A huge (seemingly growing) amount spreadsheet related questions comes from the fact that today's spreadsheet users do not understand the difference between value and number format. Regarding the values, they do not understand the difference between text values and numeric values since a text may look like a number and a number may look like a text. Regarding the number formats, they do not understand that number formats don't apply to text and that no formatting attribute must ever change a cell value (no color, no font, no border, number format neither). But the difference between number and text is very clear and it's fundamental and it did not change since the days of "Visicalc" and "1-2-3". It determines each and every feature in the whole spreadsheet application.
In this case we read a lot about the number format while missing the simple information if it is number or text. Talking about numbers, removing formatting attributes alltogether reveals all problems since you see the actual numerically sorted cell values (alleged day numbers in this particular case). The number format has no influence on sorting nor formula result other than hiding some info behind the numeric cell values. Talking about text, we can use the user defined sort lists to override alphabetical sorting. Again, no formatting attribute has any influence on the sort order. A number format does not even change the appearance of a text value. -- View this message in context: http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/calc-sort-tp3639739p3644320.html Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
