Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours |
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Hour 17: Adding Charts and Graphics to Spreadsheets |
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This hour guides you through creating graphics and charts from the data in your spreadsheet, and then inserting those graphics into your spreadsheet or exporting them for other uses.
StarOffice includes many types of chart options. You'll learn how to use the most popular ones in this hour. You'll also see how to modify and format charts after they're created and inserted into your spreadsheet.
After formatting your spreadsheet with the options presented in Hour 16, "Formatting Your Spreadsheet," you can add graphic images of your data (charts) to further spruce up the look of your spreadsheet.
Hour 11, "Adding Graphics to Documents," described how to add a graphic to a text document. The process is identical for adding a graphic to a spreadsheet. Just follow these steps:
1. Move to the cell in which the upper left corner of the graphic image is to be positioned.
Tip - You can move or resize the image after you import it, but it's helpful to have the graphic near the location at which you want it. |
2. Choose Picture from the Insert menu. Then choose From File from the Picture submenu. The Insert Picture dialog box appears (see Figure 17.1).
Figure
17.1
Select a graphics file to insert from the Insert Picture dialog box.
Tip - You can also create a picture in the Image Editor or StarDraw and insert it into your spreadsheet. Using the Image Editor is described in Hour 11. The use of StarDraw is described in Hour 6, "Creating Graphics with StarDraw." |
3. Browse through the filesystem until you find the graphics file you want to insert.
4. Select the Preview checkbox and click on a listed filename once to view it in the Preview window; double-click the filename to choose and load it.
Caution - Importing a graphic file can make your spreadsheet file very large. If you're concerned about this, or if the graphic file might change, use the Link checkbox in the Insert picture dialog box so that the picture is reloaded from the original graphic file each time you open the spreadsheet. Note that if the graphic file is later moved or the spreadsheet file is copied to another machine, this method might loose the image, displaying an empty box instead. |
5. The graphic is loaded into the spreadsheet and appears as a selected item (with green handles and an anchor icon). See Figure 17.2.
Figure
17.2
A newly-imported graphic is selected, ready to edit using the procedures in
the following section.
After you load a graphic file into your spreadsheet, you can move and edit it in many ways. Although this is covered in detail in Hour 11, Table 17.1 shows you the most important things that you can do with an imported graphic.
Note - Because a spreadsheet isn't arranged in paragraphs and pages, you can't use the justification and alignment settings for a graphic in a spreadsheet. |
Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours |
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Hour 17: Adding Charts and Graphics to Spreadsheets |
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