Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I have NO idea where to start. Frankly I need to move a large amount of merchandise data from one area
to another. I have never done spreadsheets or any of this. Is there a board anywhere here for
folks that know absolutely NOTHING??
I have windows v.6 SP-2- XP home. Any help would be so very very appreciated. I sincerely appreciate
this board and all the very smart folks here..(I am at this moment very DUMB!)
I am so excited to learn this. Is there REALLY a start-from-scratch, beginner board?
Thank you in advance,
Lana

There's no reason at all that you can't start here. The only problem is that it's a bit difficult to start completely from scratch when all you have is written conversation. If you really have no experience at all with a spreadsheet, I would suggest that you Google for a video tutorial. That, I think, will get you started faster than trying to use a forum like this.

There are some video tutorials for OpenOffice.org ("OOo"--you do have OOo running on your computer, right?), and even more for MS Excel. For a beginner, the basics are so similar, I think either would be fine.

If you can't find something, please don't hesitate to ask here. I'm sure we can locate something helpful.

Once you do that, just start up OOo Calc and play around a little. When you find something you don't understand, just ask. No problem.

LANA2_01 wrote:How do I delete the pages that I have already
saved (they are JUNK, play)??
I am going to read as much as I can and follow your first suggestions. I am sorry to be a
newbie 'pain'!!

Hey, that's part of what this forum is for, helping new users.
As for your pages, you want to get rid of pages within a document? They should disappear if you delete the text (or whatever you put there) that is on them. After you've done that, just save the document again, either via file->save or by pressing the CTRL and S key at the same time.

I have OOo 2.3 (is there a easier one?)

If you're just using "writer" you could give Abiword a try, that seems to be a bit simpler, but i have no experience with it so i cannot say for sure.
http://www.abisource.com/

hop this helps

I... feel confident that I CAN learn this if I persevere !!

Wow, what a great attitude. Believe me, that's half the battle. Just take it one step at a time; don't focus on what you don't know--there's still a lot that I don't know yet! No one knows it all, but you really don't need to know a lot to be productive.

I couldn't find any good "first steps" videos for Calc spreadsheets, but here is a good web page to start with:

http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/c ... sheet.html

If you try that and have questions, just ask.

Hi all.. I just want to thank you all so much for your help, (and for being so nice to a old Grandma!)
and I AM following the steps you gave me closely.
I did not know what businesses I am allowed to mention, but here is the problem. I am trying to transfer a HUGE
Turbo lister (ebay) file into a spread sheet. (I need similar to a CSV). If I am not allowed to say this here, Admins,
and Mods., please feel free to remove the business (and application) names. If anyone could assist me (just the
FIRST steps) on this particular thing, once again, I would be so grateful!!
Thank you all sincerely,
Lana

"similar to CSV"

Would it be possible to describe a bit more about how the data is organized?

As for the "pages" you have saved. If you are talking about complete documents the operating system is the best place to do that. For example, if you are using Microsoft Windows you would navigate to where the files are, something like My Documents, right click on them and choose Delete.

If they are individual pages within a document it would be different, but I assume it is the above situation.

As stated above, a lot has to do with the format of the data. Without knowing if it is a comma delimited, space delimited, colon delimited, etc. file we won't necessarily be able to help. Can you open the file in OO.o Calc at all? Or OO.o Writer? If you can describe the data, or post a couple of lines we would have a much better chance at helping. I know I for one am not familiar with Turbo Lister, but if I see how the data is formatted I might be able to help.

Goofing around is how we learn, OK, maybe not goofing around, but experimenting is how most of us learn. Now you know how to create, save, and delete files in OO.o