OpenOffice.org Help TNT: Tips'n'Tricks that somehow didn't make it to the help (yet).

You can insert a cell data range from a Calc spreadsheet into your Impress presentation. Two different approaches can be used, depending on your intention:

Inserting a static copy of the cell data

A static copy of the Calc data is a one time snapshot of the Calc data that you put into an Impress slide. There is no link between both sets of data. If you cange the cell data in Calc, the data in your slide will not be affected. You can also change the contents of the table in your slide. This affects only the local copy inside your slide, it will not change the original Calc sheet.

This is quite easy using copy and paste.

1. Select and copy (Ctrl+C) the cells in Calc

2. Go to the slide where you want to insert the data

3. Press Ctrl+V to paste the data as table that is an OLE object

Now you can rescale the table as a whole object, by dragging any of the eight handles. This will distort the table, however.

If you want to change some formatting, for example the font size or the zoom factor, double-click the OLE object. This places you into the inplace edit mode, where you can use the Calc formatting features to edit the table inside your Impress slide. You can also change the size of the view, for example to show a 3x4 cell area. Click outside the object to leave the edit mode.

Inserting a live link to the saved version of a Calc file

As a recently added new feature, you can also insert a one-way live link from a range of Calc data. You will get the opportunity to see always the latest cell contents from the Calc sheet in your Impress slide.

As with the static copy method described above, you can change the table formatting and its contents in the slide.

When you later open the Impress presentation file, you will be asked if you want to update the links or not. If you answer Yes to update the links, the changes that you edited in your slide will be overwritten by the current data from the Calc spreadsheet file. Only the saved data from the Calc spreadsheet file are used.

1. Go to the slide where you want to insert the data

2. Choose Insert - Object - OLE object

3. Select the Object type with "Spreadsheet" in the name

4. Click Create from file

5. Enable the Link to file checkbox

6. Enter the file name or click Search to select the Calc file
   

You can manually update the link in Impress. Choose Edit - Links, select the link to the Calc sheet, and click the Update button.

Only use a Calc file with a few cells. You will only see the first sheet as an OLE object, and it can get difficult to resize the view in case there are many rows or columns.