International Business Machines Corporation

Albert Harari

Frederic J Bauchot

Catherine Soler

Yves-Nicolas Etorre

Daniel Mauduit

Benoit Sirot

Fr&eacute;deric Bauchot

System and program product are provided for facilitating on-line help information in an office application which includes one or more objects. The on-line help information is dependent on content of a selected object of the office application. A user of the office application is provided with help information setting forth an example directly derived from content of the currently selected object or cell. Content of a user entry field within the object is parsed to determine whether a predefined keyword is present, and if so, at least one parameter associated with the keyword and at least one format or rule related to the at least one parameter are identified. The at least one format and rule specified in the help information are employed in correcting content of the user entry field, for example, for display to the user.

System in an office application for providing content dependent help information

Method, system and program product for providing on-line help information in an office application which includes one or more objects. The on-line help information is dependent on content of a selected object of the office application. A user of the office application is provided with help information setting forth an example directly derived from content of a currently selected object or cell. Content of a user entry field within the object is parsed to determine whether a predefined keyword is present, and if so, at least one parameter associated with the keyword and at least one format or rule related to the at least one parameter are identified. The at least one format and rule specified in the help information are employed in correcting content of the user entry field, for example, for display to the user.

Method and system in an office application for providing content dependent help information

In an electronic spreadsheet, an example of a solution provided here comprises defining boolean variables in a table, referencing the boolean variables in one or more cells, and determining the content of the cells. Such a solution may involve managing the boolean variables (also referred to as options) by creating a new option, renaming an existing option, or changing the status of an existing option, for example.

Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for managing and handling user-defined options

An example of a solution provided here comprises defining one or more combinations of options, defining an operation to execute (e.g. copy and paste, or cut and paste), computing the content of each cell within the source cell range according to the options, creating a version instance of the destination cell range, and copying the source range of cells into the version instance. Each of the options is defined as a boolean variable, which can be set as 'True' or 'False,' and impact the content of a cell within an electronic spreadsheet.

Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for handling user-defined options in a copy/cut&#x2014;paste operation

In an electronic spreadsheet, if an absolute cell or absolute cell range reference does not comprise the same information in a source environment and in a destination environment, errors may occur. Therefore, a buffer is created for temporarily storing a source cell range. Any material in the buffer not needed, is cleared. Any absolute reference content remaining that points to a source cell range, has a relative position within the source cell range determined. Then, a corresponding absolute reference within the destination cell range is determined. Prior to copying the buffer content into corresponding cells within a destination cell range, each absolute reference pointing to a source is replaced by a corresponding absolute reference with the destination cell range.

Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for handling absolute references in a copy/cut and paste operation according to different modes

Some &ldquo;summary&rdquo; information in a cell named range is preserved when some spreadsheet elements rows, columns, or pages are added or removed from the cell named range. A range summary cell is defined by specifying in a table a range summary cell address. A range summary cell address is updated in the table according to the updated cell range address, and the range summary cell is moved according to the updated range summary cell address. The cell range address is updated in the table after the addition or the deletion of the spreadsheet element, and the range summary cell address is updated in the table according to the updated cell range address.

Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for adding or removing elements from a cell named range according to different modes

A named range defined by a cell address range in a spreadsheet comprises a plurality of cells identified in each dimension by an address, each dimension comprising two directions. An open named range is specifyed to the named range in at least one open direction. A hidden named range with the cell address range of the open named range is expanded by one address in every direction specified as open. In response to user action, at least one direction is selected, the cell address range of the hidden named range is increased by inserting between two consecutive cell addresses, a new address in selected directions, the open named range is updated with the cell address range of the hidden named range shortened by one address in every direction specified as open.

Method and system in an electronic spreadsheet for introducing new elements in a cell named range according to different modes

The present invention relates to the field of information processing by digital computers and, more particularly, to a method and system, in an electronic spreadsheet, for easily swapping the protection mode of a cell between a protected mode and an unprotected mode, while preserving the mathematical formulas used in the protected mode The electronic spreadsheet includes a cell content manager with an interface for handling the content of user specified cells according to the read-only, protected mode where a cell is usually filled by a formula, and the read-write, unprotected mode with a free update of the cell by the spreadsheet user. Preferred display methodology is also described for representing the current mode of a given cell.

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Nice, France

Albert Harari