Re: Simple spreadsheet program.
On 13/03/18 16:13, terryc wrote:
What is a simple spreadsheet program that can be installed under
Stretch. I need to do some work quickly
hint, if your answer is LibreOffice or similar read the question again.
I'm frustrated that the last few time I wanted to do a simple
spreadsheet layout, it was easier and faster to craft a LaTex document
then try and unfathom LibreOffice methods.
Is your goal calculation or the preparation of tables for documents?
I also long avoided the complexity of LibreOffice Calc, but a modest
investment of time has left me satisfied with the results. Things I like:
- Flexible CSV import/export. I like to manipulate CSV files with grep,
perl, and geany, and then import into Calc. Nothing is quicker than
Ctrl-D in a text editor for deleting unwanted rows. I also use a regex
to convert all dates to (for example) ISO 8601 here as fixing date
values in Calc can be painful (but formatting is easy with Ctrl-1). Then
CSV import to slurp it into Calc, delete unwanted columns, and copy and
paste into the target sheet.
- Copy a rectangular subset in Calc then Paste Special / HTML in Writer
is an easy way to get calculated tables into a PDF document.
- Interoperability with Windows users via DOCX gives them something they
can alter.
LibreOffice can be daunting at first but I found that a little
persistence went a long way. Even from my perspective as a TeX/LaTeX
user and programmer with much experience in data ingestion and
reporting, LibreOffice lets me get small things done more quickly. I
recommend it.
You can use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, producing delicious nut
butter, if you do not mind the crunchy bits of shell. :-)
Kind regards,
--
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <https://transient.nz/>
New Zealand
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