Q:

Dynamic(ish) picture in cells in open office

In my OO spreadsheet I have a bunch of cells with just a picture in them, which I got from Insert->Picture->From File.  So far so good.  But now I want to swap the image file on the hard drive, and the next time I open the OO document, it will show the new image.  Instead, it is caching the image internally, and swapping the file does nothing.  Thx.

A:

Linking an image file

To create a link to the file containing the image instead of saving a copy of the image in the Calc document, use the Insert picture dialog and select the Link option. The image is then displayed in the document, but when the document is saved, it contains only a reference to the image file¿not the image itself. The document and the image remain as two separate files, and they are merged temporarily only when you open the document again.
Linking an image has two advantages and one disadvantage:
Advantage – Linking can reduce the size of the document when it is saved, because the image file itself is not included. The file size is usually not a problem on a modern computer with a reasonable amount of memory, unless the document includes many large graphics files. Calc can handle quite large files.
Advantage – You can modify the image file separately without changing the 
  document because the link to the file remains valid, and the modified image will appear when you next open the document. This can be a big advantage if you (or someone else, perhaps, a graphic artist) is updating images.
Disadvantage – If you send the document to someone else, or move it to a different computer, you must also send the image files, or the receiver will not be able to see the linked images. You need to keep track of the location of the images and make sure the recipient knows where to put them on another machine, so the Calc document can find them. For example, you might keep images in a subfolder named Images (under the folder containing the Writer document); the recipient of the Calc file needs to put the images in a subfolder with the same name (under the folder containing the Writer document).

