OpenOffice Calc Tips

The REPT function can be used to create simple charts without the use of the OOo Calc charting tool - although it is not clear if that was the original intent of the function.

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When entering text in OO Calc cells, you may notice that the program makes assumptions about what you are typing and you get unwanted corrections.

These corrections are completely configurable throught the AutoCorrect dialog.

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Invariably, macros written for use within the Calc application will need to access the contents of the cells on a spreadsheet. This tip is an introduction to the various available methods.

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A step by step - and hopefully easy-to-follow - guide to creating a basic pie chart.

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It is useful to be able to control the appearance of error values in your spreadsheet. The example shows how to do this for string searches.

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In a prior example we saw how data filtering could be used to reduce the size of the data set before doing analysis.

The database functions perform basic data analysis - but they also have advanced data filtering built in.

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Here is another simple macro that turns an OOo Calc spreadsheet into a real time clock.

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We have already seen a table lookup example using the OFFSET function.

Here, we perform a similar operation using INDEX and MATCH

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Adding notes is straightforward. Follow these illustrated examples on making the most of this Calc feature

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As a follow on from the previous tip, I show how to grab FOREX quotes from the Yahoo Finance website.

Here is the link to the Yahoo FOREX quote for the US dollar against the Japanese yen. A screen shot is shown below. At any given time, we are interested in two values for each currency pair, the bid and the ask.

The URL in this example is http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=USDJPY=X and the table is HTML__yfncsumtab.

By selecting Edit - Links, you will get the Links popup editor.

With this, you canreview and modify existing Webquery links in your spreadsheet.