[Novalug] dumb question

Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org
Thu Feb 11 22:43:51 EST 2010


On Fri, 2/12/10, Nino Pereira <pereira@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> this is a good one if you use an X-window. Normally I'm in
> a text window.

Well, more exacting, its the filer/file manager component of
the desktop framework (e.g., Nautilus under GNOME, Explorer
under Windows NT 4.0-5.1/XP, etc...).

> Can you do the same thing in text? If I do ooffice datafile
> it doesn't try to open it in a spreadsheet, but as a normal
> text file.

Correct, because openoffice.org assumes its a text file and
launches Writer instead of Calc -- I warned about that earlier.

You can rename it to an extension like .csv, but that's not
ideal as it will assume comma as the default delimiter.  In
my experience, it's best to let it auto-detect if at all
possible.

So here were the summary of the other suggestions ...

1.  Launch Calc, copy from text editor, middle-click in Calc
2.  Launch Calc, File->Open, Type=Text CSV (*.csv *.txt *.xls), pick file
3.  Launch Calc, Insert->Sheet from File, pick file
4.  File Manager, Right-Click, Open With->OpenOffice.org Calc|Spreadsheet

All of these will launch the intelligent dialog (in Calc) and
attempt to auto-detect the delimiter.

#1 is probably your most direct solution, as you copy'n paste
(using the middle-click to paste)

#2 was my suggestion, which is probably better done with #3 as
you don't have to find the "Text CSV" file type in the long drop-
down (so OpenOffice.org knows it's spreadsheet data).
The "Insert->Sheet from File" forces it to be spreadsheet data.

#4 is using the File Manager of your desktop, also good.




More information about the Novalug mailing list