Calc Chart Data Range Sheet Reference Updating?

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#1

I am pleased with LibreOffice Calc charting capability, and would like to propose some enhancements. The present post concerns sheet context for data ranges.

When specifying a data range, Calc automatically supplies the current sheet name as a prefix (e.g. Sheet1.A1:A20).

If I make a copy of a sheet, any embedded charts are automatically edited to include the new sheet name - all good! However when copying just a chart from one sheet to another (within the same document), the original sheet name is retained.

That may be exactly what is intended, but in my case the requirement is to reference existing data in the target document. This is a painful process editing dozens of ranges.

Perhaps I am unaware of some clever process to avoid all that work, and would be grateful for an explanation. Alternatively, would you consider one of the following enhancements?

(a) An option to define ranges with a “bare” cell reference (omitting sheet name) or some shorthand for “current sheet”.
(b) A procedure to batch update all ranges of a chart with a different sheet name.
(c) A chart property to allow data references with a defined sheet context.

Thank you for your attention.

#2

Please take a minute and read this Introduction - Feature Request and what it states about where Feature Requests should go to. To post here has no effect on developers attention, since this site is about users answering questions of other users of LibreOffice.

#3

had a similar problem shortly, still no solution,
administering growing data and graphs for that which fail if the referenced range contains ‘0’, thus need to adapt the ranges every once and a while,
idea for your case:
use a third sheet / document,
there first make a copy of the whole sheet with the chart,
then into that sheet copy the new data you want to visualize, and delete what’s no longer needed,
@anon73440385: just let’s be friendly to new users, there’s a guy very well describing his experience and target, making good proposals, it is better to pick him up where he is and introduce him to the conventions here than to grumble ‘wrong’ …

#4

Thanks, newbie (from another)

#5

@newbie-02 - What’s unfriendly with my advice? Your comment is inappropriate, since everything is correct in my comment. OP (alternatively) proposes an enhancement and this is not a site for enhancement requests. Unfriendly would be: Leave OP on the wrong path by not directing to the correct address. No offense intended, just an advice for people not reading what they should have read in advance of posting a question here.

#6

@anon73440385: may be we are in another mood when as ‘experienced users’ again and again see ‘not obeyed rtfm’ questions from unexperienced users, than just these users are which often are irritated and need help, in such a situation small differences in wording or ‘tone’ can make an - unintended - big impression on the target, it’s just my subjective feeling, nothing to argue about or blame anybody,
not yet sure if my idea was successful … in this case it might have been better to think about a problem and find a viable solution than to send Paul on a three years journey with an enhancement request,
@Paul: if the idea solved your problem give me a hint, i’ll post it as an answer, or feel free to do so yourself,

#7

@newbie-02: My original approach was to set up a series of sheets in multiple documents with data pulled from Base queries. Only then did I get serious learning how to use Chart.

Yes, in retrospect your suggested approach would have been easier and I’ll be following that from now on (not even half done yet). Delighted for you to post it as the answer.

#8

@anon73440385: No offence taken, and I’m very grateful for your prompt input to my 3 consecutive posts!

That’s a typical problem with groups/forums, of course, we often join up in “desperate times” when general searches fail - without taking enough trouble to learn the culture/rules.

No, I hadn’t read about Feature Requests and yes, I’ve now looked into this and discovered Bug 103863 (2016, Lars Jødal) that exactly matches one of my other questions/suggestions, so I added a comment there in support.

Naïvely one might have expected a “question” to fork into “given up”, “answered” or “suggested feature” where the last was exposed to voting and possible amendment before submission to a “wish list”.

Well, I see LibO doesn’t choose to work that way.

That’s their prerogative, but I’m disappointed the community is apparently less interested in user satisfaction than hosting a repository of “cool ideas” for contributors to work on.

#9

By contrast, this group seems to work very well and contains a vast amount of highly useful information.

Long Live Questions!

#10

one way to deal with the - in this case - lack of flexibility of calc would be to merge the prepared representation and the data in a third sheet or document by first copying a working example there, and then exchanging the data,

(on the one hand, everyone would like an automatic solution for his use-case, on the other hand after some time every program suffocates in its diversity and it becomes too time-consuming for the users to get to know all the possibilities)

#11

Definitely the way to go for now.
I was also interested in Lupp’s suggestion for Calc Chart Data-Aware Text Boxes?. Maybe I could try a macro, but not now.

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