OpenOffice Calc Chart Editing...sucks?
 

I'm using OO.org Calc v1.1.1. I haven't had a lot of exposer to OO, but I had some data that I was trying to make into a chart. I got the chart alright, but it won't let me hand-edit the text in the legend or anywhere else on the graph. I've looked all over and there seems like there is no such option and I'm forced to make a new chart. Is there something I'm missing or is this feature missing? I've spent about half an hour trying to make a chart the way I want it now and it's really frustrating.

if all else fails, WINE is set to run all MS office software in linux, or so they say....

i havent tried the chart thing in OO.. will try when i get home in about an hour. i'll get back to ya.

try double clicking if that doesn't do anything try right clicking!

I think I tried both double clicking and right-clicking and got nowhere with it unfortunately. I was doing this at work earlier today and I don't want to bother installing wine and M$ office and whatever. I don't even have any more copies of any Microsoft software anymore. I sent it all to /dev/null :cool:

I tried setting up a chart a week ago in OO Calc. It took a long time to draw the chart and yes editing the chart is useless in OO. They (open office developers) need too either learn Excel to implement editing charts or fix it if its a bug. IMHO, OO is worst than previous versions. In the document program, it has trouble with text spacing. I do not know if it is a nVidia problem or a OO programming bug.

Unfortunately, I have to use WINE (20050111) and MS Office 2000.

Yes it does seem that OO is in need of some improvements. Though it's not all that bad. I love OO Writer and especially the ability to embedded equations/formulas easily. That's my favorite feature ever! :D


Hmm, I wonder if Gnumeric can do what I want it to? Maybe I'll download it and try it out today...

Just tried it out. Gnumeric can get the data drawn the way I want it fairly easily and quickly (with a much more intuitive interface than OO Calc), but it's clearly lacking several key features. Namely:

1) Charts can not be copied/pasted to other sheets. Once you place it on a given sheet, that's it. It's stuck there.

2) Unable to label the following: x-axis, y-axis, chart title

3) Does not provide a legend


These seem to be fairly "standard" features of a spreadsheet that Gnumeric is clearly missing out. I am surprised at the absense of these features. Just goes to show that the Linux office software has a long way to go still. :jawa:

OpenOffice calc does not necessarily stop you from editing the chart:

For instance, to change the height of a bar on a bar graph, you need to find that value on the spreadsheet and it will be updated.

Same with legends - you need to change the text on the spreadsheet for it to be changed, (it will refresh)

The reason is that the chart is not static, but dynamically updated by OO whenever a change on the spreadsheet occurs. It is a little different from Excel (but i have not used XL since Office 97)

But just like MS Word has Help->For WordPerfect Users, OO should have Help->For Excel Users, Help->For Microsoft Word Users. Etc. (Just like in XL the / key opens the menus like in Quattro Pro) even though OO is striving to be as similar to MS Office as possible.

After double cicking the chart in OpenOffice use TAB key to cycle around the various components such as x-axis / y-axis, title, etc. You should see the item names in the lower left of the main window. When the correct item is selected right click for ptions.

I agree. Today I tried to produce a chart in OO Calc for the first time since I switched to Linux on ALL my desktops and my laptop.

Well, creating a graph from 2 x 500 values takes 40 (FORTY) seconds on a 1100 MHz machine, utilizing 90% processor capacity. This is incredible. No matter that this is free (as in "it doesn't cost any money), you cannot seriously call this a mature application.

And yes, Gnumeric shows that graph INSTANTANEOUSLY.

jlinkels

Aargh, I'm using open office version 2.03, and looks like trying to make a chart still doesn't work very well. I don't suppose this has been fixed somewhere between 2.0 and 2.3?

I don't mind open office writer, but have to admit Microsoft Excel $#!+$ all over OO Calc. Are there any decent spreadsheet programs comparable to Excel for linux?

Am considering getting Office 2007 just so I can use excel >_<

Use Gnumeric. It takes some time to get use to, but it works comparable to Excel. It does not support macros yet. It can run perl and python scripts, so you can get create a more elaborate spreadsheet. Gnumeric should draw charts faster than Excel and provide a lot of features to customize the way you display the results. Gnumeric is better because it provides additional functions to simplified the formula. I also suggest KDE Office suite. I think its presentation program is comparable to PowerPoint.

Excel 2007 is not easy to use. You will have to scrape what you know in previous versions to learn it.