Difference between revisions of "LibreOffice-Suite-Base/C4/Access-data-sources/English"

Spoken tutorial on LibreOffice Base: Access other Data Sources Learning Objectives

• Access other Data Sources
• Register .odb databases
• View Data sources
• Use Data Sources in Writer

In this tutorial, we will learn how to

Access other Data Sources

Register .odb databases

View Data sources

And Use Data Sources in Writer

Access other Data Sources other than Base databases

Linking these into other LibreOffice documents

Example: A spreadsheet or a text document, can be accessed from LibreOffice Base, and linked into LibreOffice Writer documents

LibreOffice allows other data sources to be accessed apart from Base Databases.

It also allows to link them into other LibreOffice documents.

For example, we can access a spreadsheet or a simple text document from inside LibreOffice Base

And then link them into a LibreOffice Writer document.

Open LibreOffice Base program from Windows Start-->All Programs-->LibreOffice Suite--> LibreOffice Calc

Click on File>>New>> point mouse over Spreadsheet. Do not click here.

Click on Start Menu >> All Programs and open the LibreOffice Suite menu. Or if LibreOffice is already open, then we can click on File, New and then Spreadsheet, to open a new spreadsheet.

Name Ravi Kumar Nisha Sharma Jacob Robin Salma Aziz

And in the next column, paste this. Phone should align with Name. Phone 29488737 82383848 88737433 72383483

Save this as filename ‘LibraryMembers’ in a directory, remember this location. We will need it later.

Close the Calc window.

And save this spreadsheet as ‘LibraryMembers’ in a directory location.

Now let us remember the location, as we will need to use this file later in our example.

And we will close the Calc window.

To do this, open Base either from Windows Start menu, or

If LibreOffice is already open, then we can click on File, New and then Database.

Click on Dropdown below.

Scroll slowly

Click on Spreadsheet

Click on Next button

Here we will click on the ‘Connect to an existing database’

Then click on the dropdown.

Notice the various database sources in this list that Base can access.

And we will click on Spreadsheet here.

And the Next button.

Click on Next button

If there is a password for the spreadsheet, we will need to provide it too.

Here we won’t need it.

Let us click on the Next button.

Point on Open database for editing checkbox. Keep it checked

Click on Finish button

Type LibraryMembers against File name in the dialog box.

And Save it in the same location as the LibraryMembers.ods spreadsheet.

Click Save button

And Open it for editing.

And click on the Finish button.

Now let us provide a database name here. Let us type in LibraryMembers.

Notice the Save as Type: It says ODF Database which is .odb in our case.

And Save it in the same location as the spreadsheet.

There we have registered the spreadsheet as a data source in Base.

Click on Tables icon in the left panel. Click on Sheet1, Sheet2

Double click on Sheet1

Here let us click on the Tables icon in the left panel.

Notice the tables ‘Sheet1’, Sheet2, and Sheet3.

Let us double click on Sheet1 to open it and here is the data from the spreadsheet.

Now, with this method of accessing the Spreadsheet, we cannot make any changes from here.

We can only view data, or create queries, and reports based on the existing data from here.

So changes have to be made directly to the Spreadsheet itself.

Registering .odb databases.

Open Base and 1. Choose Tools, Options, LibreOffice Base and Databases 2. Under Registered Databases, click New 3. Browse to where the database is located and ensure the registered name is correct. 4. Click on Ok.

Now, there are other programs such as OpenOffice.org, that can produce .odb databases.

To use these inside LibreOffice Base, we will first need to register them in Base.

To register any .odb database, we will need to Open Base and

1. Choose Tools, Options, LibreOffice Base and Databases

2. Under Registered Databases, click New

3. Browse to where the database is located and ensure the registered name is correct.

4. and Click on the Ok button.

View Data sources in LibreOffice

For this, let us consider the example spreadsheet that we registered in Base.

Now, we can use it in LibreOffice Writer or Calc.

As an example, let us see how we can view it inside LibreOffice Writer.

Click View >> Data Sources

Browse through the list on top left

Click on + against LibraryMembers

Click on + against Tables

For this, let us click on File, New and then Text document.

Now we are in the Writer window.

To view the available data sources, we will click on the View menu at the top and click on Data Sources.

Alternately, we can press the F4 key.

Now we see a list of registered databases at the top left, including LibraryMembers which we created just now.

To view the database, we will expand it, by clicking on the plus symbol on the left of the database name

And we will expand Tables.

Here are Sheet1, 2 and 3.

Let us click on Sheet 1.

Use Data Sources in LibreOffice

Example: in LibreOffice Writer or Calc

Click on the gray cell to the left of the first column in the first record to select it. Pressing shift key, click on the gray cell to the left of the first column, in the last record.

Click, drag and drop this onto the writer document below.

For this let us click on the gray cell to the left of the first column in the first record.

Then while pressing Shift key, we will click on the gray cell to the left of the first column in the last record.

Notice that all the data gets highlighted.

Now we will click, drag and drop this onto the Writer document below.

Click on the Table option at the top

Click on >> button

Point cursor over the areas in the popup

Click on the Ok button.

So here, we will click on the Table option at the top

And then click on the double arrow button to move all the fields from the left to the right list.

Notice the various choices here.

For now, we will simply click on the Ok button.

And here is the entire table of data in the document.

Type “Member Name:”

Click on the Name column in the data sources area at the top right.

Click, drag and drop it next to the text we typed.

Press the tab key once and type in “Phone number: “

Click and drag the Phone column from the top and drop it next to our text.

Highlight the first record by clicking the gray cell to the left of the first record.

Find the Data to Fields icon in the Table Data toolbar at the top below the Formatting toolbar. Usually 17th icon. Show tooltip

Click on the Data to Fields icon.

Highlight another record at the top and click on Data to Fields icon again. Show cursor over Writer document appropriately

Let us go to the top of the Writer document and press the Enter key twice. Again go to the top left.

Here let us type in Member Name colon

And then click on the Name column in the data sources area at the top right.

Now we will click, drag and drop it next to the text we typed.

And we will press the tab key and type in Phone number colon

And..... we know what to do, don’t we?

We will click and drag the Phone column from the top and drop it next to our text.

Then let us highlight the first record by clicking the gray cell to the left of the first record.

And then we will click on the Data to Fields icon.

This can be found in the Table Data toolbar at the top below the Formatting toolbar.

Notice that the data in the table above is now in the Writer document.

To bring in another record, we just have to highlight a different record and use the ‘Data to Fields’ icon again.

So there we learnt how to use data sources inside LibreOffice documents.

Summary:

• Access other Data Sources

• Register .odb databases

• View Data sources

• Use Data Sources in Writer

To summarize, we learned how to:

Access other Data Sources

Register .odb databases

View Data sources

And Use Data Sources in Writer