Talk:Documentation/Calc Functions/OFFSET

SF Comments

 * (1) Summary. Suggest relacing with the following text – “Determines a modified reference, given an initial starting point, row/column offsets, and desired height/width dimensions.”.
 * (2) Returns. The function returns a reference not content. Hence, suggest replacing with the following text – “Returns a modified reference to a cell or range of cells, for the given arguments.”
 * (3) Arguments, Reference. I am not aware that this function does any “searching”. Suggest the following re-word “Reference is a cell reference, a reference to a cell range, or the name of a named range or database range. It provides the starting point for OFFSET to construct a modified reference based on the values of other arguments.”
 * (4) Arguments, Rows. Suggest replacing with the following – “Rows is an integer value or a reference to the cell containing that value, which specifies the number of rows to be offset from the starting reference. A negative value offsets up, a positive value offsets down, and 0 uses the same row”.
 * (5) Arguments, Columns. Suggest replacing with the following – “Columns is an integer value or a reference to the cell containing that value, which specifies the number of columns to be offset from the starting reference. A negative value offsets left, a positive value offsets right, and 0 uses the same column”.
 * (6) Arguments, Height. Suggest replacing with the following – “Height is a positive integer value or a reference to the cell containing that value, which specifies the total number of rows required in the modified reference”.
 * (7) Arguments, Width. Suggest replacing with the following – “Width is a positive integer value or a reference to the cell containing that value, which specifies the total number of columns required in the modified reference”.
 * (8) Arguments, final paragraph, and bullet. Please delete (to be replaced by following points).
 * (9) Arguments, new bullet. Bullet needed to explain what happens if non-integer values are passed for any of the four arguments other than Reference.
 * (10) Arguments, new bullet. Bullet needed to explain that an error is returned if Height or Width is not a positive value.
 * (11) Arguments, new bullet. Bullet needed to state that OFFSET returns an error if the modified reference implied by the arguments would lie fully or partially outside the sheet area.
 * (12) Arguments, new bullet. Bullet needed to state that if Height or Width is omitted, the modified reference will have the same dimensions as Reference.
 * (13) Arguments, new bullet. If Reference is a named range which comprises multiple cell ranges, an error is returned.
 * (14) Additional details. I do not believe that either sentence is true and so this bullet would be best deleted.
 * (15) Additional details. Somewhere we should state that OFFSET is a volatile function.
 * (16) Examples, general. As it is mentioned in the ODF, please include an example of the following form: =OFFSET(A1;0;0; ;6).
 * (17) Examples, 1st example. Please re-word description as “The OFFSET function returns a reference to cell C3 (starting at A1, offset two rows down and two columns right)”.
 * (18) Example, 2nd example. Please re-word description as “The OFFSET function returns a reference to the cell range C3:D4 (starting with B2:C3, offset one row down and one column right). The given formula sums the values in the returned range.”.
 * (19) Example, 3rd example. Should the formula include a call to the SUM function?
 * (20) Example, 4th example. The formula should include {} brackets. Please re-word description as “The OFFSET function returns a reference to the cell range B2:E4 (starting with B2:C3, no offsets are applied but height changed to three rows and width changed to 4 columns)”.
 * (21) Example, 5th example. Please re-word description as “The OFFSET function returns a reference to the cell range C3:H7 (starting with A1, offset two rows down and two columns right, change area to five rows high and six columns wide). The given formula sums the values in the returned range.”
 * (22) Example, 6th example. Change “existant” to “existent”. Return in my version of Calc is Err:502, not #REF!