I was making random world map information to a game of mine and I stumbled onto a problem using neooffice ( the “tuned for Mac” version of OpenOffice ). What I wanted to do was to copy a formula lets say from cell E2 to E1000. OK – so I write my formula into to cell E2 hit enter and select it again and go to Edit->Fill-> and WTF?! Fill is disabled – why??? So then I googled for 30 minutes but found no useful help. But then I went back to NeoOffice and saw “Define Range…” menu item under “Data” and realized how to fill down.
So first you have to define your range. Go to Data->Define Range… Give your range a name and type in your range for example mine was: $Sheet1.$E$2:$E$1000 and click OK. Next go to Data->Select Range… and select your newly created range and now click the cell where you have your formula and go to Edit->Fill->Down and now your formula is instantly copied down. I hope this helped you.
Notice there’s at least in version 3.1.1 patch 0 a bug in defining ranges that when you type a name for a range for example if you have earlier defined range “delta” and try to make a new one called “D” it forces the text automatically be “delta”. OK it has like syntax sense but it’s useless now and in this case harmful when you can’t type a name which is kind of like what you had before. OpenSource fans might say “but you have an ancient version… that came out like 2 weeks ago waah waah waah…”. The reason I don’t update is that every time I open the program I get an annoying dialog saying that my version is old – I don’t care – let me work!! And even if I download the new version of it every time a new comes out – it’s still going to be an outdated version the next time I open it.
