Calc Guide

Chapter 6
Printing, Exporting, and
E-mailing
Copyright
This document is Copyright © 2005–2012 by its contributors as listed below. You may distribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License
(http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), version 3.0 or later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Contributors
Barbara Duprey
Jean Hollis Weber
John A Smith

Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:
[email protected]

Acknowledgments
This chapter is based on Chapter 6 of the OpenOffice.org 3.3 Calc Guide. The contributors to that
chapter are:
Jean Hollis Weber Emma Kirsopp Peter Kupfer
Shelagh Manton Kashmira Patel Linda Worthington

Publication date and software version

Published 12 May 2012. Based on LibreOffice 3.4.6.

Note for Mac users

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on a Mac from those used in Windows and Linux.
The table below gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this chapter. For a more
detailed list, see the application Help.

Windows or Linux Mac equivalent Effect

Tools > Options menu LibreOffice > Preferences Access setup options
selection
Right-click Control+click Opens a context menu
Ctrl (Control) z (Command) Used with other keys
F5 Shift+z+F5 Opens the Navigator
F11 z+T Opens the Styles and Formatting window

Documentation for LibreOffice is available at http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation

Contents
Copyright.............................................................................................................................. 2
Note for Mac users...............................................................................................................2
Quick printing.......................................................................................................................4
Controlling printing..............................................................................................................4
Selecting general printing options................................................................................................ 5
Printing multiple pages on a single sheet of paper....................................................................... 5
Selecting sheets to print............................................................................................................... 6
Using print ranges............................................................................................................... 7
Defining a print range.................................................................................................................. 7
Adding to the print range.............................................................................................................. 7
Removing print ranges................................................................................................................. 7
Editing a print range..................................................................................................................... 7
Viewing print ranges.................................................................................................................... 8
Printing rows or columns on every page...................................................................................... 9
Defining a custom print range.................................................................................................... 10
Page breaks........................................................................................................................ 11
Inserting a page break............................................................................................................... 11
Row break............................................................................................................................. 11
Column break........................................................................................................................ 11
Deleting a page break................................................................................................................ 11
Printing options setup in page styles..............................................................................12
Headers and footers.......................................................................................................... 13
Setting a header or a footer....................................................................................................... 13
Header or footer appearance..................................................................................................... 14
Setting the contents of the header or footer............................................................................... 14
Exporting to PDF................................................................................................................15
Quick export to PDF.................................................................................................................. 15
Controlling PDF content and quality........................................................................................... 16
General page of PDF Options dialog..................................................................................... 16
Initial View page of PDF Options dialog................................................................................ 17
User Interface page of PDF Options dialog........................................................................... 18
Links page of PDF Options dialog......................................................................................... 19
Security page of PDF Options dialog.................................................................................... 20
Exporting to XHTML...........................................................................................................21
Saving as Web pages (HTML)...........................................................................................21
E-mailing spreadsheets.....................................................................................................21
E-mailing a spreadsheet to several recipients............................................................................ 22
Digital signing of documents............................................................................................22
Removing personal data................................................................................................... 23

Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing 3

Quick printing

Click the Print File Directly icon to send the entire document to the default printer defined for
your computer.

You can change the action of the Print File Directly icon, to send the document to
the printer defined for the document, instead of the default printer for the computer.
Note Choose Tools > Options > Load/Save > General and select the Load printer
settings with the document option.

Controlling printing
For more control over printing, use the Print dialog (File > Print or Ctrl+P).

Figure 1. The Print dialog

The Print dialog has four tabs, from which you can choose a range of options, as described in the
following sections.

The options selected on the Print dialog apply to this printing of this document only.
To specify default printing settings for LibreOffice, go to Tools > Options >
Note
LibreOffice – Print and Tools > Options > LibreOffice Calc – Print. See
Chapter 14, Setting Up and Customizing Calc, for details.

4 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Selecting general printing options
On the General tab of the Print dialog (Figure 1), you can choose:
• The printer (from the printers available)
• Which sheets and pages to print, the number of copies to print, whether to print in reverse
page order and whether to collate multiple copies (Range and copies section)
Select the Properties button to display a printer-specific dialog where you can choose portrait or
landscape orientation, which paper tray to use, and the paper size to print on.
On the Options tab of the Print dialog (Figure 2), you can choose to print to a file (instead of to a
printer), to create a single print job containing several copies of the document (instead of a
separate print job for each copy).

Figure 2: General print options

Printing multiple pages on a single sheet of paper

You can print multiple pages of a document on one sheet of paper. To do this:
1) In the Print dialog, select the Page Layout tab (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Printing multiple page per sheet of paper

2) In the Layout section, select from the drop-down list the number of pages to print per sheet.
The preview panel on the left of the Print dialog shows how the printed document will look.
When printing more than 2 pages per sheet, you can choose the order in which they are
printing across and down the paper. The pictures above and below show the difference.

3) In the Page sides section, select whether to print all pages or only some pages.
4) Click the Print button.

Controlling printing 5
Selecting sheets to print
In addition to printing a full document, you can choose to print individual sheets, ranges of sheets,
or a selection of a document.
You can choose single sheets, multiple sheets, and selections of cells for printing.

Figure 4: Choosing what to print in Calc

Printing an individual sheet:
1) In the spreadsheet, click on the sheet tab to select the sheet you want to print.
2) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.
3) In the Ranges and copies section of the Print dialog, choose the Selected sheets option.
4) Click the Print button.
Printing a range of sheets:
1) In the spreadsheet, select the sheets to print.
a) Select the first sheet.
b) Hold down the Control key.
c) Click on the additional sheet tabs.
d) Release the Control key when all required sheets are selected.
2) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.
3) In the Ranges and copies section of the Print dialog, choose the Selected sheets option.
4) Click the Print button.
Printing a selection of cells:
1) In the document, select the section of cells to print.
2) Choose File > Print from the menu.
3) In the Ranges and copies section of the Print dialog, select the Selected cells option.
4) Click the Print button.
The Print in reverse page order option can be selected with any of the above options.

Caution After printing, be sure to deselect the extra sheets. If you keep them selected, the
next time you enter data on one sheet, you enter data on all the selected sheets.
This might not be what you want.

6 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Using print ranges
Print ranges have several uses, including printing only a specific part of the data or printing
selected rows or columns on every page.

Defining a print range

To define a new print range or modify an existing print range:
1) Highlight the range of cells that comprise the print range.
2) Choose Format > Print Ranges > Define.
The automatic page break lines are then displayed on the screen.

You can check the print range by using File > Page Preview. LibreOffice will only
Tip display the cells in the print range.

Adding to the print range

After defining a print range, you can add more cells to it. This allows multiple, separate areas of the
same sheet to be printed, while not printing the whole sheet. After you have defined a print range:
1) Highlight the range of cells to be added to the print range.
2) Choose Format > Print Ranges > Add. This adds the extra cells to the print range.
The page break lines display on the screen around this new addition.

The additional print range will print as a separate page, even if both ranges are on
Note the same sheet.

Removing print ranges

It may become necessary to remove a defined print range, for example if the whole sheet needs to
be printed later, or you no longer wish to print some of the added ranges.
Choose Format > Print Ranges > Remove. This removes all defined print ranges on the sheet.
After the print range is removed, the default page break lines will appear on the screen.
To remove only certain print ranges, see “Editing a print range” below.

Editing a print range

At any time, you can directly edit the print range, for example to add to, remove or resize part of
the print range. Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit. If you have already selected a print range,
the Edit Print Ranges dialog looks something like Figure 5.
In this example, three rectangles are selected, each separated by a comma. The first is bounded
by cell A3 ($A$3) in the top left and cell C9 ($C$9) in the bottom right corner. The others being
D12:F23 and H24:I25.
If only a single range is defined, then clicking anywhere in the text entry box shows the selected
print range on the screen, bounded in blue, as shown in Figure 6.
To directly add new cells to the print range:
1) Type a comma in the text box as the separator for the ranges.

Using print ranges 7

 2) Select the cell range using the mouse cursor, or directly type in the cell references using
the format of the selection already in the text box. Remember to separate the cell
references with a colon.
To remove a print range, select the range in the text box and delete it. Make sure the remaining
ranges only have a single comma as a separator and that there is not a comma at the end of the
sequence.
To resize a print range, edit the data in the text box for the range.

Figure 5: Edit a print range

Figure 6: Print range marked by colored box. Page break lines visible around the selection

Viewing print ranges

Because defined print ranges are formatted with automatic page breaks, they can be viewed by
using the Page Break Preview screen, select View > Page Break Preview from the menu bar.

Figure 7: The defined print range

8 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

 Figure 8: The preview screen for the defined print range.
The print ranges are outlined by default with a blue border, and contain a centered page number in
gray. The nonprinting area has a gray background.
To exit the Page Break Preview screen, select View > Normal from the menu bar.

Printing rows or columns on every page

If a sheet is printed on multiple pages, you can set up certain rows or columns to repeat on each
printed page.
For example, if the top two rows of the sheet as well as column A need to be printed on all pages,
do the following:
1) Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit. On the Edit Print Ranges dialog, type the rows in
the text entry box under Rows to repeat. For example, to repeat rows 1 and 2, type $1:$2.
This automatically changes Rows to repeat from - none - to - user defined -.
2) To repeat columns, type the columns in the text entry box under Columns to repeat. For
example, to repeat column A, type $A. This automatically changes Columns to repeat from
- none - to - user defined -.
3) Click OK.

You do not need to select the entire range of the rows to be repeated; simply
Note select one cell in each row.

Figure 9: Specifying repeating rows

Using print ranges 9

Defining a custom print range
In addition to highlighting a print range for each print job, you can define a range of cells to be used
repeatedly. This may be useful if there are different areas of a large spreadsheet that need to be
printed for different reports. Several different print ranges can be defined to meet this need.
1) To define a print range, use the same procedure as labeling an area of the sheet. Highlight
the cells you want to define as a print range and select Insert > Names > Define. (The
cells can be highlighted after opening the Define Names dialog as well.)
2) Ensure Document (Global) is selected in the Scope box.
3) On the Define Names dialog (Figure 10), type a name for the range in the text box with the
blinking cursor. The name of the range cannot contain any spaces.

Figure 10: Define Names dialog

4) Click the More button in the dialog and then select the Print range option. Click the Add
button.
5) Click OK.
To print this range:
1) Choose Format > Print Ranges > Edit (Figure 5). The previously defined area now
appears in the drop-down box under Print range.
2) Select the defined print range and click OK.
This method can be useful to quickly change the print range without highlighting a large area of
cells every time.

10 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Page breaks
While defining a print range can be a powerful tool, it may sometimes be necessary to manually
adjust Calc’s printout. To do this, you can use a manual break. A manual break helps to ensure that
your data prints properly. You can insert a horizontal page break above, or a vertical page break to
the left of, the active cell.

Inserting a page break

To insert a page break:
1) Navigate to the cell where the page break will begin.
2) Select Insert > Page Break.
3) Select Row Break or Column Break depending on your need.
The break is now set.

Row break
Selecting Row Break creates a page break above the selected cell. For example, if the active cell
is H15, then the break is created between rows 14 and 15.

Column break
Selecting Column Break creates a page break to the left of the selected cell. For example, if the
active cell is H15, then the break is created between columns G and H.

To see page break lines more easily on screen, you can change their color.
Tip Choose Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Appearance and scroll down to the
Spreadsheet section.

Deleting a page break

To remove a page break:
1) Navigate to a cell that is next to the break you want to remove.
2) Select Edit > Delete Manual Break.
3) Select Row Break or Column Break depending on your need.
The break is now removed.

Multiple manual row and column breaks can exist on the same page. When you
want to remove them, you have to remove each one individually. This may be
confusing at times, because although there may be a column break set on the
page, when you go to Edit > Manual Break, the Column break choice may not be
Note available (grayed out).
In order to remove the break, you have to be in the cell next to the break. For
example, if you set the column break while you are in H15, you can not remove it if
you are in cell D15. However, you can remove it from any cell in column H.

Page breaks 11
Printing options setup in page styles
Several printing options are set in the page style for sheets. These include the page order, details,
and scale to be printed, Because these options are set in the page style, different page styles can
be set up to quickly change the print properties of the sheets in the spreadsheet. See Chapter 3,
Using Styles and Templates in Calc, for more about page styles.
The Sheet tab of the Page Style dialog (Figure 11) provides the following options.

Figure 11. The Sheet tab of the Page Style dialog

Page Order
You can set the order in which pages print. This is especially useful in a large document; for
example, controlling the print order can save time if you have to collate the document a certain
way.
Where a sheet prints to more than one page of paper, it can be printed either by column, where the
first column of pages prints, and then the second column and so on, or by row as shown in the
graphic on the top right of the dialog in Figure 11.

Print
You can specify which details to print. These details include:
• Row and column headers
• Sheet grid—prints the borders of the cells as a grid
• Comments—prints the comments defined in your spreadsheet on a separate page,
along with the corresponding cell reference
• Objects and graphics
• Charts
• Drawing objects
• Formulas—prints the formulas contained in the cells, instead of the results
• Zero Values—prints cells with a zero value

12 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Scale
Use the scale features to control the number of pages the data will print on.
• Reduce/Enlarge printout—scales the data in the printout either larger or smaller. For
example, if a sheet would normally print out as four pages (two high and two wide), a
scaling of 50% would print as one page (both width and height are halved).
• Fit print range(s) on nlarge option must be used.
• Fit print range(s) to width/height—defines honumber of pages—defines exactly
how many pages the printout will take up. This option will only reduce a printout, it will
not enlarge it. To enlarge a printout, the reduce/ew high and wide the printout will be,
in pages.

Headers and footers

Headers and footers are predefined pieces of text that are printed at the top or bottom of a sheet
outside of the sheet area. Headers are set the same way as footers.
Headers and footers are assigned to a page style. You can define more than one page style for a
spreadsheet and assign different page styles to different sheets. For more about page styles, see
Chapter 4.

Setting a header or a footer

To set a header or footer:
1) Navigate to the sheet that you want to set the header or footer for. Select Format > Page.
2) Select the Header (or Footer) tab.
3) Select the Header on option.

Figure 12: Header dialog

Headers and footers 13

From here you can also set the margins, the spacing, and height for the header or footer. You can
check the AutoFit height box to automatically adjust the height of the header or footer.

Margin
Changing the size of the left or right margin adjusts how far the header or footer is from that
side of the page.

Spacing
Spacing affects how far above or below the sheet the header or footer will print. So, if spacing
is set to 1.00", then there will be 1 inch between the header or footer and the sheet.

Height
Height affects how big the header or footer will be.

Header or footer appearance

To change the appearance of the header or footer, click the More button in the dialog. This opens
the Border/Background dialog.

Figure 13: Header/Footer Border/Background dialog

From this dialog you can set the background and border style of the header or footer. See
Chapter 4, Using Styles and Templates in Calc, for more information.

Setting the contents of the header or footer

The header or footer of a Calc spreadsheet has three columns for text. Each column can have
different contents.
To set the contents of the header or footer, click the Edit button in the header or footer dialog
shown in Figure 12 to display the dialog shown in Figure 14.

14 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

 Figure 14: Edit contents of header or footer

Areas
Each area in the header or footer is independent and can have different information in it.

Header
You can select from several preset choices in the Header drop-down list, or specify a custom
header using the buttons below the area boxes. (To format a footer, the choices are the same.)

Custom header
Click in the area (Left, Center, Right) that you want to customize, then use the buttons to add
elements or change text attributes.
Opens the Text Attributes dialog.
Inserts the File Name field.

Inserts the Sheet Name field.

Inserts the current page number.

Inserts the total number of pages.

Inserts the Date field.

Inserts the Time field.

Exporting to PDF
Calc can export documents to PDF (Portable Document Format). This industry-standard file format
is ideal for sending the file to someone else to view using Adobe Reader or other PDF viewers.

Quick export to PDF

Click the Export Directly as PDF icon to export the entire document using your default PDF
settings. You are asked to enter the file name and location for the PDF file, but you do not get a
chance to choose a page range, the image compression, or other options.

Exporting to PDF 15
Controlling PDF content and quality
For more control over the content and quality of the resulting PDF, use File > Export as PDF. The
PDF Options dialog opens. This dialog has five pages (General, Initial View, User Interface, Links,
and Security). Select the appropriate settings, and then click Export. You are then asked to enter
the location and file name of the PDF to be created, and click Save to export the file.

General page of PDF Options dialog

On the General page, you can choose which pages to include in the PDF, the type of compression
to use for images (which affects the quality of images in the PDF), and other options.

Figure 15: General page of PDF Options dialog

Range section
• All: Exports the entire document.
• Pages: To export a range of pages, use the format 3-6 (pages 3 to 6). To export single
pages, use the format 7;9;11 (pages 7, 9, and 11). You can also export a combination of
page ranges and single pages, by using a format like 3-6;8;10;12.
• Selection: Exports whatever content is selected.

16 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Images section
• Lossless compression: Images are stored without any loss of quality. Tends to make
large files when used with photographs. Recommended for other kinds of images or
graphics.
• JPEG compression: Allows for varying degrees of quality. A setting of 90% works well with
photographs (small file size, little perceptible loss).
• Reduce image resolution: Lower-DPI (dots per inch) images have lower quality. For
viewing on a computer screen a resolution of 72dpi (for Windows) or 96dpi (GNU/Linux) is
sufficient, while for printing it is generally preferable to use at least 300 or 600 dpi,
depending on the capability of the printer. Higher dpi settings greatly increase the size of
the exported file.

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) images with embedded previews are exported only
Note as previews. EPS images without embedded previews are exported as empty
placeholders.

General section
• PDF/A-1a: PDF/A is an ISO standard for long-term preservation of documents, by
embedding all the information necessary for faithful reproduction (such as fonts) while
forbidding other elements (including forms, security, and encryption). PDF tags are written.
If you select PDF/A-1a, the forbidden elements are greyed-out (not available).
• Tagged PDF: Tagged PDF contains information about the structure of the document’s
contents. This can help to display the document on devices with different screens, and
when using screen reader software. Some tags that are exported are table of contents,
hyperlinks, and controls. This option can increase file sizes significantly.
• Create PDF form - Submit format: Choose the format for submitting forms from within the
PDF file. This setting overrides the control’s URL property that you set in the document.
There is only one common setting valid for the whole PDF document: PDF (sends the
whole document), FDF (sends the control contents), HTML, and XML. Most often you will
choose the PDF format.
• Export bookmarks: Exports sheet names in Calc documents as “bookmarks” (a table of
contents list displayed by some PDF readers, including Adobe Reader).
• Export comments: Exports comments in Calc documents as PDF notes. You may not
want this!
• Export automatically inserted blank pages: Not available in Calc.
• Embed standard fonts: You can choose to embed the standard fonts (Times, Helvetica,
Courier, Symbol, and ZapfDingbats) in all PDF documents created by LibreOffice, to
enhance display accuracy in PDF viewers.
• Create hybrid file: This setting enables you to export the document as a .pdf file
containing two file formats: PDF and ODF.

Initial View page of PDF Options dialog

On the Initial View page (Figure 16), you can choose how the PDF opens by default in a PDF
viewer. The selections are self-explanatory.

Exporting to PDF 17
 Figure 16: Initial View page of PDF Options dialog

User Interface page of PDF Options dialog

On the User Interface page (Figure 17), you can choose more settings to control how a PDF
viewer displays the file. Some of these choices are particularly useful when you are creating a PDF
to be used as a presentation or a kiosk-type display.

Figure 17: User Interface page of PDF Options dialog

18 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Window options section
• Resize window to initial page: Causes the PDF viewer window to resize to fit the first
page of the PDF.
• Center window on screen: Causes the PDF viewer window to be centered on the
computer screen.
• Open in full screen mode: Causes the PDF viewer to open full-screen instead of in a
smaller window.
• Display document title: Causes the PDF viewer to display the document’s title in the title
bar.
User interface options section
• Hide menubar: Causes the PDF viewer to hide the menu bar.
• Hide toolbar: Causes the PDF viewer to hide the toolbar.
• Hide window controls: Causes the PDF viewer to hide other window controls.
Transitions
• Not available in Calc.
Bookmarks
Only one bookmark level (sheet names) is available in Calc, regardless of the setting selected
here.

Links page of PDF Options dialog

On this page you can choose how links are exported to PDF.

Figure 18: Links page of PDF Options dialog

Export bookmarks as named destinations

If you have defined Writer bookmarks, Impress or Draw slide names, or Calc sheet names, this
option exports them as “named destinations” to which Web pages and PDF documents can
link.
Convert document references to PDF targets
If you have defined links to other documents with OpenDocument extensions (such as
.ODT, .ODS, and .ODP), this option converts the file names to .PDF in the exported PDF
document.
Export URLs relative to file system
If you have defined relative links in a document, this option exports those links to the PDF.

Cross-document links
Defines the behavior of links clicked in PDF files.

Exporting to PDF 19
Security page of PDF Options dialog
PDF export includes options to encrypt the PDF (so it cannot be opened without a password) and
apply some digital rights management (DRM) features.
• With an open password set, the PDF can only be opened with the password. Once opened,
there are no restrictions on what the user can do with the document (for example, print,
copy, or change it).
• With a permissions password set, the PDF can be opened by anyone, but its permissions
can be restricted. See Figure 19.
• With both the open password and permission password set, the PDF can only be opened
with the correct password, and its permissions can be restricted.

Permissions settings are effective only if the user’s PDF viewer respects the
Note settings.

Figure 20 shows the dialog displayed when you click the Set passwords button on the Security
page of the PDF Options dialog.
After you set a password for permissions, the other choices on the Security page (shown in Figure
19) become available. These selections are self-explanatory.

Figure 19: Security page of PDF Options dialog.

20 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

 Figure 20: Setting a password to encrypt a PDF

Exporting to XHTML
Calc can export spreadsheets to XHTML, if the appropriate filter is installed (standard on Mac and
Linux; optional on Windows). Choose File > Export. On the Export dialog, specify a file name for
the exported document, then select the XHTML in the File format list and click the Export button.

Saving as Web pages (HTML)

Calc can save files as HTML documents. Use File > Save As and select HTML Document, or File
> Wizards > Web Page.
If the file contains more than one sheet, the additional sheets will follow one another in the HTML
file. Links to each sheet will be placed at the top of the document. Calc also allows the insertion of
links directly into the spreadsheet using the Hyperlink dialog.

E-mailing spreadsheets
LibreOffice provides several quick and easy ways to send spreadsheets as an e-mail attachment in
one of three formats: OpenDocument Spreadsheet (LibreOffice’s default format), Microsoft Excel,
or PDF.

Documents can only be sent from the LibreOffice menu if a mail profile has been
Note set up.

To send the current document in OpenDocument format:

1) Choose File > Send > Document as E-mail. LibreOffice opens your default e-mail
program with the spreadsheet (*.ODS) document attached.

E-mailing spreadsheets 21
 2) In your e-mail program, enter the recipient, subject, and any text you want to add, then
send the e-mail.
File > Send > E-mail as OpenDocument Spreadsheet has the same effect.
If you choose E-mail as Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice first creates a file in Excel format and then
opens your e-mail program with the *.XLS file attached.
Similarly, if you choose E-mail as PDF, LibreOffice first creates a PDF using your default PDF
settings (as when using the Export Directly as PDF toolbar button) and then opens your email
program with the *.PDF file attached.

E-mailing a spreadsheet to several recipients

To e-mail a document to several recipients, you can use the features in your e-mail program or you
can use LibreOffice Writer’s mail merge facilities to extract email addresses from an address book.
For details, see Chapter 10, Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing, in the Getting Started guide.

Digital signing of documents

To sign a document digitally, you need a personal key, also known as a certificate. A personal key
is stored on your computer as a combination of a private key, which must be kept secret, and a
public key, which you add to your documents when you sign them. You can get a certificate from a
certification authority, which may be a private company or a governmental institution.
When you apply a digital signature to a document, a checksum is computed from the document’s
content plus your personal key. The checksum and your public key are stored together with the
document.
When someone later opens the document on any computer with a recent version of LibreOffice,
the program will compute the checksum again and compare it with the stored checksum. If both
are the same, the program will signal that you see the original, unchanged document. In addition,
the program can show you the public key information from the certificate. You can compare this
key with the public key that is published on the web site of the certificate authority.
Whenever someone changes something in the document, this change breaks the digital signature.
On Windows operating systems, the Windows features of validating a signature are used. On
Solaris and Linux systems, files that are supplied by Thunderbird, Mozilla or Firefox are used. For
a more detailed description of how to get and manage a certificate, and signature validation, see
“Using Digital Signatures” in the LibreOffice Help.
To sign a document:
1) Choose File > Digital Signatures.
2) If you have not saved the document since the last change, a message box appears. Click
Yes to save the file.
3) After saving, you see the Digital Signatures dialog. Click Add to add a public key to the
document.
4) In the Select Certificate dialog, select your certificate and click OK.
5) You see again the Digital Signatures dialog, where you can add more certificates if you
want. Click OK to add the public key to the saved file.

A signed document shows an icon in the status bar. You can double-click the icon to view the
certificate.

22 Printing, Exporting, and E-mailing

Removing personal data
You may wish to ensure that personal data, versions, notes, hidden information, or recorded
changes are removed from files before you send them to other people or create PDFs from them.
In Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Security > Options, you can set Calc to remind (warn) you
when files contain certain information and remove personal information automatically on saving.
To remove personal and some other data from a file, go to File > Properties. On the General tab,
uncheck Apply user data and then click the Reset button. This removes any names in the created
and modified fields, deletes the modification and printing dates, and resets the editing time to zero,
the creation date to the current date and time, and the version number to 1.
To remove version information, either go to File > Versions, select the versions from the list and
click Delete, or use Save As and save the file with a different name.

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