OpenOffice Calc Tutorial 1: The Calc Environment

This is the first post in the OpenOffice Calc Tutorial Series. In this post, we familiarize ourselves with the Calc interface.

The Calc environment is very similar to that of Microsoft Excel’s. It is made up of columns and rows. Each column is name by a letter (see column header) and each row is named with a number (see row header). Column  D and row 5 are highlighted below.

A cell is an intersection of a column and a row and is named using a cell address. D5 is the cell address of the cell in column D and row 5. The cell where data will appear when you typed is the active cell denoted by a rectangular box called the cell pointer. The name box contains the address of the active cell.

The formula bar is used for entering and editing data and formulas. The menu bar and toolbar are also present just like in most application environment. The sheet tabs contains the different sheets or pages.

Before we begin our tutorial in the next post, try to familiarize yourself with the environment of Calc and its part.  We will use terms mentioned above often, so it is important that you are familiar with them.

The OpenOffice Calc Tutorial Series

OpenOffice Calc is one of the software in the OpenOffice.org application suite. Calc is a spreadsheet which is very similar to Microsoft Office’s Excel; in fact, most of the formula and function commands are the same.  In this series, we learn the basics of Calc and explore ways to integrate it in teaching and learning mathematics.  Below are the the list of tentative topics that we will discuss:

  1. The Calc Environment
  2. Data Entry, Editing and Basic Computation
  3. Working with Formulas (Part 1)
  4. Working with Formulas (Part 2)
  5. Formatting and Aesthetics
  6. Charts and Graphs
  7. Basic Statistics
  8. Working with Multiple sheets
OpenOffice.org is the free and open-source equivalent of Microsoft Office.