Exporting Calc charts or spreadsheets as images

From NeoWiki

Many users need to create a chart or spreadsheet in Calc and then export it in an image format for inclusion in documents created by other applications. Unfortunately there is no simple way to do this in NeoOffice, but there are a few work-arounds that produce useful results with relatively little pain.

Contents 1 Exporting charts and graphs 2 Exporting spreadsheets (or portions thereof) 2.1 Using screenshots 2.2 Using Grab 2.3 Printing to PDF 2.4 Using NeoOffice Draw

Exporting charts and graphs

To export a chart or graph as an image, follow these steps.

1. Select the chart in Calc and copy
2. Open a new Draw document and paste
3. Ensure the chart is still selected in your Draw document
4. Choose Export… from the File menu
5. Ensure that the "Selection" box is checked
6. Save your file in the desired format

Exporting spreadsheets (or portions thereof)

Users often want to export a portion of their spreadsheet to an image for inclusion in other non-NeoOffice documents. Microsoft Excel has a "camera" function to facilitate this, but while NeoOffice does not have this function, it is still fairly easy to achieve similar results.

Using screenshots

The simplest way is to use Mac OS X's built-in screenshot function and select the desired portion of the spreadsheet. Cmd-Shift-4 activates the screenshot-with-selection function; simply click and drag over the desired area and then release the mouse button.

Using Grab

Grab (located in /Applications/Utilities) performs much the same way as the the keyboard method of taking a screenshot, except you can choose additional options and select options from menus instead of memorizing shortcuts.

Printing to PDF

Another option is to print your spreadsheet to PDF and then crop the PDF in Preview and export the result in the desired image format.

Using NeoOffice Draw

One disadvantage of the screenshot and Grab methods is that they leave all the grid lines, etc., visible. A better method is to use NeoOffice Draw in a manner similar to exporting charts above.

1. Select the desired portion of the spreadsheet and copy
2. Open a new Draw document and paste
3. Ensure the new spreadsheet object is still selected in your Draw document
4. Choose Export… from the File menu
5. Ensure that the "Selection" box is checked
6. Save your file in the desired format

This method will also work for exporting a spreadsheet and its associated charts together, preserving the arrangement of the original spreadsheet.