Microsoft Office to OpenOffice Migration Guide
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DataPilot or Pivot Table

DataPilots are Calc’s equivalent to Excel’s Pivot Tables. However there are a number of limitations. Pivot tables import from Excel into Calc (although the cells do not have the PivotTable shading), but as soon as they are worked on these limitations become apparent.

The limitations are:

  • There is no PivotChart facility, but a DataPilot can be used as the data source for a chart.

  • The user interface allows a maximum of 8 fields in the data, row or column areas. (An alternative interface which allows more is available from http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/hillview/OOo/ in a document called MyDataPilot.sxc).

  • There is some ability to group data (for example, a date field grouping by week or quarter but not by month). The work-around is to create a new column with a formula for calculating the grouping, for example =Month().

  • You can not define different formats for different fields.

  • Calc can have formulas based on things like “Difference From” or “% of”, but can not have its own custom fields (work-around, create new columns to calculate the desired values).

  • The Application Program Interface specification is incomplete for writing macros that work with DataPilots—for example; the ability to control, through another program such as OpenOffice.org’s own macro language BASIC, whether the tables have grand totals or have access to DataPilot’s created from external data.

Microsoft Office to OpenOffice Migration Guide
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