The File Menu
The 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 menu is the best way to close Gnumeric.
The menu choices are grouped into the following groups:
- 1 Workbook creation operations.
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These menu items perform operations on files. Each item is presented below. File operations are critical and are therefore discussed in their own section latter in this manual in Chapter 14 ― Working with Files.
- — 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.
- — This menu item brings up a submenu from which a template can be selected. Rather than creating a new empty workbook, the template specifies some standard content. The new workbook is opened in a new window. The name named of the workbook is determined by the name of the template. Note that the opened file has not yet been saved.
- — The menu item opens the file chooser dialog to allow the user to pick an existing workbook for Gnumeric to open. Files in many different spreadsheet formats can be opened. To open files in a non-spreadsheet format, use the menu described in Section 4.2.9 ― The Data Menu. See Section 14.2 ― File Formats for details. The menu item creates a new window containing the selected file. A more extensive discussion is presented in Section 14.3 ― Opening Files.
- 2 File creation operations.
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- — The 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 menu item had been called and prompt the user for a filename.
- — The 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. To export data from Gnumeric to a non-spreadsheet format, use the menu described in Section 4.2.9 ― The Data Menu. For an explanation of the file formats which Gnumeric supports see Section 14.5 ― Saving Files.
- 3 Printing operations.
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These menu items enable Gnumeric to print. Each item is presented below and printing issues are discussed fully in Chapter 15 ― Printing.
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— The 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 Section 15.2 ― Page Setup..
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— The menu item opens the submenu shown in Figure 4-4. The items in this submenu allow the print area to be set, shown or cleared; and manual page breaks to be set or cleared. The print area of a sheet is that range of the sheet that should be printed. Items outside of the print area are usually omitted when printing. When printing Gnumeric will usually choose the appropriate page breaks. Manual page breaks can be used to force Gnumeric to insert a page break prematurely.
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— The 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 Section 15.1 ― Printing to a Printer or a File..
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— The 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 Section 15.3 ― Print Preview.
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- 4 Miscellaneous Operations.
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- — The menu item call the Send To dialog. This dialog allows the user to send a Gnumeric workbook as an attachment to an email message. This dialog is explained in detail in Section 14.7 ― Sending Files.
- — The menu item calls the Document Properties dialog, a dialog with several tabs that allow many document specific settings to be adjusted. The dialog is described in detail in Chapter 12 ― Workbook Settings.
- 5 Recently used files.
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- The first three menu entries in this section 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 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. To access any recent file not listed, one can use the the menu item below.
- — The menu item opens a dialog that shows all recently used files.
- 6 The Close and Quit operations.
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These menu items either close the current worksheet, , or close all open worksheets, . 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.
- — The 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.
- — The 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.
