MySQL staffer, Roland Bouman has written this post on how to get OpenOffice to work with a MySQL datasource, complete with screenshots. Until I read this, I was struggling; five minutes later, I was in business, hooked in using MySQL Connector/J. (Whilst there is an ODBC implementation available for Unix, it is generally easier to use this Java (JDBC) version.)
I can now use OpenOffice Calc to graph and present my data (body temperature records that I am keeping for my doctor), but let MySQL take on the burden of storing and querying that data - something that was slowing this particular spreadsheet down, due to the volume of data and number of graphs used. Well done, Roland.
Published Monday, 19th March 2007.
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