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Welcome to the Spoken tutorial on LibreOffice Base.

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In this tutorial on Complex Forms, we will learn about

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* Building a complex form

 And modifying the form

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In the previous tutorial, we learnt how to enter data using forms and how to modify a form using LibreOffice Base.

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In this tutorial, let us learn about building a complex form.

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Let us first invoke the LibreOffice Base program, if it's not already open

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And open our Library database.

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If Base is already open, then we can open the Library database from here by clicking Open under File menu

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or by clicking Recent Documents under File menu

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Let us design a new form that will help us track the books, issued to the Library members.

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Let us see how we can design this form as shown in the screen image.

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Let us go to the LibreOffice Base main window, and click on the Forms icon in the Database list on the left panel

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And then click on 'Use Wizard to create form'.

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This opens the Forms window and the now familiar wizard on top.

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We have already gone through this wizard in detail, so we will proceed quickly with it now.

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In Step 1, Field Selection, let us choose 'Tables:BooksIssued' from the drop down box beneath the label that says Tables or queries.

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Let us move all the fields from the left to the right, by using the double arrow button. <pause>

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Let's click on Next.

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This is Step 2, but we will skip this step for now, and click on the next button at the bottom.

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We are in step 5 now. Let us choose the first arrangement 'Columnar – Labels Left' and click on the Next button.

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Let us skip Step 6 also by clicking on the Next button

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Step 7, let us choose Ice blue, and
click on the Next button

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In step 8, let's name the form as 'Books Issued to Members'  <pause>

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and click on the 'Modify the form' option.

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Next click on the Finish button.

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Notice that the wizard popup window is gone and we are looking at the form design window.

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Here, we are going to make some modifications before we use the form for data entry.

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Let us first Ungroup all the elements we see on the form.

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We are doing this so that we can edit the properties of individual elements on the form easily.

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To ungroup all the form elements in one shot, we need to first select all the form elements.

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To do this, let us first open up the Form Design toolbar

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by clicking on the View menu at the top, then click on Toolbars and then click on Form Design.

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In this toolbar, let us click once on the mouse pointer icon which is the first and the leftmost icon.

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We will call this as the Select icon from now on.

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This is used for selecting form elements by clicking and dragging.

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Now, let us click on the top left of the form and drag it diagonally to the bottom right.

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You will now see a rectangle with alternating black and white lines.

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Let’s make sure, all the form elements are inside this rectangle.

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We will use this way repeatedly, to select groups of form elements.

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Now we see that all these elements are encased in small green boxes.

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Now whatever action we do here, will affect all the elements inside this area, uniformly.

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Now let us move the mouse pointer on any label here,

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Notice that the mouse pointer looks like a plus sign over labels and text boxes.

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So let us right click over a label and click on Group at the bottom and click on 'Ungroup'.

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Let us now type a heading that will sit above all the form elements.

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For this, let us push down the form elements and then centre them within the form.

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So first let us press the down arrow key about seven times.

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Then press the right arrow key about 14 times.

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Notice that this moves all the selected form elements towards the right and the centre of the form.

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Now let us bring the cursor to where we need to type the heading.

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To do this, let us click on the top left of the form window area,

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And press the enter key twice,

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Then press the tab key four times and then type 'Form to track Books Issued to Members'.

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Now as we click on the individual labels and text boxes, we see that these elements are selected or highlighted individually.

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Okay, next, let us rename the BookId and MemberId labels on the form.

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We can do this, by double clicking on BookId label, which opens up the now familiar Properties window.

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Against label, type in Book Title.

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Now let us click on the MemberId label on the form.

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Notice that the Properties window has refreshed and again here, we will type in 'Member Name' against Label.

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As we press the tab key, we will notice the new label changes on the form.

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Next, let us change the font sizes of these elements now.

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Again let us select all the elements.

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We will use the click, drag and drop method.

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And now, we will double click on any label which in turn will open the Properties window.

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Let us scroll down to find Font and click on the square button on its right.

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In the new popup window, let us click on Bold and click on size 8,

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And let us click on the Ok button.

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Notice that the font has changed to Bold and size 8 across the form now.

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Next, let us move all the form elements to the centre of the window.

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For this, we will select all the elements.

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Now let us click and drag on any label, toward the centre of the form design window.

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Now let us, save the form.

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And close this window.
To see how our form looks like now.

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let us go to the Base main window, and double click on the 'Books Issued to Members' form on the right panel.

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This opens the form which is ready for data entry use.

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Now, in this form, we see some sample data.

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And against book title and member name, we see some numbers,

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Which are really primary numbers in the Books and Members table, but not very friendly values.

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Which would you like to see real names and book titles.

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And, how do we do this?

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One way is to add a form control called List box.

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We will see how to add and use a list box and other form controls in the next tutorial.

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This brings us to the end of this tutorial on Complex Forms in LibreOffice Base

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To summarize, we learned about:

 Building a complex form and

 Modifying the form

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Spoken Tutorial Project is a part of the Talk to a Teacher project, supported by the National Mission on Education through ICT, MHRD, Government of India. This project is co-ordinated by http://spoken-tutorial.org. More information on the same is available at the following link.

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This Script has been contributed by Priya Suresh, DesiCrew Solutions.
And this is Soundharya, DesiCrew Solutions, signing off.
Thanks for joining