Printing with Calc

Contents

Overview	ii

Copyright and trademark information	ii

Feedback	ii

Acknowledgments	ii

Modifications and updates	ii

Printing	1

Details, order, and scale	1

Adjusting the print range	3

Printing rows or columns on every page	3

Defining a print range	4

Adding to the print range	5

Removing a print range	5

Defining a custom print range	5

Selecting sheets to print	7

Print quality under Linux	8

Overview

This chapter describes basic functions for printing with OpenOffice.org Calc.

Copyright and trademark information

The contents of this Documentation are subject to the Public Documentation License, Version 1.0 (the "License"); you may only use this Documentation if you comply with the terms of this License. A copy of the License is available at:
http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/PDL.rtf.

The Original Documentation is Printing with Calc. The Initial Writer(s) of the Original Documentation is/are Linda Worthington © 2004. All Rights Reserved. (Initial Writer contact(s): lindaw65@earthlink.net. Use the Initial Writer contacts to report errors in the documentation. For questions regarding how to use the software, subscribe to the Users Mail List and post your question there: http://support.openoffice.org/index.html).

All trademarks within this guide belong to legitimate owners.

Feedback

Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:
authors@user-faq.openoffice.org.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to those members of the OOoAuthors team who reviewed drafts of this chapter.

Modifications and updates

Version	Date	Description of Change
1.0	24 December 2004	First published edition.

Printing

OpenOffice.org Calc offers a very powerful and highly configurable printing system. Many different details can be selected to print or not to print. The order the sheets will print in can be specified, as well as what size they will be. Particular rows or columns can be specified to print on all sheets and the print range can be specified.

Details, order, and scale

Details

In OOo Calc you can specify certain details to print or not to print. Some of those details include:

Row and column headers

Sheet grid

Notes

Objects and graphics

Charts

Drawing objects

Formulas

To select the details to be printed:

Choose Format > Page.

Select the Sheet tab.

In the Print area, mark the details to be printed and click OK. (See Figure 1.)

Note: Remember that since the print detail options are a part of the page’s properties, they are also a part of the page style’s properties. Therefore, different page styles can be set up to quickly change the print properties of the sheets in the workbook.

Figure 1. Choosing printing options in the Page Style dialog

Order

In addition to selecting which details of a sheet will print, the order the sheets print can also be set. This is especially useful in a large document. For example, controlling the print order can save time if you have to collate the document a certain way.

The selection for print order is made in the page format area, Format > Page from the main menu. The two options can be used in the following way:

Top to bottom, then right – This would be used when there is a lot of data that starts on the top of a sheet and goes down. This option will print the header row first and then go down the sheet. When it gets to the bottom of the sheet, it will return to the top, but move to the right one screen. In Figure 2 the sheets would print out in this order: 1, 4, 7, 2, 5, 8, 3, 6, 9.

Left to right, then down – This would be used when there is a lot of data that starts on the left side and flows to the right. It will print column A first, then proceed to the end of the data going to right. When it gets to the end of the data it will start printing again from column A, but one screen down. In Figure 2 the sheets would come out in this order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Figure 2. Multiple pages diagram

Scale

The scale features allows you to control the number of pages the data will print on. This can be useful if a large amount of data needs to be printed smaller to save paper. It can also be useful if the reader has poor eyesight, because text can be enlarged when it prints. The options can be used in the following way:

Reduce/Enlarge printout – This option will scale all of the data in the printout exactly the same either larger or smaller. For example if a sheet would normally print out as 4 pages (pages 1, 2, 4, 5 in Figure 2), a scale of 50% would cause that printout of four pages to print as one page.

Fit printout on number of pages – This option will define exactly how many pages the printout will take up. However, this option will only reduce a printout, it will not enlarge it. To enlarge a printout, the reduce/enlarge option must be used.

Adjusting the print range

Printing rows or columns on every page

If a sheet will be printed on multiple pages, certain rows or columns can be set up to repeat on each printed page.

As an example, if the top two rows of the sheet as well as column A need to be printed on all pages, do the following:

Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit.

The Edit Print Ranges dialog appears. Click the icon at the far right of the Rows to repeat area. The dialog shrinks so that you can see more of the sheet. (See Figure 3).

Figure 3. Edit Print Ranges dialog

Select the first two rows of the sheet. To do this, click cell A1 and drag to A2. In the shrunk dialog $1:$2 will appear. Rows 1 and 2 are now rows to repeat.

Note: The entire range of the rows to be repeated does not need to be selected. Just selecting one cell in each row will work.

Click the icon at the far right of the Rows to repeat (bottom of Figure 3)dialog area. The dialog is restored again.

Column A can also repeat; click the icon at the far right of the Columns to repeat area.

Click column A in the sheet (not in the column header).

Click the icon again at the far right of the Columns to repeat area.

Defining a print range

This option allows you to modify or set a defined print range. This could be useful if, in a large spreadsheet, only a specific area of data needs to be printed.

To define a print range:

Highlight the range of cells that comprise the print range.

Choose Format > Print Ranges > Define.

The page break lines will display on screen.

Note: You can check the print range by using File > Page Preview. OOo will only display the cells in the print range.

Adding to the print range

After defining a print range, more cells can be added to it. This allows multiple, non-contiguous, areas of the same sheet to printed, while not printing the whole sheet. Once you have defined a print range:

Highlight the range of cells that should be added to the print range.

Choose Format > Print Ranges > Add.

This will add the extra cells to the print range.

The page break lines will no longer show up on the screen.

Note: The additional print range will print as a separate page, even if both ranges are on the same sheet.

Removing a print range

It may become necessary to remove a defined print range, for example if the whole sheet needs to printed at a later time.

To remove the print range:

Choose Format > Print Ranges > Remove.

This will remove all defined print ranges on the sheet.

After the print range is removed, the default page break lines will appear on the screen

Select:

none to remove a print range definition for the current spreadsheet.

selection to define the selected area of a spreadsheet as the print range.

user-defined to define a print range that you have already defined

To use the selection option, follow the same procedure as selecting rows to repeat. Click on the dialog button, and highlight the range you want to print.

Defining a custom print range

In addition to highlighting a print range for each print job, a range of cells can be defined to be used repeatedly. This may be useful if there are different areas of a large spreadsheet that need to be printed for different reports. Several different print ranges can be defined to meet this need.

To define a print range, use the same procedure as labeling an area of the sheet. Highlight the cells you want to define as a print range and select Insert > Names > Define. Figure 4 will appear.

Figure 4. Define Names dialog

Create a name for the range and enter it into the text box.

Click the More button in the Define Names Dialog menu and click the Print range checkbox.

Click OK.

Note: The name of your range cannot contain any spaces.

To print this range:

Go to Format > Print Ranges > Edit... Figure 5 will appear.

In the drop-down box under Print range, the previously defined area will now appear.

Select the defined print range and click OK.

This method can be useful to quickly change the print range without highlighting a large area of cells every time.

Figure 5. Showing the defined range

Selecting sheets to print

In addition to defining a range, the sheet to print can also be specified. This can be useful if you have a large workbook with multiple sheets and only want a certain sheet to print. An example would be an accountant recording costs over time where there was one sheet for each month. If only the November sheet were to be printed, this is the procedure to follow:that would be selected as follows:

Select the sheets to be printed. (Hold down the Ctrl key as you click on each sheet tab.)

Go to File > Print... and select Options... in the lower left corner. Figure 6 will appear.

Note: The Options... button is different from the Properties... button. Properties deals with the settings of the printer, whereas Options deals with OOo’s settings.

Check the Print only selected sheets checkbox.

Click OK.

Figure 6. Printer Options dialog

Print quality under Linux

Print quality will greatly depend on the type of printer being used and the printer drivers, if printing under Linux. To ensure you are using the latest drivers under Linux, visit http://linuxprinting.org.

Adjusting the print range

Printing with Calc	8

Title:	Printing with Calc
Version:	1.0
First edition:	December 2004
First English edition:	December 2004

Overview

Printing with Calc	viii

Printing with Calc

Jean Hollis Weber

2004-11-23T06:44:23

Jean Hollis Weber