to reproduce this problem in Calc select two non adjaicent cells (for example a1 and c1) and press Ctrl-F3. Appears dialog Define Names. It allows only one selection and not allows multiple selection. But in Help of Calc written: Name Enter the name of the area for which you want to define a reference. All area names already defined in the spreadsheet are listed in the text field below. If you click a name on the list, the corresponding reference in the document will be shown with a blue frame. If multiple cell ranges belong to the same area name, they are displayed with different colored frames. ---end of citate--- In last sentence written that in should work with multiple selection. In manual for OpenOffice 2.0 allso writen that it should work. As I can understand, this function was temporarily removed while transition from OpenOffice 2.4 to 3.0 and was never returned. In MS Excel 2003 this function forks for multiple selections. And when we open xls file with saved Named multiple selection, it losts. produced on Mandriva 64 bit and windows XP 32 bit on LibreOffice 3.3.1.2 and 3.3.2.1rc1 do not cunfuse this function with Data->Define range. It is different.
>If multiple cell ranges belong to the same area name, they are displayed with different colored frames. This does not mean that a named range can support disjointed range. It doesn't. What it means is that when the named range, which can be a formula expression, contains multiple references, it should highlight all referenced ranges which can be more than 1. E.g. A1+A3+A6 is supported in named range, and it contains 3 disjoint references, but A1;A3;A5 (or A1,A3,A5 depending on your locale) is not a valid named range. The help is not entirely wrong, but it needs to show some examples to clear any ambiguity.
This is a documentation issue.
Thanks for explanation
[This is an automated message.] This bug was filed before the changes to Bugzilla on 2011-10-16. Thus it started right out as NEW without ever being explicitly confirmed. The bug is changed to state NEEDINFO for this reason. To move this bug from NEEDINFO back to NEW please check if the bug still persists with the 3.5.0 beta1 or beta2 prereleases. Details on how to test the 3.5.0 beta1 can be found at: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugHunting_Session_3.5.0.-1 more detail on this bulk operation: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/RFC-Operation-Spamzilla-tp3607474p3607474.html
reproducible on LibO 3.5.0 beta 1 I transform this bugreport to feature request
Created attachment 55044 [details] screenshot of multiple cells (In reply to comment #1) > > A1+A3+A6 > > is supported in named range, and it contains 3 disjoint references, but > > A1;A3;A5 (or A1,A3,A5 depending on your locale) > > is not a valid named range. I disagree (in part) with this. (A1;A3;A5) or A1~A3~A5 or (A1:A3;B5:B7) are valid named range. They cannot be defined with mouse but entered manualy. You can also use multiple cells range in formula (excepted array formula)
This is behaving as it's intended to be as it's already been explained. You can only do contiguous cells for naming ranges. I don't see a reason why you'd ever want to name non contiguous cells under one name. There is documentation issues which I will take care of to make it more clear. I'm going to mark this as NOTABUG. If there is a compelling reason why we'd want to allow naming non contiguous cells please post (as far as I read into what was posted, there was no why, just a comment that documentation isn't quite clear). Thanks for the post
Reading it again it actually isn't even bad documentation. It's just saying that if completely different cell ranges have the same name, they are different colors. If I'm not mistaken, that's exactly what your jpeg shows. If this isn't the case please upload an actual document that I can see what you mean. I've never used names before but on second glance I think it's working as intended and that documentation is fine.
> If there is a compelling reason why we'd want to allow naming non > contiguous cells please post I can find only one reason: opening documents from msExcel. But nobody complains about incorrect opening. So, let we wait if somebody will complain about incorrect opening, and then will think what to do. May be it is so rare used functionality of msExcel, that nobody uses it.
This may be rarely used but I recently was trying to accomplish this for over an hour before I found this bug and determined it was not possible. I would really appreciate it if this feature was supported.
Here's an example of what I'd like it for: I have a spreadsheet I use to record workout data. Part of that data includes split times; a given workout may have multiple splits (my spreadsheet allows up to 9 split times/distances/pace per workout). I'd prefer to group them as D1,T1,P1,D2,T2,P2... rather than D1,D2...T1,T2...P1,P2... But I'd like to be able to easily perform operations on all distances and times easily. Part of this involves plotting the results. I'm aware that I can use a1:a100;d1:d100;g1:g100... in a chart, but it's easier to manipulate as a range.
Re-qualifying to a Calc enhancement issue, not Documentation
*** Bug 158859 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Select the ranges A2:A3 and C3:C4 Write a name for it, the error is: "The selection needs to be rectangular in order to name it." Use the menu Sheet - Named Ranges and Expressions - Define Name: joined Range or formula expression: $Sheet1.$A$2:$A$3~$Sheet1.$C$3:$C$4 Push button OK. It works. We expect that, automatically, by giving a name to a discontinuous range the Calc program will create the name and join the different ranges with the combine sign: ~