Creating charts with LibreOffice Calc
Plotting and Data Visualization
Everybody needs charts sooner or later, and LibreOffice Calc is the easiest way to create them with free and open source software.
Modern life is full of numbers. Even if one is not a mathematician, sooner or later comes the day when it's necessary to quickly understand or share with others the relationships among numbers. This tutorial introduces what is probably the simplest way to do just that with free software, the charts in LibreOffice Calc [1]. But are they charts or graphs? Let's clear up that question first.
Charts vs. Graphs
Both charts and graphs are tools to summarize and present information in a visual way. While most people use the two terms as if they were synonyms, strictly speaking, they aren't [2]. Some of the reasons are shown in Figure 1, but basically charts summarize datasets in ways that are (hopefully) intuitive and engaging, for example, with bars, pies, or other symbols. The primary purpose of charts is to convey the high-level meaning of data and the connections within it.
Figure 1: All graphs are charts, but not all charts are graphs [2].
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.