Viewing Calc

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3

Chapter 5. Getting Started with Calc

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• Parts of the main Calc window
• Starting new spreadsheets
• Opening existing spreadsheets
• Saving spreadsheets
• Navigating within spreadsheets
• Selecting items in a sheet or spreadsheet
• Working with sheets
• Viewing Calc
• Entering data using the keyboard
• Speeding up data entry
• Editing data
• Formatting data
• Autoformatting cells and sheets
• Formatting spreadsheets using themes and Conditional Formatting
• Hiding and showing data
• Sorting records
• Printing from Calc

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Using zoom

Use the zoom function to change the view to show more or fewer cells in the window. For more about zoom, see [[../Introducing_OpenOffice.org| Chapter 1 (Introducing OOo)]].

Freezing rows and columns

Freezing locks a number of rows at the top of a spreadsheet or a number of columns on the left of a spreadsheet or both. Then when scrolling around within the sheet, any frozen columns and rows remain in view.

Figure below shows some frozen rows and columns. The heavier horizontal line between rows 3 and 14 and the heavier vertical line between columns C and H denote the frozen areas.. Rows 4 through 13 and columns D through G have been scrolled off the page. Because the first three rows and columns are frozen into place, they remained.

File:FrozenRows.png

Frozen rows and columns

You can set the freeze point at one row, one column, or both a row and a column as in figure above.

Freezing single rows or columns

1. Click on the header for the row below where you want the freeze or for the column to the right of where you want the freeze.
2. Select Window > Freeze.

A dark line appears, indicating where the freeze is put.

Freezing a row and a column

1. Click into the cell that is immediately below the row you want frozen and immediately to the right of the column you want frozen.
2. Select Window > Freeze.

Two lines appear on the screen, a horizontal line above this cell and a vertical line to the left of this cell. Now as you scroll around the screen, everything above and to the left of these lines will remain in view.

Unfreezing

To unfreeze rows or columns, select Window > Freeze. The check mark by Freeze will vanish.

Splitting the window

Another way to change the view is by splitting the window—also known as splitting the screen. The screen can be split either horizontally or vertically or both. This allows you to have up to four portions of the spreadsheet in view at any one time.

Why would you want to do this? Imagine you have a large spreadsheet and one of the cells has a number in it which is used by three formulas in other cells. Using the split screen technique, you can position the cell containing the number in one section and each of the cells with formulas in the other sections. Then you can change the number in the cell and watch how it affects each of the formulas.

File:SplitScreen.png

Split screen example

Splitting the screen horizontally

To split the screen horizontally:

1. Move the mouse pointer into the vertical scroll bar, on the right-hand side of the screen, and place it over the small button at the top with the black triangle.
File:Split-horiz.png
Split screen bar on vertical scroll bar
2. Immediately above this button you will see a thick black line (see above). Move the mouse pointer over this line and it turns into a line with two arrows (see below).
File:SplitVerticalCalc.jpg
Split screen bar on vertical scroll bar with cursor
3. Hold down the left mouse button and a gray line appears, running across the page. Drag the mouse downwards and this line follows.
4. Release the mouse button and the screen splits into two views, each with its own vertical scroll bar.

Notice that the ‘Beta’ and the ‘A0’ values are in the upper part of the window and other calculations are in the lower part. You may scroll the upper and lower parts independently. Thus you can make changes to the Beta and A0 values and watch their affects on the calculations in the lower half of the window.

You can also split the window vertically as described below—with the same results, being able to scroll both parts of the window independently. With both horizontal and vertical splits, you have four independent windows to scroll.

Splitting the screen vertically

To split the screen vertically:

1. Move the mouse pointer into the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the screen and place it over the small button on the right with the black triangle.
File:Split-vert.png
Split bar on horizontal scroll bar
2. Immediately to the right of this button is a thick black line. Move the mouse pointer over this line and it turns into a line with two arrows.
3. Hold down the left mouse button and a gray line appears, running up the page. Drag the mouse to the left and this line follows.
4. Release the mouse button and the screen is split into two views, each with its own horizontal scroll bar.

Splitting the screen horizontally and vertically at the same time gives four views, each with its own vertical and horizontal scroll bars.

Removing split views

To remove a split view:

• Double-click on each split line, or
• Click on and drag the split lines back to their places at the ends of the scroll bars, or
• Select Window > Split. This will remove all split lines at the same time.

You can also split the screen using a menu command. Click in a cell that is immediately below and immediately to the right of where you wish the screen to be split, and choose Window > Split.