main menu bar. Click on ‘LibreOffice Help’ from the drop down which gets displayed and this will open the full help system.

Additionally, you can click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar and then click on ‘Options’ from the resulting drop down menu. Select the ‘LibreOffice > General’ tab from the dialog which gets opened and you can then choose to check or uncheck the available help options like ‘Tips’ and ‘Extended Tips’.

If ‘Tips’ are enabled you can place the mouse pointer over any icon to see a small tooltip box, which provides a small explanation for the functioning of that icon.

If a more detailed explanation is desired, then click on ‘What’s This?’ from the ‘Help’ dropdown on the main menu bar. Holding the pointer above any icon after this will provide a detailed explanation.

Use magnification/zoom tools.

The view magnification can simply be changed by clicking on the + or – sign in the zoom slider on the status bar.

In order to make more custom changes, click on the percentage figure on the status bar. This opens the ‘Zoom & View Layout’ dialog. The appropriate changes can be made by selecting the desired values from this dialog.

Display, hide built-in toolbars. Restore, minimize the ribbon.

Whether to display or hide the different toolbars in Calc can be controlled by using the ‘View’ button on the main menu bar. Click on ‘View’ and then click on ‘Toolbars’ from the drop down. You get a list of different toolbars which can be checked or unchecked in order to display or hide them respectively.

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Open, close a spreadsheet application. Open, close spreadsheets.

To start Calc, click on the ‘Start’ button on your Windows machine. Click on ‘All Programs’ and then go to the ‘LibreOffice’ folder in the list of all programs which gets displayed. Click on the ‘LibreOffice’ folder and then click on ‘LibreOffice Calc’. This will start the Calc application.

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Use the buttons below to navigate through the lesson

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When Calc is started, the main window opens which has been shown below.

The highlighted portion shown in the above illustration is the ‘Main Menu Bar’. This is the most important menu bar in the Calc application and most of the operations in Calc can be performed from here. In this tutorial, we are going to use the main menu bar for performing a variety of different operations.
To close Calc, simply click on the ‘white cross icon with red background’ on the upper right corner of the Calc main window screen. This will close Calc.

Once the application has been started, then a new spreadsheet can be opened. To open a new spreadsheet, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘New’ and from the sub-menu which is displayed, click on ‘Spreadsheet’. This will open a new spreadsheet.

To close a spreadsheet, simply click on the same white cross icon with a red background from the top right corner of the spreadsheet screen.

Create a new spreadsheet based on default template.

A default template is the one, which is used to create spreadsheets when any new spreadsheet is created. This means that when we create a new spreadsheet, it gets created based on the default template which has been set.

We are going to learn how to set a default template in the subsequent chapters. But to create a new spreadsheet based on the default template, simply follow the steps which have been given in the last section for opening a new spreadsheet. This creates a new spreadsheet based on the default template.

Save a spreadsheet to a location on a drive. Save a spreadsheet under another name to a location on a drive.

Once the changes to a spreadsheet have been made, we need to save this spreadsheet to a location on our computer. To save a spreadsheet, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Save As’. This opens the ‘Save As’ dialog box.

In this dialog box, we can browse to the folder where we want to save the spreadsheet file and thus select the appropriate location. To change the name by which the file will get saved, just enter the new name in the ‘File Name:’ field. After making these changes, click on ‘Save’. This will save the file to the location which has been specified and under the given file name.

Save a spreadsheet as another file type like: template, text file, software specific file extension, version number.

To save a spreadsheet as another file type, follow the same steps as given above. This will open the ‘Save As’ dialog box. In this dialog box, under the ‘Save as type:’ field, select the appropriate file type as per the requirement and then click on ‘Save’. This will save the spreadsheet as the selected file type.

Switch between open spreadsheets.

 

You can open multiple spreadsheets at a time in Calc. In such a case, to switch between these spreadsheets, just click on the ‘Calc’ icon on the task bar of your computer. This icon will always get displayed whenever you are running Calc on your machine.

When this icon is clicked, then the names of all the active spreadsheets get displayed as has been shown above. Simply click on the name of the spreadsheet which you want to open and that spreadsheet will get opened. You can switch between different spreadsheets using this method.

Calc is part or the Office Software Package from Libre Office
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