Section 62. Set Up Calc Page Formatting


62. Set Up Calc Page Formatting

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

60 Format Cells


SEE ALSO

64 Conditionally Format Data

33 About Headers and Footers


You will often need to make format changes to your entire spreadsheet. Perhaps you want to change the printed margins on the page. You may want to add a background color or a header or footer, or even put a border around the sheets.

The Page Style dialog box contains all of Calc's options that enable you to modify your document's format. Any changes you make to the current page apply to all pages in your sheets.

1.
Open the Page Style Dialog Box

Select Page from the Format menu to open the Page Style dialog box.

62. Set Up Calc Page Formatting


The Page Style dialog box contains several categories you can use to modify the pages in your document. Click each tab across the top of the Page Style dialog box to select from the dialog box pages. The Organizer page determines the default style currently used and enables you to select a different style. See 65 About Calc Styles and Templates for help with understanding and using styles. Clicking the Page tab enables you to format your paper's settings, such as selecting a page length as well as margin settings. The Background page enables you to place a background color on the page.

TIPS

As with any formatting and color commands, don't overuse background colors. Use colored paper in your printer for best effect if you want to print on a single-colored background.

You can take advantage of Calc's predefined headers and footers by clicking the Edit button in the Header or Footer page to open a Header or Footer dialog box. Here you can insert fields such as Page Number, Sheet Name , and so on, to add information that is automatically updated throughout the document.

The Header and Footer pages in the Page Style dialog box provide you with the ability to place a header and footer on the pages of your printed sheets. For example, you might want to place a company logo on the page header of your first page, and you'd do so inside a header. 33 About Headers and Footers explains how to use headers and footers in Writer documents, and they work the same way in Calc spreadsheets.

2.
Modify the Page

Once you've displayed the Page Style dialog box, click the Page tab to show the Page dialog box page. From here you will modify page-layout information such as margins and paper size .

NOTE

You cannot undo many of the changes you make from Page . If you apply a change and want to undo it, you'll have to display the Page dialog box page again and change the incorrect setting back.

3.
Specify the Paper and Margin Settings

When you change the type of paper you use in your printer, such as going from letter size to legal, you'll need to select the proper option, such as Legal , from the Format list. If you use a nonstandard paper size, one that is not letter, legal, or one of the other options in the Format list, you can click to adjust the Width and Height settings to the unique settings of your paper.

You also may want to change the orientation of your printed page from portrait to landscape. Many spreadsheets are wide, and the landscape mode is perhaps used more for spreadsheets than for any other documents. In addition, you can give your margins more or less room by adjusting the Left, Right, Top , and Bottom measurements. If you have multiple paper trays in your printer, such as one with your letterhead and one with blank paper in it, you may want to select a different tray from the Paper tray option. Finally, the Layout settings options enable you to control how the pages print in relation to one another; for example, if you plan to bind your output into a booklet, you may want the left and right margins to be mirrored to leave more room in the middle for the binding or hole punching .

4.
Select a Background Color or Graphic

Click the Background tab to add a background color or graphic to your sheet. Although you may want to use colored paper for extensive coloring, you might want to lightly highlight a report page that appears inside your document with a highlighted background color.

To add a background graphic instead of a color, choose Graphic from the As list and click the Browse button to open the Find graphics dialog box. Navigate to the location of the graphic file. In the Type area, you can enable the Position, Area , or Tile option to specify how you want the graphic to appear. If you want to place it in the top-right corner of the sheet, for example, select the Position option and then click the top-right option button.

TIP

You can link the background graphic if you want it to update automatically in the spreadsheet (for example, if you edit the image in a graphics program, the linked graphic in the sheet will update automatically). To link the graphic, select the picture in the Find graphics dialog box and then enable the Link check box before clicking OK . The picture will be updated any time the source file is modified.

5.
Add Borders to the Document

Click the Borders tab to display the Borders page. Here, you can specify which edges you want to use as a border (one or two sides, the top and bottom, or all four sides) and the line thickness of the border (from the Line list). If you want to add an additional effect to your border, you can adjust the position and color of shading. Shading a border softens the border's look.

6.
Change the Sheet Options

Click the Sheet tab to display the Sheet page. Here, you specify the elements from your spreadsheet that you want to print as well as the order of those printed elements. For example, you specify whether you want Calc to print your spreadsheet from top to bottom (an entire column) before printing the next column, or print from left to right (an entire row) before moving down to print the next row.

You can change the Scaling options if you want to resize the spreadsheet to suit your printing needs. Use the Scaling mode list to specify whether you want to reduce or enlarge the spreadsheet by a given percentage, fit a width or height, or span a certain number of pages. After you specify the mode, the options to the right of the Scaling mode list change to let you enter the necessary details, such as the percentage by which to reduce or enlarge the sheet or how many pages the sheet should span. Calc does the work of figuring out how to size individual elements of the spreadsheet; all you have to decide is what you want the final size or page count to be.

NOTE

All large spreadsheets will consume multiple printed pages. By specifying "by column" or "by row" order printing, you determine where the page breaks are likely to fall.


The Print section of the Sheet page specifies exactly what you want to print. You may elect to print the spreadsheet's grid lines, headers, graphics, or any combination of the three. Also, you can request that zero values print as blanks or as zeros.

Finally, the Scale section enables you to change the scale of your spreadsheet when you print it so that you might be able to fit a large spreadsheet on fewer pages. Calc will squeeze your sheets as much as possible in an attempt to honor your request. For example, if your spreadsheet takes a page and a half to print, you can almost always click the Fit printout on number of pages option and change the setting to 1 so that Calc reduces the size of the spreadsheet's output to one page.



OpenOffice.org 2, Firefox, and Thunderbird for Windows All in One
Sams Teach Yourself OpenOffice.org 2, Firefox and Thunderbird for Windows All in One
ISBN: 0672328089
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 232
Authors: Greg Perry

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