Re: [libreoffice-users] Overly aggressive autoformatting issues in LibreOffice

At 16:13 26/08/2016 +0200, M Henri Day wrote:
> This *Wapo* article ( 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/26/an-alarming-number-of-scientific-papers-contain-excel-errors/ 
> ) - while dealing more specifically with Microsoft's Excel, should, 
> as noted in the next-to-last paragraph, give even LibreOffice 
> developers pause. If the claim that LibreOffice behaves like 
> Microsoft Office in this particular respect is indeed true, then I 
> submit that some attention should be devoted to making turning off 
> autoformatting in Calc easier for users...

Surely some of the first things to understand about spreadsheets are that
o Each cell is formatted in some way,
o Data entered into cells may automatically be edited, and
o In the absence of explicit cell formatting by the user, entering 
data may also (invisibly) set the cell format.

If you drive your car into a lamppost or a brick wall, do you call 
this a vehicle manufacturing error or admit that not having learned 
to use the brake pedal puts the blame on you? Any spreadsheet user 
entering "MARCH1" and seeing it instantly converted to 01/03/01 (or 
perhaps 03/01/01) who doesn't immediately wake up to the problem with 
their own skills doesn't deserve the label "researcher". 
(Incidentally, I think LibreOffice will not interfere with "SEPT2" 
but would with "SEP2".)

Anyone creating a spreadsheet containing gene (or other) names needs 
to format the appropriate columns as Text before entering data. If 
they don't carry this out, they should expect confusing results.

It is certainly true that spreadsheets are a particularly fragile 
method of handing data and need to be used with care. Their apparent 
ease of use is deceptive: users do indeed need to be aware of proper 
techniques before being let loose on an application. They should also 
be aware of the consequences of published spreadsheets being moved 
between locales and to system with different settings - for example, 
date origins. It's not clear to me whether by "supplemental files" 
the author means spreadsheet documents themselves or just material 
originally entered into spreadsheets. Doesn't the fragility mean that 
spreadsheet documents are unsuitable for publication in this fashion 
and that researchers should know to fossilize material, perhaps as 
PDF, for publication? Any reader who wants to develop the material 
can contact the author for a copy of the original spreadsheet 
document; it is then up to them to be aware of the portability issues.

I took my new umbrella out with me the other day but it failed to 
protect me from the rain. I complained about this failing to the 
manufacturer, who suggested that just taking it with me was not 
sufficient and that I needed to unfurl it and hold it above my head. 
Worse than that, they had the effrontery to suggest that I should 
have known this!

Brian Barker  


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