Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

The graphic is much bigger than this, but to keep it simple I'll describe it this way.

Suppose you used the rectangle making tool to make one black rectangle that covered 9 cells, (cells A1-A3, cells B1-B3 and cells C1-C3).

Is there any possible way to make cell B2 (the one in the middle), show up as a regular white cell that shows whatever has been placed in it, even though the black rectangle graphic covers this cell?

I ask this because I need to make some graphics on a spreadsheet that have some changeable information in them that need to go into a cell that has to be displayed. I know I can put a number of graphics all around the cell but thats pretty difficult, time consuming, impractible, and likely won't look as good as one simple, easy up-down-and done graphic.

Can it be done and if so how?

It is fairly easy, though not super quick, to draw a rectangle with a hole of the desired size in the middle using the Draw application of OpenOffice. You can then copy the shape into your Calc document. I hardly ever use Draw, so there may be an easier way to make this shape.
Note the width of your columns and the height of your rows with the menus Format -> Column -> Width and Format -> Row -> Height. My columns are 0.89 wide and my rows are 0.18 tall, so I will use those numbers. Three columns span 2.67 and three rows span 0.54.
Open a new Draw file and draw a rectangle of any size. Right click on it and select Position and Size. On the Position and Size tab set the width to 2.67 and the height to 0.54. Note the Position X and Position Y values. I will call these X1 and Y1.
You may want to adjust the Zoom to have the rectangle conveniently sized on the screen.
Draw another rectangle. Set its size to a width of 0.89 and a height of 0.18. Set its Position X to X1 + 0.89 and its Position Y to Y1 + 0.18.
You will now have two nested rectangles with the smaller one centered.
Select the combined shape by clicking and dragging an area that completely contains the shape. Right click and select Shapes -> Subtract.
You now have a rectangle with a hole in the middle. Copy the shape, paste it into your Calc file and position it where you need it.

I would be tempted to approximate the effect of placing a shape over the cells by turning off Calc's grid and coloring the background of the appropriate cells black.

Thanks for the help, that solved it. Except for one little thing.

I turned the rectangle in the middle to white but the cell didn't show underneath it. Maybe I missed this in the instructions, but I then clicked the icon that sends the selected object to the background and that did it. The graphic was there with cell showing in the middle of it.

Just what I was looking for!