OpenOffice.org BASIC Guide - OpenOffice.org wiki

The Structure of Spreadsheets
Note – ThisComponent returns the currently active document.
The expression Doc.Sheets(0) is a Basic simplification of the API call : Doc.getSheets.getByIndex(0)
Example 2: access by means of the name
Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object
Doc = ThisComponent
Sheet = Doc.Sheets.getByName("Sheet 1")
In the first example, the sheet is accessed by its number (counting begins at 0). In the second example, the sheet is
accessed by its name and the getByName method.
The Sheet object that is obtained by the getByName method supports the com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheet
service. In addition to providing several interfaces for editing the content, this service provides the following
properties:
IsVisible (Boolean)
value True if the spreadsheet is visible.
PageStyle (String)
name of the page template for the spreadsheet.
Renaming Sheets
A sheet provides methods getName and setName to read and modify its name. Basic can handle both methods
like a property Name. Here we rename the first sheet of the spreadsheet document.
Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object
Doc = ThisComponent
Sheet = Doc.Sheets(0)
Sheet.Name = "First"
Creating and Deleting Sheets
The Sheets container of a spreadsheet document is also used to create and delete individual sheets. The
following example uses the hasByName method to check if a sheet called MySheet exists. If it does, the method
determines a corresponding object reference by using the getByName method and then saves the reference in a
variable in Sheet. If the corresponding sheet does not exist, it is created by the createInstance call and
inserted in the spreadsheet document by the insertByName method.
Dim Doc As Object
Dim Sheet As Object
Doc = ThisComponent
If Doc.Sheets.hasByName("MySheet") Then
Sheet = Doc.Sheets.getByName("MySheet")
Else
Sheet = Doc.createInstance("com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheet")
Doc.Sheets.insertByName("MySheet", Sheet)
End If
The hasByName, getByName and insertByName methods are obtained from the
com.sun.star.container.XNameContainer interface as described in Introduction to the API.
The interface com.sun.star.sheet.Spreadsheets provides a better method to create a new sheet:
insertNewByName. It inserts a new sheet with the name specified by the first argument, at the position specified
by the second argument.
Dim Doc As Object
Doc = ThisComponent
Doc.Sheets.insertNewByName("OtherSheet", 2)
92 OpenOffice.org 3.2 BASIC Guide · March 2010