Using Calc for serious mathematics work

Alongside the word processor and presentation software, the spreadsheet forms the mainstay of business computing – and for good reason. Spreadsheets enable business users to do many tasks quickly that would otherwise require either several dedicated applications or coding. However, we’d like to propose that it does the spreadsheet a massive injustice to suggest this is the limit of its potential. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that it is also a very powerful tool for mathematical and scientific computing.

As a high-level scientific calculator it has so many uses. Here we’re just scratching the surface, but it could be used for quite complex calculations in science or engineering, and for trying out ideas in a range of scientific disciplines. A particular strength is graphics, so we can imagine it being used to show experimental results graphically – by students for use in projects and coursework, by teachers for use in handouts, by researchers for preparing illustrations for use in academic papers, and by scientific authors for use in books and articles.

Here we’ll be focusing on applications that have a graphic element, if for no other reason than it provides us with more attractive-looking screenshots. We’ve categorised this article as inspirational. By this, we mean that our aim here is to give you a better view of LibreOffice Calc’s potential for scientific use, even though, in some cases, our example workbooks aren’t particularly difficult to create. The chances are that your needs will be different from the requirements addressed by our examples, but we trust that once you’ve stared to see the humble spreadsheet in a new light, your creative juices will begin to flow.

This tutorial will be particularly useful for readers who don’t code, but