The Structure of Spreadsheet Documents

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BASIC Guide

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• The Language of OpenOffice.org Basic

• Overview of a Basic Program
• Working With Variables
• Strings
• Numbers
• Boolean Values
• Date and Time
• Arrays
• Scope and Life Span of Variables
• Constants
• Operators
• Branching
• Loops
• Procedures and Functions
• Error Handling
• Other Instructions

• Runtime Library

• Conversion Functions
• Strings
• Date and Time
• Files and Directories
• Message and Input Boxes
• Other Functions

• Introduction to the API

• Universal Network Objects (UNO)
• Properties and Methods
• Modules, Services and Interfaces
• Tools for Working with UNO
• Overview of Central Interfaces

• Working with Documents

• The StarDesktop
• Styles and Templates

• Text Documents

• The Structure of Text Documents
• Editing Text Documents
• More than Just Text

• Spreadsheet Documents

• The Structure of Spreadsheets
  • Rows and Columns
  • Cells and Ranges
  • Formatting Spreadsheet Documents
• Editing Spreadsheet Documents

• Drawings and Presentations

• The Structure of Drawings
• Editing Drawing Objects
• Presentations

• Charts (Diagrams)

• Using Charts in Spreadsheets
• The Structure of Charts
• Chart Types

• Databases

• SQL: a Query Language
• Types of Database Access
• Data Sources
• Database Access

• Dialogs

• Working With Dialogs
• Properties
• Events
• Dialog Control Elements

• Forms

• Working With Forms
• Control Element Forms
• Database Forms

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The document object of a spreadsheet is based on the com.sun.star.sheet.SpreadsheetDocument service. Each of these documents may contain several spreadsheets. In this guide, a table-based document or spreadsheet document is the entire document, whereas a spreadsheet (or sheet for short) is a sheet (table) in the document.

VBA : Different terminology for spreadsheets and their content is used in VBA and OpenOffice.org Basic. Whereas the document object in VBA is called a Workbook and its individual pages Worksheets, they are called SpreadsheetDocument and Sheet in OpenOffice.org Basic.

Spreadsheets

You can access the individual sheets of a spreadsheet document through the Sheets list.

The following examples show you how to access a sheet either through its number or its name.

Example 1: access by means of the number (numbering begins with 0)

Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object

Doc = ThisComponent
Sheet = Doc.Sheets (0)

ThisComponent returns the currently active document. The expression Doc.Sheets(0) is a Basic simplification of the API call : Doc.getSheets.getByIndex(0)

Example 2: access by means of the name

Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object

Doc = ThisComponent
Sheet = Doc.Sheets.getByName("Sheet 1")

In the first example, the sheet is accessed by its number (counting begins at 0). In the second example, the sheet is accessed by its name and the getByName method.

The Sheet object that is obtained by the getByName method supports the com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheet service. In addition to providing several interfaces for editing the content, this service provides the following properties:

IsVisible (Boolean)

value True if the spreadsheet is visible.

PageStyle (String)

name of the page template for the spreadsheet.

Renaming Sheets

A sheet provides methods getName and setName to read and modify its name. Basic can handle both methods like a property Name. Here we rename the first sheet of the spreadsheet document.

Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object
 
Doc = ThisComponent
Sheet = Doc.Sheets(0)
Sheet.Name = "First"

Creating and Deleting Sheets

The Sheets container of a spreadsheet document is also used to create and delete individual sheets. The following example uses the hasByName method to check if a sheet called MySheet exists. If it does, the method determines a corresponding object reference by using the getByName method and then saves the reference in a variable in Sheet. If the corresponding sheet does not exist, it is created by the createInstance call and inserted in the spreadsheet document by the insertByName method.

Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object

Doc = ThisComponent

If Doc.Sheets.hasByName("MySheet") Then
   Sheet = Doc.Sheets.getByName("MySheet")
Else
   Sheet = Doc.createInstance("com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheet")
   Doc.Sheets.insertByName("MySheet", Sheet)
End If

The hasByName, getByName and insertByName methods are obtained from the com.sun.star.container.XNameContainer interface as described in Introduction to the API.

The interface com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheets provides a better method to create a new sheet: insertNewByName. It inserts a new sheet with the name specified by the first argument, at the position specified by the second argument.

Dim Doc As Object
 
Doc = ThisComponent

Doc.Sheets.insertNewByName("OtherSheet", 2)

The same interface provides methods moveByName and copyByName.

The com.sun.star.container.XNameContainer interface provides a method to remove a sheet of a given name:

Dim Doc As Object
 
Doc = ThisComponent

Doc.Sheets.removeByName("OtherSheet")

Content on this page is licensed under the Public Documentation License (PDL).