One massive problem with every spreedsheet software I've ever seen including the one in Open Office is they assume you already know how to use them. Even the help assumes you already know their naming conventions and how their command structure works. Well guess what if I knew how to use it why would I be digging in help? Unfortunately I'm guessing there isn't even a Dummies book on Open Office. May be there is? I've been using Spreadsheets for ten years and to this day all I can do is total a single column of numbers. Now Open Office is wonderful if I want to add colors or do many fancy formating commands but it still assumes you know the basics. All I want to do is link two cells so when one totals the amount updates at another location so it passively updates the second column. About as basic as you can get yet I don't even know what linking two cells is called let alone have a clue how to do it. I'm not kidding ten years and I have yet to be able to figure it out. I don't have time for a bloody accounting class so I can do a few basic things with a spreed sheet. I'm shocked the help isn't better since the word processor is amazing and extremely easy to use. I literally don't need to do anything fancier than linking a cell total with an entry in a new column. Do I need to get a degree to be able to do that? Just frustriating that every software out there for doing spreedsheets assumes prior knowledge. I've used other sheets that other people have set up but I haven't a clue how to do it myself. In graphics I'm a high end user but mostly use spreedsheets for basic budgeting. They'd be 1000X more useful if I could do slightly more with them. I don't even need formulas just basic linking. Help!!!!!!
Open Office is amazing but the Calc is incomprehensible to the novice. If it was a graphics software I could probably select Cell A then holding down the shift key drag it to Cell B and they'd be linked. Office software could learn a lot from how graphics software works. In some fundimental ways office software hasn't changed much in ten years or more. Graphics software has made quantum leaps in the last ten years when it comes to user interfaces. Office software may have increased functions but they still aren't in anyway intuitive so there's a huge potential for improvement. You want to blow away Microsoft Office instead of following it? Make the interface intuitive then they'll be scrambling to keep up. I should be able to right click on a cell and define it as a parent then click on a second cell and define it as a child. I could then while that's buffered click on several locations and create multiple children to the parent cell. It's how animators tree functions and blows away the best accounting software on the planet for ease of use and power. In Maya I can open up the parent tree and manually drag the links around. I should be able to do the same in a spreadsheet. Like I say spreedsheet are still in the dark ages. Most of the functions should be drag and drop. Even web pages linking is child's play. Why can't it be the same for spreedsheets? Cary
