Worksheets and Workbooks

Linking Worksheets

The worksheets we have used so far were as independent as they can be, there was no communication between them. The beauty of organizing various worksheets inside the same workbook is to allow them to exchange information so that data available from one can be to another worksheet, either inside of the same workbook or to a worksheet in another workbook.

Imagine you use a worksheet as a time sheet and decide to use data supplied here to make a payroll, you would not ask users to fill out their working time twice. Instead, use the time sheet to collect the hours worked, and then use that information to prepare and print paychecks in another worksheet.

Any cell in any worksheet in any workbook can be linked to another cell on the same workbook or somewhere else in the computer. You can link worksheets manually or electronically. To link worksheets and cells manually, if you know the names of the worksheets and cells, you can type a formula following a few rules and StarCalc will locate these worksheets and cells when their data is requested. The safest way to link cells is to select them while you are building their relationship.

When creating a formula that involves cells on various worksheets, start building the formula but click the desired cells when their data is needed. When the content of those cells changes, StarCalc will update the cells involved in the relationships.

Practical Learning: Controlling Worksheets Display

1. Open the Red Oak High School4 workbook
2. Click the Student Info Sheet and view the structure and data on various cells. We are going to use one worksheet to get a summary of each student’s grades. Since we are using one worksheet to register students, we will make sure that the worksheet used for registration supplies the students names to the worksheet used for summary grades. To see how it is done, we will practice only on the 6th Grade worksheet.
3. Click the 6th Grade worksheet to activate it.
4. In cell B8, type =CONCATENATE(
5. Click the Student Info sheet to make it active
6. In the Student Info sheet, click cell B8 (Brigitte)
7. Type ;
8. Type " ";
9. Still in the Student Registration sheet, click cell D8
10. Press Enter.
11. You should be back in the 6th Grade worksheet, otherwise, click the 6th Grade worksheet to active it. 
    Observe the result in cell B8. Click cell B8 and notice the CONCATENATE function in the Formula Bar: =CONCATENATE(StudentsInfo.B8;" ";StudentsInfo.D8)
12. At this time, you could simply copy cell B8 to other cells.
    Still in the 6th Grade worksheet, click cell B9 and type =CONCATENATE(
13. Click the Student Info worksheet to make it active
14. Click B9
15. Type ;" ";
16. Click cell D9 and press Enter.
17. In the 6th Grade worksheet, select cells B8:B9
18. Drag the Fill Handle of the selection down to B32
19. Select cells B8:B9 again
20. Drag their Fill Handle up to cell B6
21. Press Ctrl + Home. Scroll up and down to check the result.
22. Notice the last name of the first student, Song, and the first name of the 6th student, Bobby.
    To check that the cells are linked, click the Student Info worksheet to activate it.
23. In cell D6, notice the last name of the first student, Song, and the first name of the 6th student, Bobby. Click cell D6 and type Singers
24. Click cell B11, type Roberts and press Enter
25. Click the 6th Grade worksheet and notice the name changed in cells D6 and B11.
26. Click the Students Grades Summary worksheet and notice that it is empty at this time.
27. Click the 6th Grade worksheet. Select cells B6:G32 and press Ctrl + C to copy the selection
28. Click the Students Grades Summary worksheet to activate it
29. Click cell B6 to select it. Right-click cell B6 and click Paste Special…
30. From the Paste Special dialog, in the Options section, click the Link radio button:
     
    
31. Click OK
32. To save your workbook, on the Standard toolbar, click Save .

Save Worksheet/Workbook as a Web Page

As the Internet has become significantly important and unavoidable, it is a valuable tool for effective communication. Data now can flow at a very high speed for very low cost.
The Internet is a group of computers connected together to share and exchange information using universal languages that different computers from various manufacturers and operating systems can understand. You can therefore publish your data and make it available to almost any computer in the world.

An intranet is a privately owned, company centered, group of computers connected inside of a particular company using the same technology as the Internet to share and exchange information. This allows you to publish your information inside of the company even if different employees use different computers and operating systems.

In StarCalc, you can publish just one worksheet and the whole workbook and make its data available to other computers. To perform publishing, first decide on what you want to publish, a worksheet or the whole workbook.

We will save the current workbook as a web page.

Practical Learning: Save Worksheet/Workbook as a Web Page

1. Still in the Red Oak High School4 workbook, click the Students Grades Summary worksheet.
2. On the main menu, click File -> Save As…
3. From the Save As dialog box, in the Save As Type combo box, select Web Page
4. Change the File Name as roshgradesummary
5. Make sure the Automatic File Extension check box is selected
6. Notice the folder or directory in which the file is being saved. Click Save
7. In Windows Explorer or in the Linux Home Directory, locate the folder or directory in which the web file was saved. Double-click the file to open it in a browser
8. After viewing the published web page, you can close it.
   Close OpenOffice or StarOffice