Most Linux and Open Source enthusiasts are familiar with the OpenOffice.Org office suite. OpenOffice is great, but sometimes you just need a lighter and faster alternative. Maybe you've got a netbook or an older computer and you don't need a full, integrated, office suite, but just a few of the main applications like a word processor and a spreadsheet program. Gnumeric is one such spreadsheet program.
Gnumeric is available for Linux and 32 bit Windows. If you're running Ubuntu Linux, you can install Gnumeric from a terminal with
Once it's installed, you can find it in Ubuntu's menu ender Applications?Office?Gnumeric Spreadsheet.
Even though Gnumeric is light and fast, that doesn't mean it's short on features. Check out the extensive feature list, (from the Gnumeric website).
- Core capabilities
- Functions
- 100% of the worksheet functions in MS Excel (tm)
- 154 functions not found in MS Excel (tm)
- Basic support for financial derivatives (Black Scholes)
- Basic support for telecommunication engineering
- Analytics
- Advanced Statistical analysis
- Extensive Random Number generation
- Linear and Non-linear solvers
- Computation
- Inter sheet dependencies
- 3D dependencies
- Implicit intersection
- Implicit iteration
- Dynamic dependencies
- User defined names (for ranges and functions)
- Arrays values and formulas
- Misc
- Summary information
- Cell contents
- Toolbar for common operations
- Zoom
- Multiple Views
- AutoFilter
- Goal Seek to determine break-even points
- Tabulation tools (mail merge for spreadsheets)
- Monte Carlo simulation tools
- Hyper Links
- Validation
- Protection
- Sheet objects
- Lines, Arrows, ellipses, squares
- Buttons, Scrollbars, Checkboxes
- Images, Charts
- Printing
- Cell contents
- Style information
- Per sheet printer setups
- Print preview
- Print options
- Page orientation
- 6 margins + paper size
- Headers + footers
- Grid lines, comments, headings
- Print order
- Formats
- All builtin Excel-like formats: number, currency, accounting, date, time, percentage, fraction, scientific, text, special
- Compatible format description language
- Styles
- Borders - outer and inner, colors, diagonals, 13 line types
- Colors - foreground, background, 18 pattern types
- Fonts - font name, size, style (bold/italic), color
- Horizontal alignments - general, left, right, center, fill, justify, center across selection
- Vertical alignments - top, center, bottom, justify
- Cell Merging, spanning, and wrapping
- Charting
- Pie plots
- Ring plots
- Bar/Col plots
- Autofill
- Autofill for various sequences is supported
- Automatic guessing of input
- Gnumeric will try to parse user entered input as a number with a format applied (so you can enter dates directly, and they will be stored as a number + a format to render it).
- International
- Gnumeric has been localized to various languages, and we welcome new contributions. It handles numeric formats properly for various countries and languages.
- Import filters
- XML (gnumeric format)
- MS Excel (tm) 2,3,4,5,95,97,2k,XP
- Applix (4, 5)
- HTML (various)
- CSV (comma separated values)
- Lotus 1-2-3 .wk1 format
- GNU oleo (rudimentary)
- Quattro Pro
- OpenOffice (sxc, not the older binary format)
- Export filters
- XML (gnumeric format)
- MS Excel (tm) 5,95,97,2k,XP (including dual stream)
- HTML (3.2, 4, xhtml)
- LaTeX, Troff
- PDF, EPS, DVI
- CSV
- Batch Processing
- Translation from one file format to another
So as you can see, Gnumeric a quite a feature complete spreadsheet program that should meet almost anyone's needs. Check it out and give it a try.
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