Question for Open Office Experts

supermonkey

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Have a spreadsheet full of data & forumulas.

For each row I need to write some detailed comments. (with line spaces etc so cannot do within calc).

I would like to be able to pull this together into one document. I have tried so many ways so far.

- I tried a table writer with dde ref to the required cells in calc, but I would have to manual add each link.
- I've tried adding text boxes in calc but it just gets messy.
- The best i've managed was creating a writer form, & linking to a database generated from the calc data. Problem is that the text box for content doesnt work as it wont write to the db/spreadhsheet.
- I then created a seperate database for the comments. Created a test form and copied the comment box from this onto my original form so that it includes elements from both databases. The only issue is that control of each part is seperate (eg to go to next record I have to press next record beneath both sets of controls.

Can anyone help?

spiro

Why can't you put line spaces within comments in Calc? Just type Alt+CR gives you a new line within a cell.

supermonkey

spiro wrote: »

Why can't you put line spaces within comments in Calc? Just type Alt+CR gives you a new line within a cell.

This doesn't seem to work for me? Alt & Ctrl. Have also tried alt & enter..... etc

FireFox

Ctrl+Enter

supermonkey

FireFox wrote: »

Ctrl+Enter

Yes that one works, thanks! Can't believe I didn't work that out myself.

Trouble is it doesn't quite do what I want. It is fine for typing the information where I would manually use Ctrl + Enter, but sometimes I need to paste the text. Calc won't retain any of the spacing etc so it would need to be manually redone each time.

I have now tried to update the database generated from calc with the additional cell for the comments and added this to writer form. It now looks and works better except that the data isn't editable. I think databases linked to calc aren't editable.

Another idea would be to copy the data from Calc into a new database where a comments field could be used. But I would lose the ability to easily use sums etc. Eg Price, Qty used to calc total value. Im sure this is doable in the form, but making it calculate total qty for example would be problematic.

supermonkey

Well I've struggled with this for a bit longer.

I think I will have to copy the excel data into Base add a comment field and create a form to suit.

It will work, it's just frustrating that it wont be linked to calc so the data will be duplicated. Very frustrating if I need to add another row!