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

2016-08-26 18:10 GMT+02:00 Brian Barker <b.m.barker@btinternet.com>:

> 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

​The point, as I understood it, Brian, was that a means to automatically
turn off the autoformatting feature in the spreadsheets in MS Office,
LibreOffice, and Apache OpenOffice, which could be useful to many users,
particularly those writing scientific papers in which the confusion
described in the article, is lacking. Note also that Google Sheets seems to
be able to provide such a means....

To imply, as you seem to do above, that users are simply careless in their
use of these tools is, to my mind, both false and ungenerous...

Henri​

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