Adding Tables, Spreadsheets, and Charts

Getting Started with Apache OpenOffice 4

Chapter 3: Getting Started with Writer

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• What Is Writer?
• The Writer interface
• Changing Document Views
• Moving Quickly through a Document
• Working with documents
• Working with text
  • Selecting Items That Are Not Consecutive
  • Selecting a Vertical Block of Text
  • Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Text
  • Finding and Replacing Text and Formatting
  • Inserting Special Characters
  • Inserting Dashes and Non-breaking Spaces and Hyphens
  • Setting Tab Stops and Indents
  • Changing the Default Tab stop Interval
  • Checking Spelling and Grammar
  • Using Built-in Language tools
  • Using AutoCorrect
  • Using Word Completion
  • Using AutoText
• Formatting Text
  • Formatting Paragraphs
  • Formatting Characters
  • Auto-formatting
  • Creating Numbered or Bulleted Lists
  • Hyphenating Words
• Formatting Pages
  • Which Layout Method to Choose?
  • Creating Headers and Footers
  • Numbering Pages
  • Changing Page Margins
• Adding Comments and Graphics to a Document
• Creating a Table of Contents
• Creating Indexes and Bibliographies
• Adding Images and Other Graphics
• Adding Tables, Spreadsheets, and Charts
  • Creating a Table from a Calc Spreadsheet
  • Creating a Chart
• Adding a Movie or Sound
• Printing
• Using Mail Merge
• Tracking Changes to a Document
• Using Fields
• Linking to another part of a document
  • Using Hyperlinks
  • Using Cross-References
  • Using Bookmarks
• Using Master Documents
• Creating Fill-in Forms

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Adding Tables, Spreadsheets, and Charts

Tables are a useful way to organize and present large amounts of information. They can often be used as an alternative to spreadsheets. Tables can also be used as a page layout tool to position text in areas of a document, as described in Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) of the Writer Guide.

To insert a new table, position the cursor where you want the table to appear, then use any of the following methods to open the Insert Table dialog, where you can specify the properties for the new table:

• From the main menu, choose  → Insert → Table.
• From the main menu, choose Table → Insert → Table.
• Press  Ctrl  +  F12  on the keyboard.
• From the Standard toolbar, click the Table icon .

You can also click the small arrow to the right of the Table icon and select the number of cells to directly insert a table with the default table properties.

You can create a table from text, or convert a table to text, using Table → Convert from the menu bar.

You can edit the contents of these tables in the same way as you edit any other text.

A possible source of confusion is the Number Recognition feature of a table. If it is turned on, numbers and dates will be automatically formatted. If this is not desired, select the table cells you want to affect, then right click and deselect Number Recognition.

Chapter 9 (Working with Tables) in the Writer Guide describes how to format tables, add or delete columns and rows, merge and split tables and cells, add and sort data, and perform basic spreadsheet functions in a table of data.