Using a spreadsheet generally involves several steps. First the application is started to obtain an empty workbook, which generally has several empty worksheets. Next, data and formulas are entered into one or several sheets. The data may be entered by hand or imported from external files. The formulas are generally entered by hand, possibly with the help of various tools. The data may be formatted to appear in particular ways and to clarify the structure of the data in the worksheet. A user may also create several graphical plots. Certain parts of the spreadsheets may be printed out as tables. The work is then usually saved into a file which can be re-opened later to add or modify the contents of the workbook. The terminology can be confusing. A spreadsheet file contains a workbook and possibly some other information about the file. (Because the workbook is far more important than the extra information, the files themselves are often called workbooks.) A workbook contains one or more worksheets. Each worksheet contains a large number of cells usually arranged into a two dimensional grid made up of columns and rows. The names of the parts of Gnumeric are introduced below in and explained exhaustively in . Gnumeric can be started in several ways on every computer operating system and desktop environment. Each of the approaches described below are equivalent; they result in a gnumeric window appearing on your monitor as shown in It is assumed that you have installed the Gnumeric program on your machine. Installing Gnumeric depends on the particular operating system and distribution and is therefore beyond the scope of this manual. If Gnumeric is not installed on your machine, read the manuals that came with your distribution or look at your distribution vendor's web site.

This screenshot depicts Gnumeric when first opened.

If you are a GNOME user, you should have a `panel' somewhere on your desktop. This panel contains icons, and at least two menus. One of these menus is called Applications and has an icon which looks like the outline of a foot. If you click on this menu name, a menu will appear. Drag the cursor down to the Office sub-menu name, and a sub-menu will appear. Drag the cursor into the sub-menu and then release the mouse button when the cursor is on the entry which reads "Gnumeric Spreadsheet." This will start the program and the main window of Gnumeric will appear as shown in . If you run a UNIX-like operating system (called *NIX in this manual) such as GNU/Linux, GNU on some other kernel, or a commercial UNIX (TM) system, or if you use a commercially distributed version of GNOME, of the KDE (K Desktop Environment), or of a similar desktop system, you will have to find a way to launch Gnumeric yourself. Hunt around the menus until you find something named "Gnumeric", possibly with the This image depicts the menu icon of Gnumeric. icon and then click on that menu entry. On UNIX-like operating systems, Gnumeric requires the X windows system to run. Gnumeric can also be started from the command line in an xterm window or equivalent terminal emulator. Open a terminal, and, at the shell prompt type: gnumeric & which will start the program and send it into the background. You must be running the X windows system to run Gnumeric. Gnumeric will eventually run on windows. You should be able to start gnumeric from the Microsoft Start menu. You can also start gnumeric from a shell window by finding the directory with the program itself which will be called gnumeric.exe. You can either move to that directory and type: gnumeric or you can type the whole name of the path and file, which will be something like: c:\Program Files\Gnome-Office\gnumeric either of which should start the program. If you are still stuck, ask a friend or someone who knows your machine. Unfortunately, getting started is often the hardest part of learning to use a new program but it is also the one place a manual such as this one cannot really help. Gnumeric can also be opened using a spreadsheet file directly. If there is a spreadsheet file on the desktop or in a file manager like Nautilus, it may be possible to click or double-click with the mouse pointer on the file and have Gnumeric open the file automatically. Alternatively, you may be able to right click on the file and get a pop-up menu that will allow you to select Gnumeric as the application to use to open the file. After opening, Gnumeric appears as was shown in but is shown below with the major components labeled. The open application contains a menubar at the top, two toolbars below the menu bar, and below these, on the left, the object toolbar, and, on the right, the data entry area above the cell grid area which itself is above the list of worksheets and the information area.

The part names are listed below along with a reference to the section that discusses that element. Those reading this document on their computers may be able to click on the references to jump to that section of the manual. 1 The menubar The menubar provides access to the core functions of gnome. Almost everything that can be done in Gnumeric can be done through the menus. The menus and menubar are discussed in . 2 The standard toolbar The standard toolbar provides shortcuts for the most used items in the menus. The toolbars are discussed in and this toolbar in particular in . 3 The format toolbar The format toolbar changes the display properties of data in the workbook. It is presented in , part of the general discussion of toolbars of . 4 The object toolbar This toolbar enables the user to draw graphic elements on the sheet, such as text labels, big red circles or thin green arrows. These can be used to bring attention to a particular part of a worksheet. The object toolbar is explained in in the portion of the manual. 5 The data entry area The data entry area is useful for the modification of complex formulas. It is discussed in . 6 The cell grid area The cell area lies in the middle of all the rest. The cell area includes the row and column labels, the scrollbars and the tabs below. The use of these elements is explained in . 7 The information area This area is used by Gnumeric to give feedback on the status of certain operations. This information is explained in . For a detailed explanation of each of these elements, see . By default, Gnumeric opens a workbook with three worksheets and a file name of Book1.gnumeric. The commands provided by Gnumeric can be accessed using several methods. These methods are explained here. The most important commands are explained in the rest of this chapter. All of the commands are explained in later chapters of this manual. The menus provide the simplest way to get to all of the commands provided by Gnumeric. These menus work like those in any GNOME application: clicking on the menu name causes a menu to open, dragging the mouse cursor onto the menu and then releasing the mouse button (or clicking again) while the cursor is above a menu entry causes that command to be executed. For further information, see . The buttons on the toolbars are quite simple to use. Simply placing the mouse cursor above one of the buttons and pressing the left mouse button will perform the command, either directly or by opening a dialog window. For further information, see . In many situations, Gnumeric provides a menu right under the mouse cursor if the right hand mouse button is clicked. This menu contains different entries depending on the placement of the mouse cursor when the right hand mouse button is clicked. For further information, see . Certain common commands can be triggered using a combination of keys. The menu entries are often followed by a combination of keys which can be used to trigger that command. For instance, saving the file which is currently being used can be performed by typing jointly the control key and the s key (i.e. CtrlS). For further information, see . The main purpose of spreadsheets like Gnumeric is to collect information in a coherent manner, perform calculations on the information and then be able to update those calculations easily if the original numbers change. The use of a spreadsheet therefore requires a substantial understanding of the types of information which can be entered into the spreadsheet and the methods which can be used to manipulate that information. This section explains how data can be used in Gnumeric. Spreadsheets like Gnumeric treat information by separating the data into separate cells and considering the data in each cell to be separate elements. Each cell in the spreadsheet has both a value, which is what Gnumeric manipulates, and a representation, which is what is actually shown. Understanding this distinction is complicated and make take the new user some time. This distinction is one of the reasons spreadsheets are so useful. The cells of the spreadsheet are contained in the cell grid area. The cell grid area is the area with a white background and grey grid lines. The grid lines separate this area into separate cells. Each cell has a unique reference name which is the combination of the letters of the name of the column and the number of the row. For instance, the top, leftmost cell is the cell named "A1" and the cell two over to the right and four rows down is named "C4" because it is in the column labelled "C" and in the fourth row. Each of these cells can contain only one single datum. The datum contained in any cell will have one of five types: a text string type, a number type, a formula type, a boolean type or an error type. These five types of data values can then have various display formats so that, for instance, a number value can be displayed as a number, a monetary amount, a date or a time. Text strings are sequences of characters and punctuation marks and could, for example, contain textual information such as peoples names. Number values are simply numbers but may be input and displayed in various formats including decimal numbers, dates, times, and numbers in scientific notation. Formulas are instructions to Gnumeric to calculate a result. The power of spreadsheets comes from these formulas because the results of the calculation can depend on the contents of other cells. Boolean values are either TRUE or FALSE and can be used in logical statements. Error values are usually the result of mistakes or impossible calculations. For more advanced information on the types of data usable in Gnumeric, see . In order to enter data into the spreadsheet, the user must first select a cell in which to place the information and then actually type the information on the keyboard. Once the information is entered, Gnumeric attempts to figure out both the appropriate data value type to assign to the cell and the appropriate data format in which to display this data value. Because this process is quite complex, users may occasionally be forced to actively select these parameters of the cells, which is explained in below. The next two sections explain how to get data into a cell, first by moving the selection box to a desired cell and then by typing the data. In order to enter data into Gnumeric the selection box must be placed over the appropriate cell. The selection box appears on the cell grid as a double lined rectangle with a small grey square in the lower right corner of the box. By default the selection box surrounds the top, leftmost cell in the cell grid area. The simplest way to move the selection box is to use the mouse. If the mouse cursor is placed over the cell "C3" (the cursor will be represented as a thick white cross) and the left mouse button then clicked, the selection box will move to cell "C3". Note that the selection box can cover more than one cell if the mouse is dragged while being clicked. The use of these larger selections is explained below in . The selection box also causes the header of the column and row to change slightly. The headers will turn a darker shade of gray and the font of the letters and numbers turn bold. This helps indicate what is currently being selected. The selection box can also be moved with the keyboard arrow keys. For instance, typing the right arrow twice and the down arrow once will move the selection box from the cell "C3" to the cell "E4". The selection box can be moved in other ways and will move in response to certain actions. These movements become intuitive after using Gnumeric for a little while. In order to enter data into a selected cell, one can simply start typing. The characters will then become part of the spreadsheet when the selection is changed either by typing the Enter key, which moves the selection down one cell, by typing the Tab key, which moves the selection one cell to the right, or by selecting any other cell with the mouse. For example, the mouse could be used to select the cell four columns over (Column D) and three rows down (Row 3). Then the user could type "Hello, this is a line of text." and then type the Enter key. The text would then appear in cell "D3" and, if the cells to the right are empty, would span into those cells so that the whole entry is visible. The selection box moves when the Enter key is typed and will therefore appear afterwards in cell "D4", ready for the input of more data. Note that as the data text is entered it appears in both the cell and in the data entry area (the area below the toolbars to the right of the equals (=) sign). Mistakes which are made during data entry can be corrected by using the Backspace key or the Delete key. Finer control can be obtained if the cursor is moved to the text entry area by clicking in the box to the right of the equals (=) sign with the mouse. Editing in the text entry area enables the arrow keys to navigate backwards and forwards within the text being entered and also enables the mouse to be used to move the cursor. The contents of a cell can be changed simply by selecting the cell again and either typing the new contents or editing the existing contents of the cells. If the content of the cell is too large for the size of the cell, the entry may span over the edge of the cell into the empty cells to the right. If the cell is a number, the cell grid area may display hash marks (######) to indicate the cell has content which is too large to display in the given cell width. As data are entered into the spreadsheet, Gnumeric interprets the information in order, first, to assign it to a data category and, second, to give it an appropriate data display format. The entry will be assigned to one of the basic data types and possibly to a sub-type. Entries which start with an apostrophe (') are considered to be text no matter what the rest of the contents. Entries which start with an equals sign (=) are automatically considered to be a formula. Entries which are single numbers or which fall into commonly used patterns for dates or times will be considered to be numbers. Gnumeric usually figures out correctly both the type and the appropriate display format for the data being entered. Occasionally, the user will have to force Gnumeric to consider the data to be a different data type than Gnumeric would guess by default. The details of this process is explained in greater detail in the extended chapter on data, . Entering text simply requires selecting the appropriate cell, typing the text and then the Enter key. If the text is too large to fit in its own cell, and the cell to its right is empty, the text will span into the cell on the right. By default, Gnumeric uses a display format for text in which the contents are shown left justified. For more information about text elements, see . Entering numbers requires selecting the appropriate cell, typing in a number and then the Enter key. Gnumeric recognizes several types of information to be numbers. The simplest kind of input which Gnumeric recognizes as numbers are standard numeric values. Technically, these are contiguous sequences of digits which may have a separator symbol between the thousands and another symbol indicating the decimal separator. These symbols follow the English convention by default (comma as thousand separator, period as decimal symbol) but will adopt the symbols appropriate for a different locality if Gnumeric is launched in a particular way. For instance, in a French setting the period is the thousand separator symbol and the comma the decimal separator symbol. By default, Gnumeric will display these numeric values lined up against the right side of the cell. Several other types of input are recognized as numeric values which means that calculations can be performed on the values in the cells. Dates in the standard format of the locale are recognized as numbers. By default, inputing 11/21/1970 will be recognized as the twenty-first of November of the year nineteen seventy. Gnumeric stores the value as the number of days since the first day of January in 1900. Time values, such as 10:34 or 11:23:45 PM, are recognized as number values. These values are stored in Gnumeric as fractions of the whole day. Percentage values can be input simply by appending the percent symbol (%) to the value. Fractions can be input and are recognized as values. Numeric values can be input using scientific notation. For instance, 1.003e+6 will be recognized as the value one million three thousand. For more information on numbers, see . Entering boolean values requires selecting the appropriate cell, typing in either "TRUE" or "FALSE" and then the Enter key. Entering a formula requires selecting a cell and typing in the equals sign (=) and then a valid formula. If Gnumeric cannot understand the formula which is entered, it will open a dialog box which may have an explanation and gives the user a chance either to re-edit the expression or to accept the entry as a text entry instead of a formula. The second choice makes it easy to re-edit the entry into a valid formula simply by fixing the formula and removing the leading apostrophe (') before the equals sign. Formulas can be quite complex since the power of spreadsheets comes from these formulas. A simple example of the use of a formula is as follows: first, select cell B2 and input the value "3" into that cell. Second, select cell D4 and input (without the quotes) "=B2+2" and then type the Enter key. Cell D4 should display the value "5". If the value of cell B2 is changed from "3" to "100", Gnumeric will automatically update the value of cell D4 to "102". A valid formula can be a simple arithmetic equation such as =3+4-1 which uses a formula to make the cell equal to the value 6. Formulas may include calls to functions. These are statements which indicate that more complex operations should be performed. For instance, a formula could be "=EXP(24)" which would give the value of e (the base of the natural logarithm) raised to the 24th power. The cell would then display "2.6489e+10". As was shown in the example above, formulas may contain `references' to the contents of another cell. In the example given above, the contents of the cell in the second column and the second row was used in a calculation by using the cell name "B2". These references mean that complex calculations can be automatically updated when one of the original values change. References can be made to the cells in other worksheets and even to those in other workbooks (files). The basic format of a complete reference is made of the name of the file the reference is in, enclosed by square brackets, followed by the name of the sheet, followed by an exclamation point, followed by the letters of the column, followed by the number of the row. For example, a complete reference could be "[my_file.gnumeric]"Sheet3"!C3". These complete references can be shortened if the filename or sheet names are the same as that of the reference. "AE34" would refer to the cell in the current file, in the current worksheet which is in column "AE" and in row "34". References can refer to a range of contiguous range of cells. For instance, the reference "A1: E5" refers to all the cells from the top-left most cell of the current sheet to the cell five rows down and five rows over. This can be useful in a formula which uses a function such as MAX(). The formula "=MAX(A1:E5)" would display the value of the largest number value in this range of cells. For more information on references see the complete discussion in later on in this manual. For a more discussion of the use of formulas see later in this manual. For a list of the functions available, see the function reference appendix, , or click on the toolbar button with the symbol "f(x)" on it for an organized list of functions. Error values are almost never entered into the spreadsheet directly but generally arise when formulas cannot calculate valid results. The data in Gnumeric are stored in the cells of the spreadsheet, each of which has a cell format which dictates how the data will be displayed, whether the cell will have borders and other information. Cell formatting can be quite confusing at first because it combines simple changes, such as the colour of the characters being displayed, with more complex ideas, such as how future changes to the cell will be interpreted. All of the cell formatting commands can be reached through a context menu by right clicking on a cell and selecting the Format Cells... menu entry. This will open a dialog window with tabs which group together similar types of formatting. Clicking on the Font tab allows a user to change the font family, style, size and colour. For instance, if the cell B2 contained the text "Hello, this is my first spreadsheet" then this text could be made bigger by selecting a larger font size. Simple changes to the format of a cell include changing the alignment of the characters, changing the font type or colour, changing the border, and changing the colour or pattern of the background. The Alignment, Font, Border, and Background tabs are simple to understand simply by playing around with the settings and looking at the effect on a cell which contains text. The Protection and Validation tabs are advanced functionality which can be ignored at the beginning. For explanations of these tabs, see the advanced description in . Cell formats are most difficult to understand when they address the type of data stored and the visual display of that data. This only arises with the options selected in the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog. While these ideas are complex, they must be understood at the beginning because they are fundamental to spreadsheet use. When data are entered into Gnumeric, the spreadsheet interprets the entry based on the input format of the cell. The default format of empty cells is the General format which instructs Gnumeric to guess both the type of the data being entered and a suitable display format for that data type. However, the General format can be changed to a specific format in order to alter both the way Gnumeric interprets any future data input to the cell and the way data in the cell are displayed. Changing the format does not alter the data type of data already in a cell but does alter the display format of that data. This means that the input format will only affect future input whereas the display format will affect both the data currently in the cell and any data placed later into the cell. For example, if a user enters "12/25/2000" (without the quotes), Gnumeric guesses that this is a date and stores the value 36885. (The value Gnumeric uses for dates is the number of days since the last day of 1899. However, Gnumeric perpetuates an error of Excel for the sake of compatibility and assumes 1900 to be a leap year even though it was not.) At the same time, Gnumeric changes the display format to display this number as a date, with a numeric month, day and year, separated by slashes. The order in which the formatting operations occur is critical. It is not possible to alter the type of a datum currently in a cell by formatting. To alter the interpretation of the data type in a cell, formatting must occur prior to the entry of the data. It sometimes becomes necessary to override the "General" type if Gnumeric is making an incorrect assessment of the data being entered. Postal Zip Codes in the United States, for instance, are incorrectly interpreted to be numbers. Some of these Zip Codes start with a leading zero which the "General" format type drops so the user must intervene to keep that zero displayed. In order to input these Zip Codes, the following steps must be performed. First, the cell must be selected. Next, the cell must be formatted to hold a "Text" value. This formatting changes both the interpretation of any future data entry into this cell and alters the display formatting of the cell. Finally, the Zip Code can be entered. Following these steps, the data value will be considered to be a "Text" value, any leading zeros will be retained and the data will be left justified since this is the default display format for "Text" values. If the data type of a whole column needs to be altered prior to data entry, this can be done in one formatting operation. First the whole column must be selected by clicking on the column header (the letters at the top). Next, the selected cells can be formatted at once by clicking the right mouse button to obtain the context menu or by selecting the Format menu and the Cells... menu entry. This quick approach to pre-formatting cells can also be done for any group of selected cells. Selections can be more complex than a single cell at a time. Selections may describe a continuous rectangular block of cells, an arbitrary shaped group of cells or even a discontinuous group of cells. The most common way to select a continuous rectangular block of cells uses a click and drag mouse motion. The cells in this continuous block can be selected by clicking and holding the left mouse button down on one of the corner cells (for instance, the top, leftmost cell) and dragging the mouse cursor to the opposite corner (for instance, the bottom, rightmost cell) before releasing. The selection box will expand to include all of the cells in this range. The most common way to select an arbitrary shaped or discontinuous group of cells is to hold down the Ctrl key while using the mouse to select cells. As long as the Ctrl key is held down, all of the cells included by a click or a click and drag motion will be added to the selection. There are several operations which cannot be performed with odd shaped or discontinuous groups of cells. For more information and other ways to select multiple cells, see the complete discussion in . The contents of cells, both data values and formatting, can be moved from one part of a spreadsheet to another so that data do not have to be re-entered if the spreadsheet is reorganized. New cells can be added to a spreadsheet and old cells removed but these latter operations cause the layout of the spreadsheet to be altered. The simplest way to move cell contents around a spreadsheet involves selecting a block of cells containing the contents to be moved, either "cutting" or "copying" those cells, selecting the location where these contents are to be moved and then pasting the data. Moving data can only be performed with a single selection of cells which means that only continuous rectangular blocks of cells can be moved. This does mean, however, that columns or rows can be moved as a unit. By default, Gnumeric moves the entire contents of the cells including both the data values and the formatting of the cells. Once a group of cells is selected, they can be "cut" or "copied" either using the Edit menu, the toolbar buttons (a pair of scissors or two pieces of paper, respectively), the right mouse button context menu or keyboard shortcuts (CtrlX or CtrlC respectively). If cells are "cut" the contents will be removed from the current location. If cells are "copied", the contents will be duplicated in the new location. These two operations treat cell references in formulas slightly differently. If cells are "cut", any references in the cells in the new location will remain pointed at the original cells. If cells are "copied", the references in the cells in the new location will point to cells in the same relative position. The new location for the cells can be selected in two ways. The simplest is to select the top, left cell of the new location. Alternatively, the whole new range of cells can be selected but the shape of this new range must match exactly the dimensions of the original range which is more difficult. Finally the cell contents can be "pasted" in the new location using either the Edit menu Paste menu entry, the toolbar button with a clipboard, the context menu Paste menu entry or the CtrlV keyboard shortcut. An alternative way to move cells in a current worksheet involves dragging and dropping the original selection. The cells to be moved are selected as above. The mouse cursor is then placed on the thick white selection border. If the left hand button is clicked and held, the selected cells can be dragged to a new location resulting in the same operation as a "cut" and a "paste". If the Ctrl key is held down during the click and drag of the mouse, the result is the same as a "copy" and "paste" operation and can be repeated several times. Both the Edit menu and the context menu have an extra menu entry called Paste Special... which can be used during a cut and paste operation to selectively transfer some of the original the cell contents or to alter the contents in specific ways. This option allows the transfer of only the cell contents, only the cell formats or only the calculated values of the cells. The transfered contents can also be mathematically combined with the current contents of cells in the new location. Alternatively, the selection can be transposed. See for more information on the Paste Special... command. A worksheet can also be altered by inserting or by deleting cells. These operations actually alter the locations of cells in a workbook. Inserting and deleting columns and rows are easy to understand. If a group of columns or rows is selected, selecting the Column or Row menu entries in the Insert menu will add the same number of columns to the left of the selected columns or of rows above the selected rows. The context menu can also be used for the insert operation. The context menu can be used to delete the currently selected columns or rows. Insert operations can result in the loss of data if the last columns or rows currently contain information. Individual cells or contiguous rectangular blocks of cells can also be inserted and deleted. During this operation, the user is asked which way to shift the current cells to allow the insertion or deletion of the selected cells. The movement can be along the rows or along the columns and will result in the relative movement of cells which were previously contiguous. This shift is the fundamental difference between insert and delete operations compared to cut or copy and paste operations. The worksheets in a workbook can be altered in several ways. The name of a particular worksheet can be altered. New sheets can be added. A current sheet can be duplicated or removed. The sheets can be reordered. Other sheets operations can alter the colour of the tabs or change the "protection" status of a worksheet to allow cells to be locked or hidden. The names of sheets can be changed. This can be done by editing the tab directly. Clicking twice on a tab will highlight the text and then standard editing operations will alter the text contents. A new empty sheet can be inserted after the current sheet through the Sheet menu entry in the Insert menu or through context menu which appears when the right mouse button is clicked on a tab. Instead of an empty sheet, a copy of the current worksheet can be added to the workbook after the current sheet by selection the Duplicate this Sheet menu entry from the context menu. The current sheet can be removed using the Remove this Sheet menu entry from the context menu. Deleting sheets cannot be retrieved through the "Undo" mechanism and is therefore an irreversible operation. Be careful! Worksheets can be re-ordered by clicking and holding the left mouse button on a tab, then dragging that tab to the left or to the right. Little arrows will appear showing the location where the sheet will be placed. Releasing the mouse button will then move the sheet to this new position. Many of these operations can be performed at once from the Manage Sheets dialog which can be opened through the Manage Sheets... menu entry in either the Sheet submenu in the Edit menu or in the sheet tab's context menu. A major function of moderns spreadsheets is to provide a quick and easy way to plot numerical data in graphical charts of various kinds. The use of graphs provides users a way to explore data to discover relationships and trends in the data values. Graphs also provide an effective way to present data so as to demonstrate relationships in the data and summarize large amounts of data in an effective image. In Gnumeric, both of these can be done easily and efficiently. The approach to the creation of graphical displays of data was completely redesigned in Gnumeric version 1.2 and is still being improved. The ultimate goal is a system which will produce an elegant graph automatically but can be customized in detail according the user's preferences. This is a active area of programming development and therefore will be changing repeatedly in future versions. Information on the creation of graphical displays of data is presented in greater detail in . That chapter will be updated regularly during development to explain in detail how to produce and modify graphical displays of data. When graphs are used to explore data, the aim is usually to produce a plot quickly with a minimum of effort. These plots are not designed to look polished but must present the required information as quickly as possible. To produce these graphs, users must learn a simple series of operations which will produce the desired plots. For speed, the most critical operation involves selecting the cells on the spreadsheet which will be used as data before starting the graphing process. Graphs which are used to present data must be carefully crafted to communicate effectively. Clarity of communication is the critical factor and the plot may include a large amount of work to ensure that the visual result of the plot helps to communicate the desired result. The use of a graph may not be the best way to communicate information. A verbal explanation or a simple table are often sufficient and, because they are more compact, may be more effective ways to communicate. Gnumeric includes a large number of features which allow users to craft the look of a particular graph to maximize the effectiveness of the presentation. In Gnumeric, it is possible to change the fonts, modify the borders of each element, add patterns and images to backgrounds, add patterns to plot elements and configure the graph in multiple ways. These features will be explained in detail below. Graphs which use a large number of the graphical features available in Gnumeric often appear cluttered. The visual richness of such images can often obscure the message contained in the presentation of the data. Spare, elegant and direct graphs will communicate results most effectively. This section will introduce the process of creating a graph by presenting an example of a side-by-side column plot. Because a graph requires data, it is first necessary to create some simple data to use in these examples. First we have to input these data into a worksheet. The data used are shown in . For clarity in this discussion, the word "Interval" should be in cell A1.

This screenshot depicts Gnumeric with the data used in the two example graphs.

A column plot presents a series of data points as columns whose height depends on the value of each datum. This is a useful type of plot to show the number of eggs produced in each interval. The quickest way to make a plot starts with the selection of the data. Using the mouse, first select the range B1:C5 which includes the data both for the number of Eggs and for the number of Females. Next, click on the graphing toolbar button This image shows the toolbar graphing button. which looks like three colored pillars. This launches a new window called the graph guru. Next, click on the word "Column" next to the icon with vertical colored bars This image shows the "column" plot type after it has been selected. which will move the selection down to that row. Click on the "Ok" button. This will make the druid disappear and leave the mouse cursor as a thin crosshair. Finally, we will place and size the graph on a sheet. Click on the sheet and drag downward and to the right. As the mouse is dragged, a rectangle will expand. When the mouse button is released, a simple column chart should appear. The simple graph should look like .

This screenshot depicts the simple graph with a single chart containing a column plot.

The graph can be customized with titles, extra charts, overlaid plots, label boxes and lots of extra information. To customize the graph, right click on the plot to open the graph custom menu. The graph context menu will appear as shown in .

This screenshot depicts the context menu applicable to graphs.

This menu provides access to several functions. Users can customize the appearance of graphs by selecting the Properties menu item, can save the graph into PNG or SVG formats using the Save as image menu item, can reorder the various graphical elements displayed in the worksheet using the Top, Up, Down, and Bottom menu items or can delete graphical elements with the Delete menu item. If we wanted to add a title and a legend to the graph, we could use the Properties menu item to open the graph editor and customize the graph as follows: Right click on the graph to open the context menu and select the Properties menu item. This will open the graph editor. The graph editor opens with the top-level "Graph" entry selected in the element tree displayed in the top left pane of the editor. The top right pane of the editor displays a preview of the eventual graph. The bottom pane of the editor has a single or several tabs presenting the elements which can be modified for the particular item selected in the element tree. Click and hold on the Add button This image shows the Add button in the graph editor. to open the menu of elements addable to a graph. Note that this menu changes depending on the element selected in the element tree when the Add is clicked. Drag the mouse cursor down until the selection highlights the "Title" entry and release the mouse button. This will add a "Title" node in the graph element tree and change the selection to this "Title" node. The bottom pane of the graph editor will also change to display the modifiable characteristics of the "Title" element. In the text field of the tab displayed in the bottom pane of the graph editor, add a title such as "Egg Production and Female Productivity" and type the Enter key. Note that the title appears at the top of the graph in the preview pane. In the graph tree, select the node labelled "Chart1". Next, click and hold on the add button, drag down to the Legend menu item and release. Note that this adds a legend on the right of the graph in the preview pane. Click on the "Ok" button. The plot should now have a title and a legend. Note that gnumeric has used the words in the column headers automatically to label the two data series in the legend. The modified graph should look like .

This screenshot depicts the example column graph with a title and a legend.

Printing in Gnumeric is quite simple and similar to other GNOME applications. Printing can be done using the toolbar buttons or can be accessed through the File menu. Printing usually involves configuring the page properties (like the paper type and margins), then previewing the document to be printed and finally actually printing the document. In order to configure a worksheet for printing several parameters must be set such as the correct size of the paper sheet, the layout of the spreadsheet, headers and footers and such information. These parameters can be set once for all of the worksheets in a file or separately for each worksheet. The Page Setup... menu entry invokes a dialog through which to alter the printing parameters. The Print Preview... menu item or toolbar button will open a window which shows what will be printed with the current configuration. By default, printing only applies to the current worksheet but this can be changed in the print dialog explained next. The Print... menu item or toolbar button will open a dialog which allows the user to select whether to print to a printer or to a postscript or PDF file. Various printers can be selected and the parameters of the job, such as whether to print all the worksheets or only the currently selected worksheet, can be altered. Clicking on the Print button will perform the printing task. Printing is explained in greater detail in . When you first start Gnumeric a new workbook will be opened. To save this workbook into a file, click on FileSave As … . This brings up the file dialog where you can pick the filename and format for the book you are saving. It is best to save the book in the Gnumeric XML file format the first time. This allows you to easily edit the file without worrying about changes in the format and look of the book. Once the file has a name and a file format, saving subsequent changes can be done easily either through the File menu, through the toolbar or through a keyboard shortcut. Saving with the menu requires selecting the File and then the Save menu item. Saving with the toolbar simply requires clicking on The "Save File" button in the tool bar. Finally saving with a keyboard shortcut simply requires typing CtrlS. Sometimes you want your book to be saved often so you do not lose any work. To save the book at intervals click on Tools Auto Save …. The Auto Save dialog appears.

The autosave dialog box.

Click on the Automatic Save Every button and enter the number of minutes will pass between each save. When the interval is shorter more of your work will be potentially saved, but Gnumeric might appear sluggish. If Gnumeric is sluggish increase the time between saves. The button Prompt Before Saving brings up a dialog to ask if you want to save the book. Using the automatic saving feature of Gnumeric can save time but is dangerous. Gnumeric does not create a new file each time a file is saved but instead Gnumeric modifies the existing file which destroys the previous work. In certain situations, this feature can lead to the loss of possibly important work. Users are highly recommended to backup their work by copying the original file to a new name or by saving files to newly named files. An existing spreadsheet file can be opened in several ways. If the file has an icon on the desktop, this icon can be clicked or double-clicked with the mouse button. Similarly, if a file manager, such as the Nautilus file manager, lists the file, then the file name can be clicked and opened. If Gnumeric is already opened, a file can be opened by clicking on the File and selecting the Open menu item. Alternatively, the "Open file" button on the toolbar, An image of the "Open File" button. , can be used or the F3 key clicked. All three of these open the Open File dialog. You can then select the spreadsheet file you wish to open. Gnumeric can open many different types of spreadsheet file formats. If the file has recently been opened in Gnumeric, the file name will appear in the File menu and can simply be clicked to re-open the file. There are several ways to close Gnumeric. The simplest is to select the File menu and then the Quit menu option at the bottom of the File. Gnumeric can also be closed through the window manager by clicking on a close box in the window frame or through a pop-up menu. The placement of the box and the invocation of the menu depend on the particular window manager and the theme being used. If the GNOME panel is running the window list applet, clicking with the right mouse button opens a context menu with a Close which can be used to close Gnumeric. If any changes have been made to the workbook since the last time it was saved, a dialog will open to ask what is supposed to happen to the contents of the workbook. At this point the contents of the workbook can be saved (Save), the request to close gnumeric can be cancelled (Don't Quit) or the most recent changes can be discarded (Discard). If the user decides to save the content, a second dialog may open requesting a file name, location and type for the saved workbook. Any files which are saved by Gnumeric must be deleted by the user. Either the GNOME file manager Nautilus or the shell tool rm can be used to delete the files.