# The Gnumeric Manual, version &manrevision;

## Welcome!

&welcome;

## How to Use This Manual

&manual-usage;

## A Quick Introduction

The best way to learn how to use &gnum; is to begin exploring the program yourself. This chapter will help you get started trying new things and seeing what happens. The chapter explains the fundamentals of spreadsheets in general and of &gnum; in particular. The chapter attempts to help new users get started with &gnum; and provides background for the more detailed explanations given in the rest of the manual.

Getting started with computers

Unfortunately, this manual cannot teach you the very basics of interacting with a modern computer. If you have never used computers, don't know the names of the hardware components (the pieces you can touch) or don't know the names of the elements you see on the screen (like windows or the mouse pointer), you will probably want to get some basic advice from someone you know or read the manuals which came with your machine or your operating system. It's all pretty easy but, in order to understand this manual, you will need to know some basic terminology and have some basic computing skills.

If you are using the GNOME desktop environment, you can read the the GNOME Desktop User Guide for help in getting started with computers.

If you are using the another desktop environment such as KDE or another operating system, please see the instructions from the web site linked with either your desktop environment, your operating system, your software distribution source or the people who provided you with your computer. There are also many books providing good introduction to computers.

&quick-start;

## Gnumeric Elements

This chapter describes all of the pieces of &gnum; which a user can manipulate. The chapter provides explanations for each of the menus, menu entries, toolbar buttons and other elements of the graphical user interface.

&gui-overview; &gui-menus; &gui-toolbars; &gui-other-elements; &gui-mouse;

## Working with Data

This chapter explains the core functionality of &gnum; including the basic types of data manipulated by &gnum;, the methods of entering, manipulating and formatting data, and the basic tools for analysis of these data. More advanced analysis is described in chapter-advanced-analysis.

&data-overview; &data-types; &data-entry; &data-entry-adv; &data-entry-extern; &data-selections; &data-move-copy; &data-delete; &data-insert; &data-format; &data-format-conditional; &data-filter; &data-modify; &data-generate; &data-commentNlink;

## Advanced Analysis

This chapter explains many of the advanced analytic tools available in &gnum; including linear algebra calculations, the goal seek tool, simulation analysis, and scenarios.

&analysis-overview; &analysis-complexNum; &analysis-goalseek; &analysis-simulation; &analysis-scenarios;

## The Solver

This chapter explains the linear programming solver available from within &gnum;.

&analysis-solver;

## Statistical Analysis

This chapter explains the various statistical analysis tools available within &gnum; including tools to create descriptive statistics, as well as parametric and non-parametric hypotheses tests.

&gnum; includes various tools for statistical data analysis and data sampling. To use these tools select them from the Statistics menu and its submenus. The tools are described below. In this description as well as in the Statistics menu these tools are classified into six categories.

### Statistical Analysis Tools

&gnum;'s Data Analysis Tools An image of the statistical analysis tools available through the "Tools" menu.
&analysis-statistical;

## Graphics: Images, Widgets, and Drawings

This chapter explains how to add graphical elements to a &gnum; worksheet, including images from external files, graphical user interface widgets which interact with worksheet data, and simple drawing elements.

&graphics-overview; &graphics-images; &graphics-widgets; &graphics-drawings;

## Graphs

&gnum; includes a powerful mechanism to create graphical charts which present visually the data contained in a worksheet.

The first section of this chapter starts with an overview of graph creation, discusses terminology, and presents graph components and their organization. The next section explains the "Chart Guru" which is the tool used to configure graphs. The subsequent section presents the different types of plots which can be included in a graph and the final section explains how data can be pre-selected to speed up the process of graph creation.

Charts are exceedingly effective communication devices. Unfortunately, this means that one cannot determine, simply based on the data to be plotted, what type of plot will be the most effective. Instead users must familiarize themselves with the various types of plots which are available and decide for themselves which plot type is the most effective to communicate an idea. sect-graphs-overview contains a detailed explanation of the plot types available in &gnum;.

This chapter explains how to add graphs to plot worksheet data.

&graphics-plots;

## Using Worksheets

This chapter explains the use and manipulation of worksheets in &gnum;. The chapter explains how to move around a worksheet, how to alter the appearance and display organization of the worksheet contents, how to manipulate entire worksheets and how to protect worksheet contents.

&f-worksheets;

## Workbook Settings

This chapter explains the contents of a &gnum; workbook which are not part of the worksheets. This includes several settings which apply to the workbook and are saved in the &gnum; file. Settings which apply to the &gnum; program itself are called `preferences' and are explained in chapter-configuring.

&f-workbooks;

## Configuring Gnumeric

This chapter explains how to change the default behaviour of &gnum; including the startup behaviour and default locale (language and number display).

&config-overview; &config-preferences; &config-toolbars; &config-plugins; &config-localization;

## Working with Files

This chapter explains how to use files in &gnum;. The chapter provides an extensive description of the file formats used by &gnum;. The chapter also explains how to open files, import data from text files, save files, export data to text files, send data to others via electronic mail, and convert files from one format to another.

&files-overview; &files-formats; &files-opening; &files-textopen; &files-saving; &files-textsave; &files-email; &files-ssconvert;

## Printing

This chapter explains how to print spreadsheets, tables and plots from &gnum; to a printer directly or into PostScript or PDF (both are page description languages).

&printing;

## Getting More Help

This chapter describes other sources of help which are available to users including the &gnum; web site, the mailing list, and the internet relay chat (IRC) discussion channel.

&morehelp;

## Reporting a Problem

This chapter explains how to report a problem with &gnum; so that the problem can be fixed. The same procedure can be used to file a report requesting an enhancement or a new feature.

&bugs;

## Extending Gnumeric

This chapter explains how to go about extending &gnum; to provide extra functionality. Because &gnum; is Free Software this is quite easy to do.

&extending-overview; &extending-functions; &extending-python; &extending-plugins;
&function-ref; &appendix-keybindings;