LibreOffice Calc

LibreOffice Calc

Screenshot of LibreOffice Calc 5.1
Developer(s)	The Document Foundation
Stable release	"Fresh" version: 5.2.3 (November 3, 2016[1]) [±] "Still" version: 5.1.6 (October 27, 2016[1]) [±]
Development status	Active
Operating system	Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows[2] and FreeBSD[3]
Type	Spreadsheet
License	GNU LGPLv3[4]
Website	www.libreoffice.org/discover/calc/

LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet component of the LibreOffice software package.^[5][6]

After forking from OpenOffice.org in 2010, LibreOffice Calc underwent a massive re-work of external reference handling to fix a large number of defects in formula calculations involving external references, and to boost data caching performance especially when referencing large data ranges.^[7]

Additionally Calc now supports 1 million rows in a spreadsheet^[8] with macro references to each cell.

Calc is capable of opening and saving most spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel file format.^[5] Calc is also capable of saving spreadsheets as PDF files.^[5]

As with the entire LibreOffice suite, Calc is available for a variety of platforms, including Linux, OS X, Microsoft Windows,^[2] and FreeBSD.^[3] Available under the GNU Lesser General Public License, Calc is free and open source software.^[4]

Features

Capabilities of Calc include:

• Ability to read/write OpenDocument (ODF), Excel (XLS), CSV^[9] and several other formats.^[10][11]
• Support for a large number of functions, including those for imaginary numbers, as well as financial and statistical functions.^[12][13]
• Supports 1 million rows in a spreadsheet, making LibreOffice spreadsheets more suitable for heavier scientific or financial spreadsheets.^[14] However, the number of columns is restricted to at most 1024, much lower than Excel's limit of 16384.^[15]

In its internal data structure, Calc until version 4.1 relies on cells as the base class throughout, which has been blamed for "extreme memory use, slow computation, and difficult code". Version 4.2 (released in January 2014) addresses these issues by instead storing the data in arrays where possible.^[16]

Pivot Table

Originally called DataPilot,^[7] Pivot Table provides similar functionality to the Pivot table found in Microsoft Excel. It is used for interactive table layout and dynamic data analysis.^[17]

Pivot table has support for an unlimited number of fields. Previously Pivot Table only supported up to 8 column/row/data fields and up to 10 page fields.^[7]

An advanced sort macro is included that allows data to be arranged or categorised based on either a user generated macro or one of several default included macros.^[14]

Release history

Calc has continued to diverge since the fork from its parent OpenOffice with new features being added and code cleanups taking place.^[18]

Versions for LibreOffice Calc include the following:

Year Released	Version	Comments
2011-06-16	3.3.3	More-familiar default key bindings.[19] Toolbar icon for toggling sheet grids in Calc similar to Excel.[14] Improved Excel interoperability.[14] Documents drawn with the UNO api can be inserted in calc.[14] New options for CSV (Comma-Separated Value) importation in Calc, allowing the import of custom delimited files common in engineering scenarios. Support for 3 different formula syntaxes: Calc A1, Excel A1 and Excel R1C1.[14] 1 million rows in a spreadsheet in Calc, making Calc more suitable for heavier scientific or financial spreadsheets.[14]
2011-06-03	3.4.0	Re-work of the drawing layer, to improve precision on re-positioning and re-sizing of drawing objects.[7] Support for unlimited number of fields: Previously DataPilot only supported up to 8 column/row/data fields and up to 10 page fields. 3.4 has lifted this restriction to allow unlimited number of fields in each field type.[7] Previously, Calc only supported named ranges in global scope, that is, all named ranges were made available for the entire document regardless of the current sheet. In 3.4 Calc now supports named ranges that are local to a sheet. The named range dialog (Insert->Names->Define) has been modified to reflect this change.[7] Now preserves OLE links to other Excel documents when importing an Excel document. OLE links get converted to external references upon import. *Previously, Calc ignored OLE links and cells containing OLE links resulted in error upon import.[7] Multiple subtotals on a single sheet: It is now possible to define more than one subtotal range in a single sheet via Data->Subtotals. Previously, setting a second subtotal range removed the first one if they were on the same sheet.[7]
2012-02-15	3.5.0[20]	support for up to 10,000 sheets[20] a new multi-line input area[20] new Calc functions conforming to the ODF OpenFormula specifications[20] better performance when importing files from other office suites[20] multiple selections in autofilter[20] unlimited number of rules for conditional formatting[20][21]
2012-08-08	3.6.0	Improved OOXML and ODF1.2 support[22] Improved CSV file import[22] Added a "Save cell formulas instead of calculated values" option to CSV export[22] New spreadsheet functions[22] GUI improvements[22] Remove the limitation to 3 sort entries in calc[22] Improved performance[22]
2013-02-07	4.0.0	Improved performance[23] Increased size limit on (uncompressed) ODF documents[23] Easier XML import[23] Improved conditional formats[23] initial support for the file format of gnumeric[23] New spreadsheet functions[23]
2013-07-25	4.1.0	Embedding fonts in a Calc spreadsheet[24] Add a Stepped Lines line type to Line and XY (Scatter) graphs[24] Count the number of selected cells[24] Import large HTML documents with more than 64k table cells[24] New spreadsheet functions[24] Improved hyphenation[24]
2014-01-30	4.2.0	New spreadsheet functions[25] Random number generation (non-dynamic)[25] Statistics toolkit[25] Other features: Redesign of data structures and Calc core to use OpenCL, threading and dynamic data storage
2014-07-30	4.3.0	Smarter highlighting of cell in formula[26] Number of selected rows and columns shown in the status bar[26] Allow starting of cell edit with the content of the cell above it as its initial content.[26] User selectable text conversion models.[26] Pivot Table layout improvement.[26] Add 34 new spreadsheet functions.[26] Enable CoinMP solver for additional options to previously enabled LpSolve.[26] Added three Statistics Wizard options.[26] Additional functionality to random number generator.[26]
2015-01-29	4.4.0	Added three Statistics Wizard options.[27] Add direct conversion of formulas to static values.[27] Add one new spreadsheet function.[27] Toolbar improvements[27] Add sheet context menu.[27]
2015-08-05	5.0.0	Added optional ability to repeat pivot table item labels.[28] Added additional conditional formatting options.[28] Improvements to XLSX import and export.[28] Additional engineering notation options[28] Improvements to table structured references.[28] New spreadsheet functions and improvements to function import and export.[28] Added capabilities in references of entire column/row (A:A / 1:1).[28] Added ability to crop, change, and save an image.[28] Toolbar improvements.[28]

See also

• List of spreadsheets
• Comparison of spreadsheets

References

1. "Release Notes". The Document Foundation. June 23, 2016. Retrieved June 24, 2016.
2. The Document Foundation (n.d.). "System Requirements". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
3. FreeBSD Handbook, 7.3.5 LibreOffice
4. The Document Foundation (n.d.). "GNU LGPL License". Retrieved 21 June 2011.
5. The Document Foundation (n.d.). "Calc, the LibreOffice spreadsheet program". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
6. Petersen, Richard (2011), Ubuntu 11. 04 Desktop Handbook, Surfing Turtle Press, p. 170, ISBN 1-936280-28-0
7. The Document Foundation (n.d.). "3.4 New Features and Fixes". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
8. Paul, Ryan (February 2011). "First release of LibreOffice arrives with improvements over OOo". Ars Technica. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
9. The Document Foundation (May 2011). "Importing and Exporting CSV Files". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
10. The Document Foundation (May 2011). "About Import and Export Filters". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
11. The Document Foundation (February 2011). "LibreOffice OOXML". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
12. The Document Foundation (January 2011). "Financial Functions Part One". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
13. The Document Foundation (January 2011). "Add-in Functions, List of Analysis Functions Part Two". Retrieved 8 September 2011.
14. The Document Foundation (2011). "New Features and Fixes". Retrieved 29 July 2011.
15. Bug 50916 - Allow more than 1024 columns in calc
16. Jonathan Corbet: A LibreOffice update. LWN.net, October 23, 2013
17. The Document Foundation (19 May 2011). "Pivot Table". Retrieved 13 November 2011.
18. Noyes, Katherine (June 2011). "Despite Oracle's Antics, LibreOffice Gets a Big Update". PC World. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
19. McAllister, Neil (February 2011). "Open office dilemma: OpenOffice.org vs. LibreOffice". InfoWorld. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
20. The Document Foundation, The Document Foundation Announces LibreOffice 3.5: “The Best Free Office Suite Ever” 14 February 2012
21. The Document Foundation, 3.5 New Features and Fixes
22. "Release Notes 3.6". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
23. "Release Notes 4.0". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
24. "Release Notes 4.1". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
25. "Release Notes 4.2". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
26. "Release Notes 4.3". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
27. "Release Notes 4.4". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
28. "Release Notes 5.0". The Document Foundation. Retrieved 6 August 2015.

External links

• Official website