https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=170585

--- Comment #12 from ady <[email protected]> ---
(In reply to Piotr Osada from comment #11)

> This would not conflict with the use case you described (preserving
> carefully formatted cells), because enabling 'Detect scientific notation' is
> an explicit user action — it signals intent to treat the data as numbers.

If only every single user would pay attention to every single option, we would
see less reports :).

As for prioritizing the options selected on the Import Text dialog over
already-formatted cells, we have seen requests (towards any kind of direction
you could imagine). Most frequently, these requests (and complaints) are
related to dates, but not only. In too many cases, it is a matter of
understanding different formats and using Calc functions correctly (e.g. the
function requests for the argument to be Text, not a Date, or vice-versa,
or...).

We have seen suggestions about how some automatic detection should work, only
to find out that other users don't like the changes, breaking their workflow
that have been working for years. Some of these reports are still opened, after
changing what a simple ctrl+v does (or used to do, but not anymore). Moreover,
we have at least one case in which the first row is imported one way and the
rest is imported differently.

I tested pasting 3 rows of 1.23e-4 (and similar numbers) on cells that were not
previously formatted (i.e. "General" or "Standard"). The result is as expected.
I don't see problems such as loosing meaningful digits, or incorrect
formatting.

I should also point out that, under some circumstances, you could introduce a
number with scientific notation and the resulting display might be different;
that does not necessarily mean that you lost meaningful digits, as the way Calc
_displays_ the value is not the same as the value that was saved. The opposite
can also be true: a number could be displayed in scientific notation, and after
widening the column you might be able to see it as a simple number (i.e. not in
scientific notation). I have seen such things a lot.

IMO, the user could simply have the cells/columns formatted as "General"
("Standard") and import the numbers according to the Import Text dialog, so the
result is as expected (with the potential need to change the column width after
importing the data). If _that_ fails, then that's another issue.

As for eliminating the initial apostrophe when the data is imported as text and
you want to change the result, one way to deal with it is:

<https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/Calc/How_to_convert_number_text_to_numeric_data>
 

Other Faq/Calc items can be relevant too.

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