Comment 3 for bug 240895

The issue exists in OpenOffice 2.4.

It is one of the features in OpenOffice 3:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html#1024_Columns_Per_Calc_Sheet_.28Instead_of_256.29

If you want, you can try using OpenOffice 3 release candidates from here:
http://download.openoffice.org/680/?intcmp=1461
however, it is not recommended for production systems...

Otherwise, you should just wait (version 3 should be out in autumn I think)