Gnumeric is a spreadsheet program which intends to be the best spreadsheet available anywhere. Gnumeric was created and is maintained by the GNOME project. This manual describes version 1.2 of Gnumeric.

Gnumeric has been developed over many years to become a fully mature program. Gnumeric aims for:

- Stability :

  Gnumeric has undergone significant amounts of testing with a diverse group of users. There is also a large set of test workbooks to validate the quality of the importers. This release can be considered safe for use in a production environment.

- File compatibility :

  Transparent access and manipulation of files from other applications is vital in a modern office. The gnumeric file format is simply compressed XML which can be decompressed into text. Gnumeric can open files from several well known proprietary and free spreadsheets including MS Excel (tm), Lotus 1-2-3 (tm), Applix (tm), OpenOffice.org, Psion, Sylk, XBase Oleo, and HTML. Gnumeric can save files to several versions of the MS Excel (tm) file format and can save tables into LaTeX \longtable, HTML, and roff files. Gnumeric also benefits from a highly configurable text importer and exporter which ensures that data can be transfered smoothly. New formats can easily be added in a modular fashion via a plug-in.

- Minimal cost of transition :

  Learning new and unfamiliar interfaces is an expensive and frustrating process. Gnumeric attempts to offer optional extensions and enough compatibility that a user's familiarity with other applications will still apply.

- Sufficient feature set :

  While people quote the statistic that most users only need 20% of the features of the software they use, this statistic does not mean that only 20% of the features are needed. Most users share a common 10% but require distinct features for the rest of their work. Implementing enough of the features to support day to day use by the average spreadsheet user has taken time. Gnumeric attempts to provide full implementations of the features it offers, leaving features unimplemented until a robust and complete implementation exists.

- Internationalization :

  Gnumeric has been translated into 29 languages, and is being used by people around the globe with the symbols appropriate for their local setting.

- Openness and Scalability :

  Gnumeric is free software released under the GNU GPL. The core architecture is designed to ensure that it can comfortably scale to moderately large loads (1M cells) while remaining usable on older hardware. The availability of clean, reasonably documented, source code makes it simple to modify the spreadsheet, write custom routines or extend Gnumeric for special needs.

These features of Gnumeric make it versitile and powerful. The screenshot of Gnumeric show in demonstrates some of the features currently available.

# An example of what Gnumeric can do.

An image of Gnumeric showing the use of complex formatting, a grahical plot and another GNOME application embedded within a workbook.

Gnumeric currently supports a full complement of calculation functions, formattting options, graph types and drawing options. Gnumeric allows the direct integration of other GNOME programs.

The new features of Gnumeric 1.2 :

The newest version of Gnumeric includes numerous improvements over the versions in the 1.0 series.

- GTK 2.0 :

  This version of Gnumeric is based on the second version of the Gimp Tool Kit, the basic libraries of computer code used to build GNOME applications. This second version improves on the first and provides a sound basis for future programming. Users will benefit greatly from this second version of the GTK libraries. Gnumeric is now able to produce characters from a much larger range of languages, has improved icons, is better integrated with GNOME and has other visual improvments like anti-aliased fonts.

- Improved functions :

  This version of Gnumeric includes numerous new functions and statistical routines imported from the R statistical language, from the GNU Scientific Library, and from other sources. The random number generation has been updated.

- File Import and Export :

  The ability to import and export files of different formats has been greatly improved.

- Graphing :

  The earlier versions of Gnumeric relied on the Guppi for graphing. This has been changed in the current version which uses a newer framework for the production of graphs. This newer framework should provide quicker graphs and will be a better platform for future development.

- Improved Solver :

  The routines used to obtain soltions to series of linear equations have been reworked and improved.

For more details on the changes in Gnumeric, refer to the file named NEWS in the source code distribution.