PrintMargins wierd, transitioning to Libre

[Mitakuye]

Well, I have used Xcel2013 for a very long time, but now I am not allow cause Microsoft’s policy on activation. So, hello Libre! But, there is this very annoying thing with the PrintMargins. I use every centimeter of room on the page.

Opening my .xlsx files and my first sheet says there is 2 pages, but actually is just one page in Xcel2013. I found the culprit is the very last column. I removed all data, cleared out formating, and zero borders yet still wants to say there are 2 pages. So, I delete the column and, voila, 1 page. Now, I don’t have enough room for all my data to fit on one sheet.

All my margins in Xcel were set to 0 so I could use as much room on the paper as possible to print on paper. Now, LibreOffice cuts off a couple rows.

Turns out, 0 margins do not actually mean 0 margins in Libre as is in Xcel.

I have large workbooks with alot of worksheets. I am going to have to reformat alot of these worksheets so to transition over to Libre.

Is there an easy fix for this? How does Libre adjust the print margins when 0 is entered for top, left, bottom, right?

Thanks for your time!

[mikekaganski]

It is a very unclear question on very complex topic. You write:

Turns out, 0 margins do not actually mean 0 margins in Libre as is in Xcel

What exactly do you mean? that some margins are left? or simply that you don’t know what happens with margins, but you see that content doesn’t fit (which could, e.g., happen when column widths/row heights in LO are slightly different than in Excel, but has nothing to do with margins)?

Excel measures column dimensions in very weird units - a mix of “standard font max digit widths” (dependent on used fonts), “pixels” (dependent on monitor resolution), and “points” used at the same time. LibreOffice (and its underlying ODF format) uses different units - independent on monitors and used fonts. There might be inaccuracies in conversion because of these differences; or because of imperfect import.

Do you know some basics about page formatting in Excel/Calc (and other spreadsheets) on Format->Page->Sheet->Scale?

[Mitakuye]

It means 0s are entered for all the margins, but Excel and Libre interprets this very differently. In Excel, when 0 is accepted for all margins, there is still actually like a small 1/4" margin when comes time to print since the printer cannot actually print at the edge of a piece of paper, but Libre does not understand this. When I enter 0 for all margins, then Libre thinks my printer can print at the edge of a piece paper and so then this discrepancy forces me to print on alot of actual paper to find the minimal possible margin in Libre.

Is there an easier fix to the above? Does anyone know the actual “0” margin I can use for Libre?

Mr. Kaganski, I think you are correct about the dimension measurements. In Excel, the document view determines the measurements. When in “page view”, then inches are used for measurements. When in “normal” view, then the use chooses pixels or points to change column/row measurements. I will experiment with Libre’s fonts and measurements.

[Mitakuye]

I will also play with the scaling to see if this helps any.

In this transitioning to Libre, I am also having to redo my cell merges, that is unmerge then merge again, to fix the formatting. There will be alot of tweaking for me to transition these financial workbooks to Libre. There are also weird red arrows scattered about that I do not understand. I foresee me doing alot of tweaking to make things look right again, to transition to Libre. Might be less of a headache to simply create a windows virtual machine and, since reinstalling windows is so fast nowadays, reinstall windows every 30 days in a new virtual machine so to reset the Excel 2013 countdown timer. I would love to use Libre, but there is going to be alot of adjustments I will have to make on all of my workbooks for me to transition to Libre. Is there a tool that can help me in this transition?