Introduction to Libre Office Base

☞ It is free and an open source software.

☞ You can download it from www.libreoffice.org

☞ It refers to the type of data that will be stored in that particular field.

☞ The memory size of a field varies according to its data type.

☞ Data type - numeric, text, binary, boolean, date, currency.

☞ Text Data Type :

• It is a combination of letters, numbers or special characters.
• No arithmetic calculations can be performed on text data.
• Examples : PAN card number, name, marks etc.
• The following are the text data types :

  DATA TYPE	DESCRIPTION
  LONGVARCHAR	Stores up to maximum length i.e. 64000 characters
  CHAR	Stores exactly the length specified by the user i.e. fixed length
  VARCHAR	Stores up to the specified length i.e. number of bytes allocated depends on the number of characters entered by the user.

☞ Numeric Data Type :

• It consists of numbers.
• Numbers can be integer or real numbers.
• Any type of arithmetic calculations can be performed.
• Examples : -34.6, 56, 43 etc
• The following are the numeric data types :

  DATA TYPE	SIGNED	RANGE
  TINYINT	NO	0 to 255
  SMALLINT	YES	-32768 to 32768
  INTEGER	YES	-2.14 x 109 to 2.14 x 109
  BIGINT	YES	-2.3 x 1018 to 2.3 x 1018
  NUMERIC	YES	Unlimited
  DECIMAL	YES	Unlimited
  REAL	YES	5 x 10-324 to 1.79 x 10308

☞ Currency Data Type :

• It indicates the monetary values.
• It can be stored using currencies of various countries.
• Examples : $100, Rs 25.

☞ Date Data Type :

• It is used to indicate date and time.
• Example : 23/12/2025, 09:25 PM.
• These are of three types :

☞ Boolean Data Type :

• It indicates true/false, Yes/No.

☞ Binary Data Type :

• It is used to store digitised images and sounds that come as long strings of zeros and ones .
• Examples : photos of products, sounds of snippets or voice messages.