So when I sorted a column it seemed to sort independently of the rest of the row.
How could this possibly happen?
If you sort by column obviously you want to sort the rest of the row, not just that one column.
Luckily I have backups otherwise hours and hours of work would have been lost.
Is this a common problem with Calc?
Is there a way of getting Calc to back up every few minutes storing copies somewhere? I’d like to be able to go back say 5 minutes or 15 minutes instead of my nightly backup and lose a day of work.
If there are data in the neighboring columns, Calc will ask you.
Usually I press Shift+Space to select complete rows before sorting.
Take a look at: Saving Documents Automatically
Not every time, at least for me.
If the column selected is isolated from nearby data (say, columns A and C have data, and column B is empty), and you choose Sort, other columns will be no sorted if not selected beforehand.
If the column selected is not isolated, LibreOffice will ask:
If you don’t select the column and choose Sort, LibreOffice will select all neighbouring cells with data. (LO 7.4).
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I just realized that the “Extend selection” button was something I clicked before thinking it meant everything in that column. Well of course it has to sort everything in that column…what else would it do if you asked it to sort that column? What was I thinking? Anyway that’s why it worked before. Then lately I was sorting by selecting just that column and because it was highlighted I didn’t bother to click “Extend selection”. Now I know what to look out for. Thank you. Your tips make a lot of sense.
They sure should teach spreadsheets in high school. The more I use them the more useful they become for so many functions in life. Its just the best way to organize most anything. And who doesn’t need to be organized?
Have you considered making it a table with the top row as a filtered header row. Then, any sort/select action on any column will automatically reflect across all the columns. One thing to remember. If a formula defines a range say =Sum(A2:A5) then those numbers can’t be tracked to their new locations as they may not be consecutive cells. Better to use =A2+A3+A4+A5 then wherever they end up they will be targeted specifically.
Thank you!
So it just happened again. Hours of work is now unsorted. It was working fine before.
Clearly I need to set a default for sorting. The thing is, why would anyone want to sort a column and just that column? That can mess up everything! This is something that should be set as a default before the program can even be used. LibreOffice is so out to lunch sometimes. A new users would never think that maybe only one column will sort resulting all their work so far to be wasted. Also auto save defaults should be in place as well. Soooooo important.
Another really weird thing I see over and over is when I copy and paste something into Calc the font characteristics of the original text sometimes (but not always!) change Calc text. This is also moronic in the extreme. Obviously we set things up and don’t want anything to change that. How can I make Calc impervious to whatever font I’m pasting into it? How could this not be the default?
Paste special - As unformatted text when pasting text from another program. I added the icon to the toolbar
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Yes, I’ve noticed that limitation of using the colon. Unless we specify the program can’t possibly know what we need. Its sort of like the Select All function. Sure it works but you better be careful!
Paste special - As unformatted text when pasting text from another program. I added the icon to the toolbar
So this tells Calc to ignore whatever formatting or lack thereof is present and use the default?
Can I set it up so whatever I’m pasting in Calc applies whatever formatting is already in play and ignores whatever formatting the pasted material has?
You can add the icon for unformatted text, use the default keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+V, or assign your own shortcut to paste as unformatted text.
