[CALC] Have one sheet as the template/blueprint for all the others

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#1

Hi all,

I want to my first sheet to be the template for all the others. So basically when I add another sheet it already looks and behaves like the first one. This is mostly about formatting changes and some content, so when I change the formatting in the template it changes in all the other sheets as well. How can I achieve this?

Thanks for reading!

Format of the document is .ods

About dialog:

Version: 7.0.0.3 (x64) Build ID:
8061b3e9204bef6b321a21033174034a5e2ea88e
CPU threads: 12; OS: Windows 10.0
Build 19041; UI render: Skia/Vulkan;
VCL: win Locale: de-DE (en_DE); UI:
en-US Calc: CL

#2

Hello,

you can create a duplicate from an existing sheet by right clicking on the sheet name and selecting Move or Copy Sheet...
image description

Regarding the “linking” of sheets i am not sure if what you want todo is possible.
Especially since data might get corrupted.

Never the less, i would say it is possible to write a macro which could sync multiple or all sheets.
But depending on your formatting wishes that might be difficult or impossilbe achieve.

Hope that helps.

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#3

thanks for the answer. i know i can copy sheets but the problem comes from making a small formatting change and then having to redo it half a dozen times over each time.

i thought this would be easy enough to achieve and a standard feature that i am just not aware of because i am not savvy with calc or excel (which makes a macro way out of my league) but i guess not.

it seems weird because i felt like this would be a common feature people need/use when creating multiple sheets.

#4

Use of styles would help with the formatting requirements.

#5

thanks, that might be an option. i will look into page styles and how to make use of them.

#6

@bad1080

… it’s not only page style but cell styles as well. To get as close as possible to your goal you need to consequently make use of styles (there is no such thing like a sheet style (which would meet you requirement) - closest thing to that is a page style + (probably many) cell styles

#7

It seems weird because i felt like this would be a common feature people need/use when creating multiple sheets.

-1a- I used spreadsheets a lot over decades, and neverv felt this way.
-1b- A stylefamily like SheetStyles may be a nice idea at a first glance. I wouldn’t expect it implemented ever.
-2- Multiple sheets of equal strructure and formating are only recommendable in rare cases, imo, and then always combined with very different sheets.
-3- If you want to mirror changes concerning formattings and related attributes (like column widths e.g.) made for your “template sheet” and not based on styles in one / some / all sheets derived from that template, you can run the workflow:

-3a- Activate the template sheet.  
-3b- `Select All` (`Ctrl+A`)  
-3c- `Copy` (`Ctrl+C`)  
-3d- Activate the first derived sheet you want to get the changes applied.  
-3e- Call `Paste Special...` (`Ctrl+Shift+V`)  
-3f- Select `Formats` and *deselect everything else*.  
-3g- `OK`  
-4- Repeat the steps starting with -3d- respectively as long as needed.

You should avoid the need of such proceedings using styles where possible.
If you need to go the above described way often nonetheless, you can partly write and partly record a macro for the purpose.

#8

thank you very much for your answer. will changes made to the template carry over automatically to sheets created this way?

#9

i tried looking up a tutorial on templates but most of them are for writer or silent and just show how to open and save a template. besides this i fail to see the benefit of this method over just a regular copy and paste.

#10

-1- What I described is using Copy and Paste Special…. You cannot use Copy and Paste if you want to apply changes later made to the so-called template (prototype) sheet to other sheets derived from it because this would also overwrite contents.
-2- Spreadsheet documents only support two style families: CellStyle and PageStyle (the latter without heritage). As already stated there are no Spreadsheet syles - and factually they cannot be for many reasons. There also are no CellRange styles, no Column styles, no Row styles and (as opposed to Writer) not even Character styles.
-3- Avoiding the usual word “template” because it is used in a specialized sense by our software, we can talk of prototype sheets as a kind of surrogate for styles concerning spreadsheets. They are no styles and can therefore not work as styles “beaming” changes.
-4- The proceeding I described above can help to get macros doing repeatedly needed work after changes to prototypes.

#11

yes, i understand paste special won’t overwrite content when done this way. what i meant was i fail to see how a template (.ots) differs here from just doing a copy and paste from a regular .ods, i dont see the benefit here.

#12

I didn’t talk of templates in the specialized sense like .ott ,ots and so on.
I also cannot estimate a benefit as long as there isn’t the alternative to compare with.
If I actually needed what was asked for (as far as I understand it), I would surely automate the described process. A specific naming would allow to use more than one “prototype sheet” in a Calc document. Specialized cell styles might be used to make prototypes also work with ranges of fix content or formulas…
And, of course, a couple of prototype sheets, of styles, and the macros would happily live together in an .ots file then.

#13

oh, gotcha! thanks for clarifying!

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