I am starting an e-commerce business, and I download spreadsheets from suppliers. These contain information about merchandise. I have a supplier that has the vast majority of that information in all capital letters. I need to covert to lower case. I have figured out how to do that in the word processor, but is there a way to do it in the spreadsheet program? Also, I am having trouble with some recently downloaded spreadsheets. They are in csv format. I can get them to open up in a word processor, but not in a spreadsheet program.

What spreadsheet program are you using?

I don't know about converting to lower case, but almost any spreadsheet should be about to read csv.

.csv is just plain text, so to convert upper to lower you can just do:

You can import .csv into most any spreadsheet program. I recommend gnumeric, but openoffice calc also works.

I am using openoffice calc. I am able to open other spreadsheets, but the new spreadsheets that I am trying to get into are not opening. I prefer to operate only in the applications, not in code. When I go into the word processer to change case, I do have a problem. The spreadsheets that are in all caps are extensive. So far, I have only figured out how to select with click & drag, but the files are so big, that it takes a very long time to go through it. Is there a way to simply select all text and change it?

Select all cells (for example by Ctrl+A) then Format->"Change Case". Tested in OOo 3.1.

That works. Now I can just go through & make just the appropriate letters capitalized. The the problem I am having now is that the spreadsheets is loading, but it is VERY slow. It takes several minutes to load, and takes even longer to do the occasional saves. I am not actually even making changes. I am copying small groups of lines to paste into a smaller file. I have dealt with files this size before without it taking so long. I doubt the application could be corrupted because I am running it from the DVD.

Try gnumeric, I've found it to be significantly more efficient and better that Calc.

???? are you running openoffice on a live cd ???
if so then that is why it takes so long to open the file and to save .

you will want to INSTALL OO on a installed linux distro

Yes, I am running from a live DVD. I know it takes extra time to set up the operating systems when it loads from the disk, but why would it set up the OS & apps in less time than it takes to open a file?