Using templates in OpenOffice calc

[Sutton <re...@btinternet.com>]

Hi,
I use OpenOfficeCalc to do my accounts work and have just reasised I can 
make a template
to use, from year to year, instead of copying last year's and emptying 
it of the old data (Yep, that
is what I used to do!).

However, I noticed that the Calc documents I made for this year's 
accounts, from the templates,
don't appear as the other ones do.  The document seems the same when I 
get into it, but,
in the list of documents in the folder, the other ones have the 'page 
with seagulls on it' icon and
the name, and the new ones I just made using the template have a 'blank 
page with corner missing'
icon and the name and when I double click on it I have to choose which 
program I want to open it with.
(Then when I choose Calc it opens ok, but the dialog box has a 'tickbox' 
in it which I can usually choose to
'Always Open with this' and this doesn't work either - like, I can't 
tick it).

I am presuming that I've done something wrong, but since I know very 
little about spreadsheets (you may
have guessed) I wondered if you could tell me how I can fix it please?

Thanks,
Clair.


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Re: Using templates in OpenOffice calc

[Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com>]

At 13:39 04/02/2016 +0000, Clair Sutton wrote:
>I use OpenOfficeCalc to do my accounts work and have just realised I 
>can make a template to use, from year to year, instead of copying 
>last year's and emptying it of the old data (Yep, that is what I used to do!).
>
>However, I noticed that the Calc documents I made for this year's 
>accounts, from the templates, don't appear as the other ones do. The 
>document seems the same when I get into it, but, in the list of 
>documents in the folder, the other ones have the 'page with seagulls 
>on it' icon and the name, and the new ones I just made using the 
>template have a 'blank page with corner missing' icon and the name 
>and when I double click on it I have to choose which program I want 
>to open it with. (Then when I choose Calc it opens ok, but the 
>dialog box has a 'tickbox' in it which I can usually choose to 
>'Always Open with this' and this doesn't work either - like, I can't tick it).
>
>I am presuming that I've done something wrong, but since I know very 
>little about spreadsheets (you may have guessed) I wondered if you 
>could tell me how I can fix it please?

I think this is fairly straightforward, and that the problem has 
nothing to do with your practice of (sensibly) using a template. It 
may have started at around that time by coincidence. (And you get a 
Brownie Point for your clear explanation of the problem!)

OpenOffice has a strange option in the Save As... dialogue box. Near 
the bottom, you will see an "Automatic file name extension" tick box. 
Has this become unticked? If it has, you will be saving documents in 
the correct format, but the file names will not be getting the proper 
extension. So a spreadsheet document will be called just "name" 
rather than "name.ods". Without the extension, your operating system 
- apparently Windows - will not know what application to invoke by 
default if you double-click the document icon to open the document. 
This means that it will not know what icon to use and will display a 
default icon instead. It also means that if you challenge Windows to 
open the document by double-clicking the icon, it will ask you to 
select your chosen application. The "always use" option allows you to 
associate a file extension with an application on the fly, but this 
will be greyed out precisely because there is no such extension present.

The solution is very easy: just tick that box in the Save As... 
dialogue. Once you have done this, your choice will stick - just as 
the absence of a tick has stuck, causing you the current problem. For 
existing files, you can either rename them to add the .ods extension 
or else simply save the documents (even under the same name) with the 
option ticked. The rogue copies can then be deleted, of course.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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Re: Using templates in OpenOffice calc

[Johnny Rosenberg <gu...@gmail.com>]

2016-02-04 16:31 GMT+01:00 Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com>:

> At 13:39 04/02/2016 +0000, Clair Sutton wrote:
>
>> I use OpenOfficeCalc to do my accounts work and have just realised I can
>> make a template to use, from year to year, instead of copying last year's
>> and emptying it of the old data (Yep, that is what I used to do!).
>>
>> However, I noticed that the Calc documents I made for this year's
>> accounts, from the templates, don't appear as the other ones do. The
>> document seems the same when I get into it, but, in the list of documents
>> in the folder, the other ones have the 'page with seagulls on it' icon and
>> the name, and the new ones I just made using the template have a 'blank
>> page with corner missing' icon and the name and when I double click on it I
>> have to choose which program I want to open it with. (Then when I choose
>> Calc it opens ok, but the dialog box has a 'tickbox' in it which I can
>> usually choose to 'Always Open with this' and this doesn't work either -
>> like, I can't tick it).
>>
>> I am presuming that I've done something wrong, but since I know very
>> little about spreadsheets (you may have guessed) I wondered if you could
>> tell me how I can fix it please?
>>
>
> I think this is fairly straightforward, and that the problem has nothing
> to do with your practice of (sensibly) using a template. It may have
> started at around that time by coincidence. (And you get a Brownie Point
> for your clear explanation of the problem!)
>
> OpenOffice has a strange option in the Save As... dialogue box. Near the
> bottom, you will see an "Automatic file name extension" tick box. Has this
> become unticked? If it has, you will be saving documents in the correct
> format, but the file names will not be getting the proper extension. So a
> spreadsheet document will be called just "name" rather than "name.ods".
> Without the extension, your operating system - apparently Windows - will
> not know what application to invoke by default if you double-click the
> document icon to open the document.


I think this only happens in Windows. Most other operating systems don't
care much for the extension. I just tried this in a non-windows
environment. I copied an ods file and put the copy in the same folder as
the original, but without the .ods extension. Both files had the same icon
and both files opened without any questions with Apache OpenOffice. A few
years back I did a similar experiment. I don't remember exactly what I did,
but either I changed the extension of an mp3 file to .jpeg or maybe I did
the other way around. Still the right program opened the file. As far as I
know, ONLY Windows gets confused when the file extension is wrong or not
there at all. I don't know about Mac though, since I never had one.

Anyway, this aside, I agree that this could be the problem for the OP,
since the OP actually said he was using Windows.


> This means that it will not know what icon to use and will display a
> default icon instead. It also means that if you challenge Windows to open
> the document by double-clicking the icon, it will ask you to select your
> chosen application. The "always use" option allows you to associate a file
> extension with an application on the fly, but this will be greyed out
> precisely because there is no such extension present.
>
> The solution is very easy: just tick that box in the Save As... dialogue.
> Once you have done this, your choice will stick - just as the absence of a
> tick has stuck, causing you the current problem. For existing files, you
> can either rename them to add the .ods extension or else simply save the
> documents (even under the same name) with the option ticked. The rogue
> copies can then be deleted, of course.
>
> I trust this helps.
>
> Brian Barker
>
>
>
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