File Formats

In the Save as.. dialog you can choose between various file formats. (see Figure 1)

Figure 1. File Format Selector

Similarly, in the Import.. dialog you can also choose between various file formats. (see Figure 2)

Figure 2. File Format Selector

Most of these formats are provided by plug-ins. If they don't appear on your list of available plug-ins use the Tools Plug-ins... menu item to verify that the appropriate plug-in has been loaded.

Gnumeric XML File Format

The default file format and Gnumeric's native format is an xml based file. The file format is a ascii text based xml format. It is however, typically written and read in a gzip compressed form.

The uncompressed format is human readable and designed to be easily parsed. It is very extensible.

Data Interchange Format

This format is supported by the "Data Interchange Format (DIF) module" plug-in.

Note

This format is available when saving or importing files.

DVI TeX Format

This format is supported by the "HTML & TeX" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when saving files.

Creation of a dvi file with Gnumeric requires that groff has been installed. If a complete TeX installation is available it is probably advisable to use the LaTeX format (the Section called LaTeX 2e Format) instead, since the created LaTeX file can be extensively customized before creating the dvi file from it.

Example 1. Saving as DVI TeX

The screenshot Figure 3 shows an example Gnumeric file. If we save this file in DVI TeX format and open it using xdvi we obtain Figure 4.

MS Excel (tm) File Formats

This format is supported by the "MS Excel (tm) File Formats" plug-in.

Gnumeric can open files from most recent versions of MS Excel (tm). It can also save files in MS Excel (tm) 95 format.

Experimental Bonobo EFS Format

This format is supported by the "EXPERIMENTAL SAX based XML" plug-in.

Note

This format is available when importing or saving files.

Gnome Glossary PO File Format

This format is supported by the "Gnome Glossary" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when saving files.

HTML File Formats

These formats are supported by the "HTML & TeX" plug-in.

LaTeX 2e Format

This format is supported by the "HTML & TeX" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when saving files.

Only the top sheet of the current workbook is exported.

The created LaTeX file can either be input into another LaTeX file (see the Section called Including Tables Into Other Documents) or latexed independently. See the content and the Section called Customizing The LaTeX Tables of the created file for various customization options.

Example 5. Saving as LaTeX file

The screenshot Figure 3 in the Section called DVI TeX Format shows an example Gnumeric file. If we save this file as LaTeX file, tex it using pdflatex and open it using xpdf we obtain Figure 8.

Including Tables Into Other Documents

To include an exported Gnumeric table into another LaTeX document you need to use several packages

        \usepackage{color}
        \usepackage{array}
        \usepackage{longtable}
        \usepackage{calc}
        \usepackage{multirow}
        \usepackage{hhline}
        \usepackage{ifthen}  
  

and to add the following lines to the preamble of your document:

        \newlength{\gnumericTableWidth}
        \newlength{\gnumericTableWidthComplete}
  

When you have set up your main document in this way, include each table with:

        \input{mygnumericfile.tex}  
  

Customizing The LaTeX Tables

To switch from portrait to landscape for independently latexed tables, uncomment the line:

	                  %,landscape%
  

to obtain

	\documentclass[12pt%
	                  ,landscape%
                    ]{report}
  

To change the column widths, look for the following section in the LaTeX file:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                                                                  %%
%% The following are the widths of the various columns. We are      %%
%% defining them here because then they are easier to change.       %%
%% Depending on the cell formats we may use them more than once.    %%
%%                                                                  %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\def\gnumericColA{107pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColB{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColC{98pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColD{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColE{89pt*\gnumericScale}
  

To change the second column (Column B) to a width of 0.75 inches, we would simply have to modify this code to:

\def\gnumericColA{107pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColB{0.75in}
\def\gnumericColC{98pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColD{89pt*\gnumericScale}
\def\gnumericColE{89pt*\gnumericScale}
  

Linear and Integer Program File Format

This format is supported by the "Linear and integer expression (MPS) format module" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when importing files.

Plan Perfect Format

This format is supported by the "Plan Perfect" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when importing files.

PDF Format

Currently, Gnumeric cannot save directly as a PDF file; but, provided a standard tetex installation is available, the Gnumeric file can be saved as a LaTeX file (see the Section called LaTeX 2e Format), and turned into a PDF file using pdflatex.

See Figure 8 in the Section called LaTeX 2e Format for an example of a created PDF file.

SC/XSpread Format

This format is supported by the "SC/XSpread Format" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when importing files.

Text Format

This format exports Gnumeric spreadsheets as straight text or imports them from straight text files. Both export (save as) as well as import can be highly customized.

The Text Import Druid

After specifying the "Text File Import" Format and a file name in the "Import.." dialog, the text import druid starts to guide you through the various options.

On the first screen of the druid specify the basic format type (fixed width fields or fields separated by specific characters), as well as the line numbers of the lines to import.

The Text Import Druid for Separated Fields

  1. Select the appropriate field separator(s) in the "Separator" frame. Select the "See two separators as one"option if any sequence of separators are supposed to be considered a single separator. The "Example" frame gives immediate feedback on your choices:

  2. Finally select the appropriate format for each input column:

    After selecting a column on the left select the appropriate format on the right. In the preview section at the bottom of the dialog, you can immediately see the effect of selecting that format. The following types of formats are available:

    General

    This format will guess for each field value whether it is text, a number, a date, etc.

    Numbers

    You can choose between various number formats. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    There are also formats facilitating the use of scientific notation, see Figure 21.

    Currency Amounts

    You can choose between various currency formats. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    Dates and Times

    You can choose between various date and time formats. Some of these formats will recognize combined date/time entries. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    Percentages

    You can choose between various formats that recognize percentages. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    Fractions

    You can choose between a few formats that recognize fractions. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    Scientific Notation

    You can choose between a few formats that recognize numbers in scientific notation.. The following list presents just a short selection of those formats:

    Text

    If you want the importer to simply read the field value as text without attempting to interpret it in any way, use the following text format:

    More details on the various formats can be found in the Section called Format Cells Dialog in the chapter called Cell Formatting.

  3. Click the "Finish" button to complete importing the file.

TROFF Format

This format is supported by the "HTML & TeX" plug-in.

Note

This format is only available when saving files.

Files in this format are useful because they can be converted with the groff or troff commands into various other common formats. For example, given a TROFF file myfile.me, the command

  groff -me -t -Tps myfile.me >myfile.ps
  

will create a postscript file of the corresponding table.

Similarly, the command

groff -me -t -Tascii myfile.me >myfile.ascii
  

creates an ascii (straight text) file.

Example 6. Creating an ASCII File

If we save Figure 3 in the Section called DVI TeX Format as a troff file hypothetical-sales.me and then execute the command

groff -me -t -Tascii hypothetical-sales.me >hypothetical-sales.ascii
  

then the file hypothetical-sales.ascii contains:







Sheet 0


+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          | Operating System |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |       DOS        |    Linux    |    SCO     |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  January | $1000.00         | $900.00     | $500.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| February | $900.00          | $2500.00    | $300.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|    March | $800.00          | $4100.00    | $100.00    |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|    April | $700.00          | $5700.00    | ($100.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|      May | $600.00          | $7300.00    | ($300.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|     June | $500.00          | $8900.00    | ($500.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|     July | $400.00          | $10500.00   | ($700.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|   August | $300.00          | $12100.00   | ($900.00)  |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|September | $200.00          | $13700.00   | ($1100.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  October | $100.00          | $15300.00   | ($1300.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| November | $0.00            | $16900.00   | ($1500.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
| December | ($100.00)        | $18500.00   | ($1700.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |                  |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|  Totals: | $5400.00         | $116400.00  | ($7200.00) |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+
|          |                  |             |            |   |
+----------+------------------+-------------+------------+---+

















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