Contents

# Formula

Defines formula syntax options and loading options for LibreOffice Calc.

To access this command...

Open a spreadsheet document, choose LibreOffice - Preferences Tools - Options - LibreOffice Calc - Formula.

## Formula options

### Formula syntax

There are three options. Let's see it by example. In a sample spreadsheet there are two worksheets, Sheet1 and Sheet2. In A1 cell of Sheet1 there is a reference to C4 cell of Sheet2.

- Calc A1 - This is the default of LibreOffice Calc. The reference will be =$Sheet2.C4

- Excel A1 - This is the default of Microsoft Excel. The reference will be =Sheet2!C4

- Excel R1C1 - This is the relative row/column addressing, known from Microsoft Excel. The reference will be =Sheet2!R[3]C[2]

### Use English function names

In LibreOffice Calc function names can be localized. By default, the check box is off, which means the localized function names are used. Checking this check box will swap localized function names with the English ones. This change takes effect in all of the following areas: formula input and display, function wizard, and formula tips. You can of course uncheck it to go back to the localized function names.

## Separators

This option group lets you configure separators in your formula expressions. This comes in handy when, for instance, you want to separate your function parameters by commas (,) instead of semicolons (;).

For example, instead of =SUM(A1;B1;C1) you can type =SUM(A1,B1,C1).

Likewise, you can also change the column and row separators for in-line arrays. Previously, an in-line array used semicolons (;) as the column separators and the pipe symbols (|) as the row separators, so a typical in-line array expression looked like this for a 5 x 2 matrix array:

={1;2;3;4;5|6;7;8;9;10}

By changing the column separators to commas (,) and the row separators to semicolons (;), the same expression will look like this:

={1,2,3,4,5;6,7,8,9,10}

## Detailed Calculation Settings

Sets the rules for conversion from strings values to numeric values, string values to cell references, and strings values to date and time values. This affects built-in functions such as INDIRECT that takes a reference as a string value or date and time functions that takes arguments as string values in local or ISO 8601 formats.

## Recalculation on File Load

Recalculating formulas can take significant time while loading very large files.

### Excel 2007 and newer:

Loading a large spreadsheet file can take a long time. If you don't need to update your large spreadsheet data immediately, you can postpone the recalculation at a better time. LibreOffice allows you to defer recalculation of Excel 2007 (and above) spreadsheets to speedup loading time.

### ODF Spreadsheet (not saved by LibreOffice):

Recent versions of LibreOffice caches spreadsheet formula results into its ODF file. This feature helps LibreOffice to recalculate a large ODF spreadsheet saved by LibreOffice faster.

For ODF spreadsheets saved by other programs, where such cached formula results may not exist, recalculation can be deferred to speedup file loading as with Excel 2007 files.

For the entries above the following choices are possible:

- Never recalculate - No formulas will be recalculated on loading the file.

- Always recalculate - All formulas will be recalculated on file load.

- Prompt user - Prompt user for action.

LibreOffice saved ODF spreadsheets will honor Never recalculate and Always recalculate options.

Related Topics

Array formulas