OpenOffice Calc

OpenOffice Calc is the spreadsheet part of the OpenOffice software package.

Calc is similar to Microsoft Excel, with almost the same abilities. Calc is capable of opening and saving spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel's file format. It provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines a series for graphing based on the layout of the user's data. Calc is also capable of writing spreadsheets directly as PDF files.

The default file format for OpenOffice Calc version 2.x or 3.x can be set to either Microsoft Excel's native file format or the Open Document Format (ODF). Calc also supports a wide range of other file formats, for both opening and saving files.

Just like the entire OpenOffice package, Calc can be used on many operating systems, including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. Available under the Apache License, Calc is free software.

 Specifications 
Calc can store a maximum of 65,536 rows with 1024 OOoo columns in each sheet, with a maximum of 256 sheets.  There is a way to increase these limits, but it is only suitable for ODF and text-based formats, as there is a risk of data turning unusable for binary formats such as Microsoft Excel's file format.
Version 2 of Calc was able to store a maximum of 65,536 rows with 256 columns in each sheet, with a maximum of 256 sheets.
Prior to V2.0, the limit on the number of rows was 32,0000.

 Program Rows (per sheet) Columns (per sheet) Total Cells (per sheet) Sheets OpenOffice.org Calc 3+25px  1,048,576  1024  1,073,741,824  256LibreOffice Calc25px  1,048,576  16,384  1,073,741,824  10,000 Microsoft Excel 2007+  1,048,576  16,384   17,179,869,184  Available Memory Gnumeric25px  16,777,216 16,384  274,877,906,944  Available memoryKSpread25px  32,767  32,767  1,073,676,289  

 Special abilities 

Abilities of Calc include:
 Open source software
 Available on many operating systems, including Microsoft Windows,Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, etc.
 Ability to read/write OpenDocument, Excel .xls, CSV, and several other file formats.
 Able to handle dates on or before 1900 correctly (many spreadsheet applications, including Microsoft Excel, have a year 1900 bug and cannot handle dates before January 1, 1900).
 Support for a large number of functions, including those for imaginary numbers, as well as financial statistical functions.

 Missing features 

In some cases, Calc lacks a GUI  to access certain advanced features that other spreadsheet software have, such as statistical abilities like error bar support on graphs, and polynomial regression analysis, however, many of these calculations can still be performed by manually entering the functions. Another FOSS application called Gnumeric provides easier access to these statistical analysis features by showing them to users with a wizard.

 References 

 Other websites 
 Calc information page
 OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet Project 
 Spreadsheet FAQ
 Official OpenOffice Documentation Wiki. Select any of the Calc sections
 Free lessons for OpenOffice.org Calc

Category:OpenOffice.org
Category:Spreadsheet software