Re: [libreoffice-users] Formatting in LO spreadsheet

Brian,

thank you for your answer.

Indeed when I look at the formatting after saving and reopening the file, the formatting changed 
from #0,00# to #0,000 .

All predefined number formats are saved, and restored upon reopening. If I define a user-defined 
format, it is all over sudden not saved...
Also, if I save in MS .xlsx format it comes up fine in both MS-Excel (Excel for Mac 2011, V14.0.0 
(100825)). If I open that file with LO it has also my defined formatting still available.

Regardless what the technical cause is for this, it is at least user unfriendly??
Questions to be asked:
- What use has a user defined number format, if it can't be saved? 
- If this is indeed a restriction in the ODF definition, why is LO not warning like "The defined 
format can not be saved in the desired file format"?
- Why does LO consider the format change a change in the first place? (If I open the file, change 
the format as I like it, it is considered changed, while the file stays exactly the same)
- Should we consider this as a flaw in de ODF definitions? Where can we complain about this?

So, in my opinion LO behaves inconsequent at least!

Best,

Rob.



Op 29 jun. 2014, om 10:39 heeft Brian Barker het volgende geschreven:

> At 19:42 28/06/2014 +0200, Rob Jasper wrote:
> > I have a calc spreadsheet (.ods) ...
> > So I select the columns and change the formatting to #.##0,00#
> > This works as expected. Above values are still displayed as before, but values 0,125 (for 12 and 
> > a half cents) are displayed with 3 digits.
> > Here is an example before save/reopen:
> > [...]
> > 2       1852    ƒ       0,10    0,005
> > 4       1864    ƒ       0,125   0,05
> >
> > If I now save and close the spreadsheet, and open it again all values are all of a sudden 
> > displayed with 3 digits behind the decimal comma! This is what it becomes when I open the file:
> >
> > 2       1852    ƒ       0,100   0,005
> > 4       1864    ƒ       0,125   0,050
> >
> > Is this bad behavior of LO calc or am I missing something here?
>
> What you don't tell us is what the formatting looks like after you reopen the document. I suspect 
> it will have changed from #.##0,00# to #.##0,000 . In other words, Calc is accepting your 
> original formatting and faithfully displaying the values as you wish, but is not managing to 
> preserve this requirement in the saved document.
>
> The definition of ODF says that the format code is "a sequence of characters with an 
> implementation-defined meaning", so clearly it cannot be saved in the document file exactly as 
> you enter and see it. A bit of experimentation suggests that instead, an explanation of the 
> format is included in the "styles" element, and this allows only such things as "decimal-places", 
> "grouping" (whether you want the thousands separator), "currency-symbol", "min-exponent-digits", 
> and so on. This would suggest that your desired format, although acted upon by Calc, indeed 
> cannot be saved in an .ods file and is lost when you attempt this.
>
> The only remaining odd thing is that the help text suggests that "#.0#" will display "13 as 13.0 
> and 1234.567 as 1234.57" - which is exactly the functionality you require. Whilst this is true in 
> the application, it's evidently not possible to preserve it in a saved document.
>
> An obvious workaround is to create text values in a new column, using =TEXT(Xn;"#.##0,00#") - 
> which you can then right-align if you prefer. You can continue to use the actual numerical values 
> in calculations, whilst hiding that column if you prefer. If you need to enter values in the 
> numerical column, an alternative technique would be to have another area - perhaps on another 
> sheet - where a copy with properly formatted values was created. You could then print just that 
> area or sheet.
>
> I trust this helps.
>
> Brian Barker
>
>
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