Welcome to the spoken tutorial on Viewing and Printing a spreadsheet.
In this tutorial we will learn to
View spreadsheets and
Print spreadsheets in LibreOffice Calc.
This tutorial is recorded using Ubuntu Linux OS version 18.04 and LibreOffice Suite version 6.3.5
We’ll first learn about the various viewing options in LibreOffice Calc.
There are basically two widely used viewing options in Calc - Normal and Page Break.
The Normal option displays how the spreadsheet will look when printed.
The Page break option displays the spreadsheet data in different pages when the data is large.
It helps us to organise and arrange data to fit within the pages we want to print.
Open the Personal-Finance-Tracker.ods file.
This file has been provided to you in the Code files link on this tutorial page. Please download and extract the file.
Make a copy and then use it for practising.
Notice that some part of the text is not readable inside column B.
If we print as it is, that text will be truncated in the print. Let us sort this out first.
Place the cursor on the right edge on column header B.
Notice that the cursor changes into a double-sided arrow.
Now click and hold the left mouse button.
Drag a little towards the right side as shown to increase the width of column B.
Now, we can see all the text of column B clearly.
To access the Normal View, click on View menu in the menu bar and then on Normal.
This is the default view in Calc
To access the Page Break option, click on the View menu in the menu bar and then on Page Break.
For the better visibility I'm zooming in.
We can see a watermark named as Page 1 and Page 2 displayed.
Let’s go back to the Normal view on the Calc window.
Notice a vertical dotted line passing between Date and Account columns.
This indicates the right page margin.
Scroll down until you see a horizontal dotted line.
In my case the dotted line is passing between row number 50 and 51.
In your case it may vary.
This indicates the bottom page margin.
Within these margins, we can see how much data of our spreadsheet fits within a single page.
Scroll the page back up to the top.
Now let's copy our existing data and paste it below.
First click on cell A1. Now holding the Shift key on the keyboard, click on cell H8.
All the cells have been selected.
Now right-click anywhere on the selected cells and then click on the Copy option.
Click anywhere outside the selection area to deselect the cells.
Now I will scroll down to row number 51.
You should scroll down to the row number where your bottom page margin is seen.
Right click on cell A51 and then click on the paste option
Click anywhere outside the selection area to deselect the cells.
Scroll up and press the Escape key to remove the dotted line selection.
Now click on the View menu and the Page Break option.
Let us zoom out for better visibility.
Scroll the page down and up to see the page breaks.
We can see a new page with the watermark Page 2 below Page 1.
We can also see Page 4 below Page 3 adjacent to these pages.
Click on View menu and go back to the Normal view again.
Apart from both these options, one can also view a spreadsheet in full screen mode.
Click on the View menu in the menu bar and then on Full Screen option.
The Full screen mode is useful for editing spreadsheets.
It’s also useful for projecting them on a projector.
To exit the full screen mode, press either the Full Screen button or the Escape key.
We are back to the Normal view on the Calc window.
Click on Format in the menu bar and then on Page option.
The Page Style:Default dialog box opens.
There are various tabs here.
Click on the Page tab.
There are various settings here for Paper Format, Margins and Layout settings.
Under Paper Format, notice that the Orientation field has the Portrait option pre-selected.
Look at the preview area to see the page orientation.
Now, click on the Landscape option.
Look at the preview area to see how the page orientation has changed.
Click on the Portrait option once again.
Next, click on the Sheet tab.
Under Page Order, we see that Top to bottom, then right is selected.
Recall, that’s exactly how our pages are displayed in the Page break view.
Let’s click on Left to right, then bottom and click on the OK button at the bottom right.
Click on View in the menu bar and then on Page break option.
Observe the change in the page numbering.
Let’s go back to the Normal view.
Now, let’s learn to use the Zoom option.
The easiest way to zoom or magnify a spreadsheet is to use the Zoom slider.
This is located at the bottom right corner of the Calc window.
We can use the plus and minus icons on either side of the slider, like this.
Or we can drag the Zoom head to increase or decrease the magnification, like this.
Let's learn another way of zooming.
Click on the View menu in the menu bar and click on Zoom.
A few more options are displayed in the context menu.
Here select Optimal View.
Now, we get the most comfortable magnified view of the spreadsheet.
Again click on View menu in the menu bar and then on the Zoom option.
This time from the context menu we’ll click on the Zoom option.
Zoom & View Layout dialog box opens up.
It has 2 headings namely - Zoom Factor and View Layout.
The Zoom Factor sets the magnification in which to display the spreadsheet.
Under Zoom Factor we see many options.
Click on Fit width and height and then on the Ok button at the bottom right.
This view fits the spreadsheet across the entire width and height of the page.
Scroll down and up, it displays many pages at a time.
Open the Zoom & View Layout dialog box again.
Next option is Fit Width.
This fits the page to its width.
100% view will display the page in its actual size.
Try out these 2 options on your own.
Next we have the most important zoom option called the Variable.
Here, we can type the zoom factor at which we want to view the spreadsheet.
For example, let’s type the value as 75% in the Variable field. And then click on the OK button.
Observe how the text is zoomed.
Let's switch back to Optimal View for better visibility.
Next, we will learn about Print Preview.
Click on the Toggle Print Preview icon in the Standard toolbar.
The Print Preview bar appears when we view the spreadsheet in preview mode.
For the better visibility I'm enlarging the view.
Scroll down and up to see all the pages in the spreadsheet.
Notice that the Account column is going on to the next page. So now, we will try to fit the data into one single page.
Click on the Close Preview button at the top to exit the Toggle Print View.
Now select the columns C to H as shown here.
Place the cursor on the right edge on the column header H.
Notice that the cursor changes into a double-sided arrow.
Now click and hold the left mouse button
Drag a little towards the left side as shown to reduce the margins.
On doing so, all the columns from C to H get resized proportionally.
While doing so some data in the cells may look like a series of hashtags.
If so, resize the columns and zoom level in such a way that we are able to see the data again.
The data in the columns A to H. are now within the dotted boundary line of the page.
Again, click on the Toggle Print Preview icon in the Standard toolbar.
Now the data fits within two pages.
In this way we can adjust the data before printing, so that it looks neat and organised.
From this screen, one can proceed to printing the spreadsheet, by clicking the Print icon. But I will not do so now.
Click on the Close Preview button to close the preview.
We can also click on File menu in the menu bar and click on Print Preview.
Next, we will learn how to print our LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet.
First, ensure that the printer connection is configured correctly on your machine.
To directly print the entire spreadsheet, click on the Print icon in the Standard toolbar. This is known as quick printing.
Alternatively, you can click on the File menu in the menu bar and then click on Print.
The Print dialog box appears on the screen.
There are 2 tabs with different settings in this dialog box.
We can either leave these as default or change the settings as per our printing requirement.
Under Printer drop-down, let’s select Print to File option.
This option is used predominantly to print the spreadsheet into PDF file format.
The button at the bottom of the dialog box says Print to File. Click on it.
Choose the location to save and type a filename for the pdf.
Then click on the Save button at the top right.
This saves the file in PDF format. You can open this file in any PDF viewer and print it in future.
Let’s learn about some more printing features.
Press Ctrl+P keys on the keyboard. This is the shortcut to open the Print dialog box.
Under Printer, we will select our configured printer’s name.
Under Range and Copies, let’s set the Pages as 2 and Number of copies as 3.
So we are printing 3 copies of Page 2 of our spreadsheet.
Click on the OK button at the bottom right of the dialog box, to start the printing.
If our printer is configured correctly, the pages and copies we mentioned will now get printed.
Now let’s see how to print certain parts of data by selecting some cells.
Let’s select the data from A1 to C8 as shown here.
Press Ctrl+P keys on the keyboard.
In the Print dialog box, click on the dropdown besides From which option.
From the available options select Print selected cells.
Observe that only selected cells are displayed in the Print preview section.
Now, click on the OK button at the bottom right to start the printing.
Next, we will see how to access other Print options.
Click on the Tools menu in the menu bar and then click on Options.
Click on the arrow beside LibreOffice if not already expanded and then click on Print.
A dialog box, giving us several options to select from. Choose these options as per requirements.
I will keep all the default settings and then click on the OK button at the bottom.
These settings are now valid for all prints from LibreOffice Calc, in the future.
Save and Close the file
This brings us to the end of this tutorial. Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we learnt to: View spreadsheets and Print spreadsheets in LibreOffice Calc.
As an assignment Open “Spreadsheet-Practice.ods” file.
Print Sheet 1 data in Landscape mode option.
Choose View and select Full Screen option
Exit Full Screen option
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