On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:09:10 -0600, "Peter Kupfer OOo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > John Kane wrote: > > I am not quite sure how to suggest a change to Getting Started with Calc > > as it is a published chapter and I would like some comments on my > > proposed wording. Therefore I am posting it here and also providing a > > PDF file at http://www.mytempdir.com/322536 since my attempt to send it > > as a formated html message was a fiasco > > I didn't follow the whole conversation closely, but do we know that the > behavior is as expected, or should an error be filed first?
The behavour is clearly not as expected or, at least, as described. Below is a quote from the Calc Help --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can format numbers as text in OpenOffice.org Calc. Open the context menu of a cell or range of cells and choose Format Cells - Numbers, then select "Text" from the Category list. Any numbers subsequently entered into the formatted range are interpreted as text. The display of these "numbers" is left-justified, just as with other text. TIP When numbers are formatted as text, they cannot be used in calculations or formulas. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately, this is not true. In some cases text can be used in formulae and will return an wrong numerical value with no warning. If you put cat in A1 and dog in B1 then if C1 = A1 * B then C1 = 0. However if A1=5 and B1 = foo then if C1 = A1 + B1 then C1 = 5. I have registered an issue # 58903 which so far does not seem to be attracting much interest. It may be partly because other spread sheets (Excel and Quatro Pro) behave in a similar manner. This site gives some examples of the problem for Calc, Excel and Quatro Pro.http://www.mytempdir.com/322536 ----- John Kane Kingston ON Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] (613)888-2399 -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Email service worth paying for. Try it for free
