Wednesday, May 11 2005 @ 04:26 AM EDT Contributed by: glosser
LinuxJournal offers this tutorial on tables in OpenOffice 2.0.
How to add, design and manipulate tables in OOo 2.0.
In modern writing, tables are used to present long lists of highly structured information. Modern readers want information quickly, especially if they are reading technical or business information and even more so if they are reading on-line. Information arranged in a table can be absorbed in a glance.
Sometimes, bulleted lists are used instead of tables to present information quickly. However, if you have more than about five items, a table generally is more appropriate. A long bullet list encourages people to skip ahead and pay less attention to what's being presented. By contrast, because a long table is more structured, it is less demanding.
The beta version of OpenOffice.org 2.0 (OOo) brings some much-needed enhancements to the way that its Writer program handles tables. Adding, designing and manipulating tables is handled in much the same way, however, as it was in earlier versions.
In this column, we look at these basic tasks of adding, designing and manipulating tables. In upcoming columns, we'll look at how charts and calculations can be generated with Writer tables.
