Splitting a row across (printed) pages

[LeMiklos]

Hello,

I have to print a calc table in which cells contains a lot of (textual) information. The result: each row is printed in whole on a page, but due to the height of some rows, some pages are half empty.

Is there a way to tell calc to split rows across pages (i.e., print as much as it can on one page until the bottom of the print area, and continue on the next page)?

Thanks!

[keme]

Not that I know of. Calc will only break pages at cell border. You can merge multiple cells to have a page break in the middle of a merged cell, but Calc will not print the rest on the next page. In that case it is simply discarded. Same thing happens in LibreOffice Calc. MS Excel will render merged cells nicely, splitting across pages.

I consider this a malfunction, but I am not sure whether it is an oversight or intended behavior. Will report it...

The best workaround I can find in OpenOffice/LibreOffice is to copy everything from the spreadsheet, and "paste special" to a Writer document. Paste as "Formatted". In Writer you can allow table rows to split across page breaks.

[LeMiklos]

Thanks. However, as this is a spreadsheet that is constantly updated (each row provides the history of current events, and is added to from time to time), no one-time solution would help. I think rows should be allowed to break...

[keme]

Thanks. However, as this is a spreadsheet that is constantly updated (each row provides the history of current events, and is added to from time to time), no one-time solution would help. I think rows should be allowed to break...

I agree. Alas, things are not always as they should, and in this case there is nothing we can do about it except to report it as a bug. So, looking for workarounds instead...

Another workaround: register the spreadsheet as a database in Base. That enables you to extract content to a Writer document.

If you must print directly from the spreadsheet interface, I don't know any other solution than Excel. Haven't tried other spreadsheet applications, though.

[LeMiklos]

There are three main reasons I use calc for this specific task rather than writer:
1. In addition to controling the borders of each cell, it allows displaying a cross (X) composed of two diagonal lines going to opposite corners of a cell, which I use to indicate the topic in the cell has been solved while leaving it around for historical purposes (striking through the text makes it much more difficult to read). It is not available in the tables of OpenOffice nor LibreOffice Writer, as far as I can tell. As to LibreOffice calc, it has this option but it is bugged (this is why I moved to using OpenOffice calc).
2. Rows can be sorted: one of the cells in each row contains a date (which changes too), and the table can be sorted by date.
3. I use several sheets and can reference the content of one cell of one sheet in any other cell of any other sheet so that if the contents of the first one changes, the referencing one is automatically updated.