Re: [libreoffice-users] Printing selected rows from a spreadsheet

At 17:24 12/02/2014 -0500, Tim Deaton wrote:
> Years ago I frequently had the same problem.  My first spreadsheet 
> (1987) was a shareware product called ExpressCalc.  It had a very 
> convenient function called NOPRINT.  If I put that function (or a 
> formula that evaluated to that function) in any cell on a particular 
> row, that row would be skipped when I printed the spreadsheet.
>
> This function was very handy whenever I wanted to build a re-usable 
> table that might allow for 100 rows of data entry & related 
> calculations, but in which not all rows are likely to be filled 
> every time. For instance, I might have an invoice sheet listing 30 
> different possible items, but I only want the 5 that happen to have 
> quantities filled in to actually show up on the printout.

Wouldn't you do that a different way?  Create a table of items, 
possibly with other data such as unit prices.  Set up the invoice 
separately.  Enter item codes or names manually, or - better - use 
Data | Validity... | Criteria | Allow | Cell range to create 
drop-down menus in the invoice, where you could easily select the 
five or so items you needed each time.  In any case, you would then 
use VLOOKUP() to harvest any associated data, such as item unit 
price.  This sounds much easier to me.

If you suppress rows you don't need, wouldn't the invoice end up a 
different length depending on how many items you happened to 
include?  I think my way suggested above would keep the format of the 
invoice consistent, no matter how many lines were included; unfilled 
lines would be blank.

> And Brian, I'd be interested in knowing that hint you gave Muriel.

She said File | Print... | Print | Selected cells wasn't working for 
her.  I didn't know why, so didn't have a solution, but I suggested a 
number of possible workarounds:
o Copying the relevant rows to another sheet - perhaps temporarily - 
and printing that sheet.
o Selecting the rows using a filter, in which case only the filtered 
rows would be printed.
o Defining a print range consisting only of the required rows; then 
only those rows would print.
o Using the Export as PDF function's Selection option and then simply 
printing the resulting PDF.

In fact, she chose to select the required rows, copy them to a text 
(Writer) document, and print that.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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