# Introduction to Menus

This section of the manual describes the use of the menubar and the menus themselves. The rest of then explains each entry in every Gnumeric menu, submenu or context menu.

A menu is a graphical element within a program which appears with a list of options. For instance, almost all applications have a File menu through which the user can access the computer's filesystem to open or save their work. The main menus are on the menubar. The use of these menus is discussed in .

Gnumeric also uses context menus to give users a quick way to access certain commands. The context menu will open up right under the mouse pointer when one of the mouse buttons, usually the rightmost, is clicked. This menu is called a context menu because the entries in the menu are different depending on the location of the mouse pointer. The context menus are discussed in .

Both the main menus, on the menubar, and context menus may have sub-menus. Sub-menus are indicated by a small right pointing arrow. To access the sub-menus, the user must move the pointer down to the sub-menu entry and carefully across to the position of the little arrow. After an instant the sub-menu will open up and the user must carefully move the pointer directly across into the sub-menu. Occasionally, when there is not enough room to the right of the currently open menu, sub-menus may open to the left. Navigating sub-menus can be difficult since the menu will close if the mouse pointer moves into any other menu entry.

Menu entries which are followed by an ellipsis (three dots) indicate that this entry will open a dialog window which will ask the user for more choices.

## The Menubar

The default location of the menubar is at the top of the application window. The menus provide quick and organized access to all major commands such as opening files, saving files, printing and quitting the application.

### The Gnumeric menubar.

The leftmost portion of the menubar is a little tab. This tab can be used to grab the menu bar and remove it from the rest of the application. This is done by clicking and holding on the tab and dragging it away from the Gnumeric window. The menu can also be placed in different parts of the Gnumeric window, so that it could appear at the very bottom of Gnumeric as is shown in .

### A re-arranged Gnumeric.

The menubars and the toolbars share this ability to be re-arranged. The menubar is at the bottom of the Gnumeric window, the standard toolbar has been detached and the object toolbar has been moved the the right side. The user can choose what configuration works best. The toolbars can be dragged back into place in the same manner by which they were moved originally.

## General Menu Behavior

Gnumeric menus are opened with a simple click on the name of the menu in the menu bar. Once clicked, the menu will stay open. If the mouse pointer is dragged over the name of another menu on the menubar, the first menu will close and the new menu open up. This is a useful way to look in each menu to hunt for a commands. Menus can also be opened through the keyboard. One of the letters in each menu is underlined. Typing the Alt key at the same time as the underlined letter key will open the menu. This is also true of sub-menus. Once the menus are open, the arrow keys can be used to move between menus or select an entry in a particular menu. An open menu can be closed with a click over any other area of the application or of the desktop. The menus can also be closed by typing the escape key, Esc.

### Menus can be "torn-off".

Gnumeric menus, like most menus in GNOME project software, are "tear-off" menus. This means that the menu can be opened up into its own window and kept open in a differnt part of the screen. This is useful if there is a menu that you keep using for a particular task. Just beneath the top of each menu is a dashed line. Clicking on that line tears off the menu.

#### Gnumeric menus can be torn off.

To get rid of a dettached menu, the dotted line can be clicked once more or the window containing the menu can simply be closed. The window can usually be closed by clicking in the top right corner of the window. Like the window containing Gnumeric, this outer window is not actually made by Gnumeric. Therefore the manner in which a user closes this window will depend on the configuration of the desktop the user has chosen.

### Keyboard Shortcuts

Many menu entries are followed by a series of keynames. These keys can be used to perform the menu action without having to open the menu. These are often combinations of keys involving the control key which is labeled as Ctrl, the shift key which is labeled Shift and the function keys which are labeled with an F and then a number. For example, to quickly cut a selection (accessible through the Edit menu), the user can make a selection and then type the control key and the "x" key at the same time.

# The File Menu

The File menu is the most important menu in Gnumeric because it gives the user the ability to interact with the computer operating system. This menu allows the user to create files containing all the work they have done. It also enables users to print the results of their work. Finally, the File menu is the best way to close Gnumeric.

## The File menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

File operations.

  - New --- Create a new workbook. This opens a new workbook in a new window. By default the workbook will be named "Book1" or another number if there is already a worksheet with that name open. Note that the opened file has not yet been saved.

  - Open... --- The Open menu item opens the file chooser dialog to allow the user to pick an existing workbook for Gnumeric to open. Only two file types can be opened with this option. The Open menu item can open Gnumeric's default XML based file format which uses the extension ".gnumeric" and can open Microsoft Excel's file format which uses the ".xls" extension. The Open menu item creates a new window containing the selected file. A more extensive dicsussion is presented in .

  - Import... --- The Import... menu item opens a file chooser dialog similar to the one opened by the Open menu item. The Import... dialog has a file type selector in which the user can pick supported file formats. For more information on file import, including the extensive druid to assist users importing text files, such as tab delimited files or comma separated value files, see .

  - Save --- The Save menu item saves the current worksheet. If the file has been named and saved before, this will silently save the file to the current filename. If it has not been saved before, this will act as if the Save As... menu item had been called and prompt the user for a filename.

  - Save As... --- The Save As... menu item allows users to save a file which has not yet been named to a named file. This is always used when a user saves a file which Gnumeric has named by default. This menu item can also be used to save a newly created file or to save an existing file to a new and different name. For an explanation of the file formats which gnumeric supports see .

Printing operations.

  These menu items enable Gnumeric to print. Each item is presented below and printing issues are discussed fully in .

  - Page Setup... --- The Page Setup... menu item call the Page Setup dialog. This dialog allows the user to set various printing options such as paper type, margin sizes and running header and footer formats. This dialog is explained in detail in .

  - Print... --- The Print... menu item allows a user to print one or all of the worksheets in a workbook. Gnumeric can send files directly to a printer or can print to postscript or portable document format files. The Print dialog is explained further in .

  - Print Preview... --- The Print Preview... menu item calls a dialog which presents the current workbook as it would be printed with the current Page Setup settings. The dialog also permits the user to print. This dialog is explained in .

The document summary.

  This menu item opens a dialog with fields to edit the document summary information of the file currently open in that window. Summary information describes the sheet, for instance, with the author name and a comment.

Recently used files.

  These menu entries are shortcuts to re-open recently used files. The list will change dynamically as new workbooks are opened and created. Clicking on a file name listed here is the same as using the Open menu entry and finding the file in the Find File dialog. Note that if the file has been moved since Gnumeric last saved it, Gnumeric will not find the file.

The Close and Quit operations.

  These menu items either close the current worksheet, Close, or close all open worksheets, Quit. Gnumeric will prompt the user with a Save Workbook.. dialog for any workbooks that have been changed since the last time they were opened or saved.

  - Close --- The Close menu item allows the user to close the current workbook. If this is the only workbook which this instance of Gnumeric has open, the close operation will also quit Gnumeric. If other workbooks are open, this workbook will close without affecting the others. If the workbook has unsaved changes, Gnumeric will ask the user if he wants to save the file.

  - Exit --- The Exit menu item will close all the workbooks currently being used by Gnumeric and quit the program. Gnumeric will prompt the user asking if he wants to save any workbooks which has changes which have not been saved.

# The Edit Menu

The Edit menu is mostly used for operations on a worksheet or between worksheets. This menu gives users powerful editing operations such as the ability to undo recent changes, the ability to cut and paste selections of cells and the ability to search for specific cell contents.

## The Edit menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

Change History.

  These menu items allow the user to remove recent changes to a worksheet or re-introduce changes which have been undone. These options give the user control over recent edits. This functionality is often called the "change history" of an application.

  The type of edit has no importance. An edit which deletes the contents of a cell is treated in the same way as an edit which adds contents to a cell. The change history is session specific. The user will not be able to undo changes through the change history if the file is saved and then re-opened. Note also that the list only covers the last few dozen operations. The number of operations which Gnumeric tracks in its history depends on the size and complexity of those operations. Finally, there are some operations which cannot yet be modified in this way in Gnumeric 1.0. Sheet operations (adding or removal) cannot be undone, nor can deleted comments be restored, nor can altered summary information, nor can operations on embedded objects be undone.

  - Undo --- The Undo menu item is used to remove the last few edits from a workbook. The edits must be undone in order. This menu item removes only the last edit from the workbook. The user can also access the undo list through one of the toolbar buttons and its associated menu. With this menu, the user can undo several operations at once. This is explained in section .

  - Redo --- The Redo menu item is used after an undo operation to restore the change that was undone. The menu item only restores the last undone operation. Users can also resotre edit using a button on the standard toolbar and through the associated menu. The menu allows several operations to be redone at once. It is explained in .

Operations on selected areas.

  These menu items enable selected cell contents to be moved around a spreadsheet, moved between worksheets or between workbooks. Selections are areas of the spreadsheet that have been chosen, usually with the mouse, and are usually colored pale blue. Selections are explained in greater detail in . Gnumeric currently only allows single range selections for these operations.

  To use these menuitems, the user must first select the range of the cut or copy area. When the user then picks these menuitems, the contents of the selected areas will be entered into the Gnumeric clipboard and into the X clipboard. The contents of the Gnumeric clipboard can then be inserted into a new region of the spreadsheet, into another worksheet or into a new workbook. The X clipboard holds the space delimited results of each cell: either the text or the result of any calculation. The X clipboard can be pasted into any text area.

  - Cut --- The Cut menu item is used to remove a selection from the selected area of a currently open workbook. When the menu item is chosen, the selected area will be outlined with a moving dotted line. This is the area which will be moved. The selection will only be removed after it is moved to the new location. Until then cut has not had an effect on the worksheet.

  - Copy --- The Copy menu item allows a user to duplicate a selection. The original data remains where it was and the Gnumeric clipboard (and the X clipboard) has a copy which can be inserted elsewhere.

  - Paste --- The Paste menu item is used to paste the contents of a selection which has been cut or copied. If the selection was cut, it is pasted into the new location unchanged. Cell references will not change in that they will still point to the same cells.

  - Paste Special... --- The Paste Special... is used to paste a selection while altering certain characteristics. The Paste Special... menu item opens a dialog with three categories. The defaults make Paste Special... act as if it were the Paste menu item.

    The first set of choices allow the user to control the data pasted.The user can chose to limit the pasting to only the cell contents (no cell formatting is copied) or the opposite only cell formats copied (no contents). Furthermore, the user can insert the selection while transforming all the contents into values only. Formulas will not be copied, only the results will be.

    A second set of choices allows the user to perform simple mathematical transformations during the paste. The data in the cells being pasted into are modified by the cell contents. For instance, using the divide operation will result in each cell in the zone pasted into being divided by the equivalent cell which was cut or copied originally.

    The final choices allow the transposition of the original selection or to not paste empty cells. The transpose check box will change the selection so that the cells that are down n rows from the selection's origin are pasted as being over n columns (and vice-versa). The skip blanks prevents Gnumeric from taking any action for the cells in the selection that are blank. Note that the selection will be transformed if that option is selected but then that the paste will not change the cells in the transformed location if this skip blanks option is selected.

Data removal operations.

  All of these operations remove data from the worksheet. They differ in the type of data removed and the re-arangement of remaining data. The differences are explained below.

  - Clear --- The clear menu item merely opens a sub-menu with four choices. The user can choose to clear all the elements of the cells in a selection: the formats, the comments, the contents. Alternatively, the user can choose to clear a single one of those elemets. Clearing the formats will leave the data or formula in the cell intact. It will remove any borders, re-set the cell alignments, change the background colour to white and the text colour to black and reset the number format to General. Clearing the comments will simply delete the comments for the cells in that location. Finally clearing the contents will leave the cell's formatting in place but remove the formula or data contents of the cell.

  - Delete --- The delete menu item may open a dialog giving the user a choice of options. Any of the options will completely delete the selected cells. Depending on the selection, Gnumeric will fill in the space the cells were occupying differently. With column or row selections, the effect is easy to understand and no choice is possible so Gnumeric does not open the dialog. The space left by selected rows, is filled by moving lower rows up whereas the space filled by deleting columns is filled by moving to the left columns which were right of the selection. For example, if columns D and E are selected for deletion, Gnumeric will move the contents of all columns from F onwards two columns to the left.

    With blocks of cells, the delete menu item will open a dialog asking the user how to fill in the deleted cells. Blocks of cells will either be filled in by the columns of cells below the block selection or by the rows on the right of the block. For example, if the user chose the block of cells from E6:G8 for deletion, those cells could be filled in by the cells below E8, F8 and G8 if the Shift cells up option were chosen. Alternatively, the cells to the right of G6, G7 and G8 could fill in the space from the right if the Shift cells left option were chosen.

Other operations on worksheets.

  These menu entries do not group together logically. Each entry is explained in detail below.

  - Sheet --- The Sheet menu item opens up a submenu which allows users to perform operations on the worksheet. Note that this is the same set of choices as are available from the context menu which appears by clicking (usually with the right mouse button) on one of the worksheet tabs. The worksheet can be duplicated to create a second sheet with the same contents. A new worksheet can be inserted immediately following the current sheet. The current sheet can be renamed in a the little pop-up window. The sheets can be re-ordered or the current sheet can be deleted. For this last option Gnumeric asks for confirmation since this choice cannot be undone.

  - Select --- The Select menu item allows the user to select various portions of the worksheet. The Select All provides a quick way to select the entire worksheet. The Select Row and Select Column menuitems allow the user to select all the rows or columns spanned by the current selection.

    The Select Array menu item allows a user to select all the cells which are part of the same array as the current cell. The Select Depends menu item selects all the cells which are formulas which at least partially need the data in the current cell.

  - Fill --- The Fill menu item opens a submenu with only one choice currently. The Autoill menu item will fill an entire selection with any formula which is in the top left cell of the selection.

  - Search... --- The Search... menu item opens a dialog to search for cells with particular content. The dialog has three tabs. In the first the user can enter the information the user wants to find and some constraints on the search. The second tab gives some extra choices for the search. When the user has picked the options they perfer, pushing the search button on the first tab will run the search. The third tab will show which cells match the search.

  - Search and Replace... --- The Search and Replace... menu item will launch a dialog to find cells with particular characteristics and replace them all with a common content. This dialog is similar to the Search dialog.

  - Goto cell... --- The Goto cell... menuitemn opens up a dialog which allows the user to type the name of a cell in the worksheet. The current view will then change to be sure that the selected cell is in the current view and the selection will cover that cell.

  - Recalculate --- The Recalculate menu item forces the workbook to recalculate its results. This is useful if a formula in the current worksheet depends on a cell in a different workbook. Gnumeric will not necessarily know when that data has been updated so a user can force Gnumeric to recalculate all the cells in the current workbook.

# The View Menu

The View menu is

## The View menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

Alternative views of the current document.

  These menu items allow the user to open multiple views of the same document.

  - New Shared --- The New Shared menu item opens up a new window with the current workbook visible and where both windows are open to the same section of the workbook. If the user starts editing a different part of the sheet in one view, the other view moves automatically to that portion of the worksheet. Similarly, if the user changes to a different worksheet in one view, the other view changes also.

  - New Unshared --- The New Unshared menu item opens up a new window with the current workbook visible. Both view are then independent. When a change is made in either view, the other will move to show the area of the edit.

Global changes to the current view.

  TheZoom menu item allows a user to change the amount of the sheet visible in a window of a given size. The Freeze Panes menu item allows part of the worksheet to be frozen in place while the rest of the sheet scrolls next to it.

  - Zoom... --- The Zoom menu item opens a dialog which allows the user to set the magnification of any of the worksheets in the current workbook.

  - Freeze Panes --- The Freeze Panes menu item is used to freeze the top-most and leftmost visible portion of the worksheet. This is useful to be able to line up portions of the worksheet which are not usually together. For instance, if a user had a very large table with the titles of each oolumn of data on row 12, the user could select row 13 and select this menu item. If the user scrolled through each data row, the data would line up underneath each header.

    Gnumeric freezes the portion of the worksheet which is currently visible and is above and left of the current selection. If the selection is not visible, then the frozen section will be nine rows tall and five columns wide unless the selection is in a currently visible column or row in which case that postion is used.

    Gnumeric currently does not support freezing only columns or only rows. The user can simply move the selection far to the right or far below of the area they want to freeze. This will achieve the same effect. Currently, inserted objects are not tracked with frozen panes. Objects which are not in the lower right hand pane are lost from view while the panes are frozen. These objects reappear when the view is unfrozen.

Toolbar configuration.

  The Toolbars menu option launches a dialog to configure the presence and look of the three toolbars. This dialog allows the user either to show or completely hide each toolbar. The user can also set the toolbars to display as icons or as icons and text. The third selection Priority text only currently has no effect. This dialog allows users to view tooltips as the mouse scrolls over the toolbars. Tooltips are small windows which open up automatically when the mouse pointer is over a button. These windows contain a text explanation of the button under the mouse pointer.

# The Insert Menu

The Insert menu is

## The Insert menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

Insert into workbook.

  These menu items allow the user to insert objects to the workbook.

  - Sheet --- The Sheet menu item allows the user to inset a worksheet immediately following the current sheet.

  - Rows --- The Rows menu item will insert rows above the current selection. The number of rows inserted will be equal to the number of rows spanned by the current selection.

  - Columns --- The Columns menu item will insert columns to the left of the current selection. The number of columns inserted will equal the number of columns spanned by the current selection.

  - Cells... --- The Cells... menu item opens a dialog asking the user how the sheet should be altered when new cells are inserted. The dialog lists four choices. The user can choose one of these by clicking the mouse pointer on one of the four dots. Only one choice is possible and the currently selected choice has a black dot in front.

    The Shift cells right will insert a region of new cells of the size of the current selection. Cells which are on the same row as the selection and within or to the right of the selection will shift over to the right to accomodate the new cells. The Shift cells down choice will also insert a region of new cells the same size as the current selection. With this choice, cells which are in the selection or below the selection will move down to accomodate the new cells. The two other choices will act as if the user had chosen to insert rows or columns. These actions are explained above.

  - Graph... --- The Graph... menu item will allow a user to insert a graphic plot of data. This menu item will launch the graph druid. Graphing in Gnumeric is explained in .

  - Object... --- The Object... menu item launches a dialog with the objects which Gnumeric is currently able to embed in a worksheet. The user simply picks one of the objects in the list, and then inserts the object into the worksheet. These objects are not part of Gnumeric but are provided by other programs in the GNOME project.

  - Shaped Object... --- The Shaped Object... menu item allows user to insert more complicated objects into a worksheet. This is currently not used but will provide more extended functionality for the future.

Insert to current cell.

  The menu items insert objects into the current cell.

  - Name --- The Name menu item opens a sub-menu with the single entry Define. This will open a dialog to allow the user to define a named expression. The expression can be as simple as defining an expression called "Total" which refers to a particular cell. However, the user can also build up a whole sheet with named experssions. explains names in greater detail.

  - Add/Modify comment... --- This menu item opens a dialog to allow the user to enter a comment to the currently selected cell. A red triangle will appear in the top right corner of the cell to show that the cell has a comment.

  - Special --- The Special menu item opens a sub-menu which allows the user to insert either the current date or the current time into the selected cell.

# The Format Menu

The Format menu allows users to control the formats of cells, columns, rows, worksheets and the workbook. This menu also gives users access to templates of standard formats.

## The Format menu.

The Format Menu offers these menuitems:

  - Cells... --- The Cells... menu item opens the cell format dialog. This dialog is used to set cell data types and formats. It is explained in .

  - Column --- The Column menu item opens a sub-menu with choices to allows the user to modify the view of the selected columns.

    - Width... --- The Width... menu item opens a dialog to enable the user to adjust the size of the columns which hold the current selection. The dialog has a single entry box in which the user can change the current size of the column in points.

    - Auto Fit Selection --- This menu item makes Gnumeric automatically choose the optimal column size to display all of the text in the current selection.

    - Hide --- The Hide menu item will hide the columns containing the current selection. Gnumeric still holds these columns in memory and will save them to a file but will not display those columns. The only indication that a user has that columns have been hidden is that the column header names are not sequential.

    - Unhide --- This menu item wiil show columns which are hidden if the selection spans the two columns on either side of the selection. If columns D, E, and F have been hidden, the selection must span at least across columns C and G for this menu item to unhide columns D, E, and F.

    - Standard Width --- This menu item allows the user to resize the columns which hold the selection to the standard size. At 100 percent zoom this is 48 points or 64 pixels.

  - Row --- The Row menu item provides the same functions as the Column menu item but operates on rows.

    - Height... --- This menu item opens a dialog which allows the user to type in a row height in pixels.

    - Auto Fit Selection --- This menu item changes the rows which hold the selection to the optimal height to hold the text in the selection.

    - Hide --- The Hide menu item will hide the rows in the selection. The workbook still contains the data in the hidden rows but those rows are not shown.

    - Unhide --- This menu item will make hidden rows visible. The selection must span the rows which are hidden for this menu item to unhide the hidden rows.

    - Standard Height --- This menu item resizes the rows back to the default height of 12.75 points or 17 pixels (at 100 percent zoom).

  - Sheet --- The Sheet menu item opens a sub-menu with operations to change properties of the worksheet.

    - Change Name... --- This opens a dialog with the name of the worksheet. A user can use this to change the name of the current sheet.

    - Re-Order Sheets... ---- This opens a dialog with the names of all the sheets. A user can click on one of the names in the dialog and then click on the up and down arrows, as appropriate, to move the selected sheet in front or behind others. The tabs for the sheets will move at the same time. This dialog also allows the user to delete sheets.

    - Display Formulas --- This menu item acts as a toogle. By default it is unset and formulas results are displayed. If this menu item is clicked, it will display a little check mark on the left. The worksheet will show the actual fomuals for all cells with formulas instead of showing the calculated result. This is useful for quickly assessing which cells contain formulas and which contain data.

    - Hide Zeros --- This menu item acts as a toggle. Click on this menu item will cause a check mark to appear on the left. The sheet will then display all the cells which display zeros as empty cells. This is useful in sheets with many zero results, to quickly find cells with data.

    - Hide Gridlines --- This menu item acts as a toggle. If this menu item is clicked, Gnumeric will display a check mark to the left of the menu item. The lines which separate all the cells will then be hidden and Gnumeric will appear to be a blank background. This is useful to make certain data look pretty on screen.

    - Hide Column Headers --- This menu item acts as a toggle. If this menu item is clicked, Gnumeric display a check mark on the left of the menu item. Gnumeric will also hide the boxes with the alphabetical names of the columns.

    - Hide Row Header --- This menu item acts as a toggle. If this menu item is clicked, Gnumeric display a check mark on the left of the menu item. Gnumeric will also hide the boxes with the numeric names of the rows.

  - Autoformat... This menu item opens the autoformat dialog to give user access to a list of format templates. Format templates are useful for users who are often filling out tables in a particular format. The user picks an area of the worksheet into which they want to apply the template. Most templates define headers and footers so the selection area must be big enough to fit those template elements and the user's data. The template will not affect data which has already been input into a worksheet.

    The dialog has two tabs: Preview and Template Details. The details are simply information about the template. The Preview tab has three main options: a Settings menu, an Edit menu and a category chooser. The settings menu allows a user to pick what parts of the template they want to copy into the worksheet. The edit menu will be used to create new templates. Currently templates are written as text into an extensible markup language (XML) format. The catory chooser gives the user access to different groups of templates. Templates in each category are displayed in the middle area of the dialog. Users select the template they want to use by clicking on it. The currently selected template is highlighted with a red boundary which may be hard to see.

  - Workbook... This menu item opens a dialog which allows users to configure the current workbook. The dialog currently has four choices. Text autocomplete can be unset which means that Gnumeric will not compare text as it entered against text in above it in the column. Text autocomplete is useful to users entering data because if entries are repeated, Gnumeric can guess what the user intends. The user can simply type the Tab key and Gnumeric will enter the rest of the text. The use of notebook tabs can be turned off, as can the horizontal and vertical scrollbars.

# The Tools Menu

The Tools menu is

## The Tools menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

The Plug-ins dialog.

  This entry launches the plug-in manangement dialog. Plug-ins are programs which are separate from Gnumeric but provide useful functionality. Some of the core parts of gnumeric, such as Excel file format support, are actually plugins. This means that a user who never uses Excel files can remove this module from Gnumeric and make Gnumeric use less memory.

Automatic tools

  These two tools allow the user to make Gnumeric automatically correct typing or automatically save workbooks at periodic intervals.

  - Auto Correct... --- The Auto Correct... menu item opens a dialog which allows the user to configure the way in which gnumeric automatically corrects text which is being entered. The dialog presents the user with three tabs. Each of these tabs allows the user to correct one type of common spelling mistake, while allowing the user to add exceptions to the rules. Gnumeric can automatically caplitalize the names of week days. Gnumeric can automatically change an entry which starts with two capital letters to only start with one and Gnumeric can change a sentence entry to start with a capital letter.

  - Auto Save --- The Auto Save menu item opens a dialog which allows the user to have Gnumeric automatically save the current workbook after a fixed interval of time. The user can also have Gnumeric ask for confirmation before saving so that the user always remains aware of the state the workbook was in when it was saved.

Linear Programming tools

  Gnumeric can be used to solve systems of linear equations and other mathematical problems. These two dialogs enable access to these tools. A full discussion of these tools is presented in .

  - Goal Seek --- The Goal Seek menu item opens a dialog through which the user can configure Gnumeric to iteratively search for a numeric value which solves a formula. This dialog is explained in .

  - Solver --- The Solver menu item opens a dialog through which the user can configure Gnumeric to solve linear systems of equations. This is explained in .

Statistics and other Data Analsyis tools

  Statistical analysis can easily be done with Gnumeric. All the statistical tools are explained in .

# The Data Menu

The Data menu is

## The Data menu.

The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:

Data Field tools.

  These menu items allow the user to re-organize data fields.

  - Sort... --- The Sort... menu item opens a dialog which allows users to sort a selection according to defined criteria. By default Gnumeric sorts rows depending on the contents of the cells in a particular column of each row. The sort criteria can be extended to calculate on the basis of the cells in several columns. Gnumeric can sort a selection using any number of rules. Rules can be added using the Add button. Rules with no column entered will be ignored or the user can remove these rules with the Remove button.

    For each rule, the dialog has an entry box in which the column to be sorted must be entered. The dropdown box (the little down pointing arrow) will show a list of appropriate columns. The user can determine a sort order for the selection. The Advanced button allows the user to further characterize the sort criteria.

    If the first row of the selection is a header, Gnumeric can be told not to shuffle this row during the sort. Gnumeric can also sort columns based on the contents of cells in specified rows, instead of shuffling rows on the basis of columns, if the user toggles the Sort to act right-left instead of top-down.

  - Filter --- The Filter menu item opens a sub-menu which currently only has the Advanced Filter entry. Filters are explained in .

  - Validate... --- The Validate... menu item opens the cell format dialog to the validation tab. Validation is a means of constraining the contents of a cell either to have a certain value or to fall within a certain range.

  - Consolidate... --- The Consolidate... menu item opens a dialog box through which a user can create derived information based on data in other worksheets.

Group and Outline.

  The sub-menu options of the Group and Outline menu are useful for creating data hiearchies within a worksheet.

# The Help Menu

The Help menu is quite simple.

## The Help menu.

The Help menu connects users to this manual, to the list of functions available for use in Gnumeric and to the list of people who created this wonderful application.

Help

  This menu contains:

  - Gnumeric Manual —Clicking on this menu entry should launch the local help system and display this manual.

  - Gnumeric Function Reference —View the Gnumeric function reference, a list and description of the functions available in Gnumeric.

  - About —Shows basic information about Gnumeric, such as the authors' names and the application version number.

# Context Menus in Gnumeric

Context menus are menus which open up under the mouse pointer and are therefore detached from the format graphical structure of the applicaton. These menus provide an extra and convenient way to access Gnumeric commands. All of the commands in context menus are available through the regular menu system. Context menus provide different commands depending on the position of the pointer.

To activate a context menu, a user simply positions the pointer over the appropriate area and clicks one of the buttons on their mouse. Since this button is configurable and users have mice with different buttons, it may be a different button on any given machine or may even require the combination of a keyboard key and a mouse buttons. The user will have to find how to do this themselves.

Currently Gnumeric provides five different context menus. The context menu that is called in the central grid area is discussed next in . The Context menu that appears when the pointer is over the row headers or column headers is presented in . Another context menu relates to the worksheet tabs and is explained in . Yet another context menu applies to embbeded objects or shaped components such as a plot. These are shown in . The final context menu allows the configuration of the toolbars. This menu is presented in .

## The Context Menu for the Cell Grid Area

The context menu in the cell grid area apprears when the pointer is over the cell grid area. This menu applies to the cells that have been selected, not necessarily the cell underneath the mouse pointer.

### The Context Menu for the Cell Grid Area.

The grid context menu merely provides an extra way to access Gnumeric commands. The Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste Special..., Delete..., and Clear Contents... commands are taken from the Edit menu and are explained in . The Insert... menu item is explained in the section on the Insert menu in . The Format Cells... is explained in the manual section on the Format menu in .

## The Context Menu for Column and Row Headers

The Context Menu for Column and Row Headers

### The Context Menu of a Row Header

The context menu which relates to column or row headers is similar to the context menu for the grid area. Both insert and delte operations are modified to operate explicitly on rows or on columns. An option is added which changes the height of rows or the width of columns. This context menu also provides a way to hide rows or columns and a way to reveal missing columns or rows.

## The Context Menu menu for Worksheet Tabs

The Context Menu menu for Worksheet Tabs.

### The Context Menu.

The context menu for tabs provides the same functions as are provided in the Sheet menu item in the Edit menu. These options are explained at the bottom of .

## The Context Menu for Embedded Objects and Components

The Context Menu for Embedded Objects and Components.

### The Context Menu

Since this menu gives access to functionality which is not part of Gnumeric, the menu entries will be different for each kind of object. This menu is accessible when first selecting on the embedded object or if the user clicks on the very border of the inserted object. All objects will provide a method to delete the object which will remove the object. Note that this operation will mostly not register into Gnumeric's history and therefore cannot easily be reversed.

## The Context Menu for Toolbars

The Context Menu for Toolbars

### The Context Menu.

The context menu for toolbars allows the user to configure toolbars. Each toolbar entry can have text associated with it or simply be an icon. The text only does not currently work in Gnumeric. The tooltips which are displayed by default can be turned off for this toolbar. The toolbar itself can be removed to save space. Finally the customize dialog can be launched which allows the user to configure these options for all the toolbars at once.