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OpenOffice Calc

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Revision as of 16:13, 12 September 2008 by Beefball (talk | changes) (Specifications: rm unusable imgs)
OpenOffice.org Calc
Developer(s)Sun Microsystems in association with the community
Stable release
2.4.1 / June 10, 2008 (2008-06-10)
Repository
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeSpreadsheet
LicenseGNU Lesser General Public License
Websitewww.openoffice.org

OpenOffice.org Calc is the spreadsheet part of the OpenOffice.org software package.

Calc is similar to Microsoft Excel, with almost the same abilities. Calc is capable of opening and saving spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel's file format. It provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines a series for graphing based on the layout of the user's data. Calc is also capable of writing spreadsheets directly as PDF files.

The default file format for OpenOffice.org 2.0 Calc can be set to either Microsoft Excel's native file format or the Open Document Format (ODF). Calc also supports a wide range of other file formats, for both opening and saving files.

Just like the entire OpenOffice.org package, Calc can be used on many operating systems, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Available under the GNU Lesser General Public License, Calc is free software.

Specifications

Calc can store a maximum of 65,536 rows with 256 columns in each sheet, with a maximum of 256 sheets.[1] There is a way to increase these limits, but it is only suitable for ODF and text-based formats, as there is a risk of data turning unusable for binary formats such as Microsoft Excel's file format.[2] In V3.0beta, the column limit has been increased to 1024.[3] Prior to V2.0, the limit on the number of rows was 32,000.[4]

Program Rows (per sheet) Columns (per sheet) Total Cells (per sheet) Sheets
OpenOffice.org Calc[1][4]
65,536 256 16,777,216 256
Microsoft Excel 2003
65,536 256 16,777,216 Available Memory[5]
Microsoft Excel 2007[6]
1,048,576 16,384 17,179,869,184 Available Memory [7]
Gnumeric
65,536[8] 256[8] 16,777,216 ?
KSpread
File:Koffice-kspread.png
32,767 32,767 1,073,676,289 ?
Lotus 1-2-3[9]
65,536 256 16,777,216 256

Special abilities

Abilities of Calc include:

  • Open source software
  • Available on many operating systems, including Microsoft Windows,Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, etc.
  • Ability to read/write OpenDocument, Excel .xls, CSV, and several other file formats.
  • Able to handle dates on or before 1900 correctly (many spreadsheet applications, including Microsoft Excel, have a year 1900 bug and cannot handle dates before January 1, 1900).
  • Support for a large number of functions, including those for imaginary numbers, as well as financial statistical functions.

Missing features

In some cases, Calc lacks a GUI to access certain advanced features that other spreadsheet software have, such as statistical abilities like error bar support on graphs, and polynomial regression analysis, however, many of these calculations can still be performed by manually entering the functions. Another FOSS application called Gnumeric provides easier access to these statistical analysis features by showing them to users with a wizard.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Can I use a spreadsheet file with more than 32,000 rows?". OpenOffice.org FAQ. Retrieved 2008-04-29. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "max_cells" defined multiple times with different content
  2. "Calc/hacks/number of rows - OpenOffice.org Wiki". Retrieved 2008-06-03.
  3. "OpenOffice.org 3.0's new features, an early look - OpenOffice.org Ninja". Retrieved 2008-06-03.
  4. 4.0 4.1 "What is the maximum number of cells in an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet?". OpenOffice.org FAQ. Retrieved 2008-04-10.
  5. "Excel specifications and limits". Retrieved 2008-05-03.
  6. "The "Big Grid" and Increased Limits in Excel 2007". Microsoft.com. Retrieved 2008-04-10. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)
  7. "Excel specifications and limits". Retrieved 2008-07-08.
  8. 8.0 8.1 Can be set at compile time"GNOME Office / Gnumeric - Frequently Asked Questions". Retrieved 2008-06-03.
  9. "Limitations of 1-2-3 for Windows". IBM.com. Retrieved 2008-04-10. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help)

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