Hi and Thanks Andreas; On Wed, 2006-09-08 at 10:51 +0200, Andreas Saeger wrote: > William Case wrote: > > > > > My problem was caused by two fixable things: > > > > 1) Nowhere can I find reference to the need to use =N() in spite of the > > formatting as you suggested. In fact, examples of functions in Help > > look like Help is using ' or " to turn references into dateStrings (à la > > Bash). > > > Well, Help is minimalistic, but the function reference is quite well. It > just says what a simple function like N() or T() does and more complex > functions like DSUM,DMAX,... have examples. > A Calc-specific help, full of excellent examples:: > http://www.openofficetips.com
A great site -- I have Bookmarked it. It has already pointed me in the right direction on some conditional formatting problems I was going to try and solve today. One has to have a reason to look up N() or T() in order to see the explanation. > A cell-function can take and return only three types of data: strings, > numbers and errors. In particular there are no "date-values". > N() apllies no formatting at all, it returnes an unformatted number > while converting a string or error #NA to zero, like T() converts a > number to "" and anything else to an unformatted string. > A number (like the one returned by TODAY()) is *untouched*. > Unfortunately TODAY() and NOW() apply some magic formatting to an > unformatted cell. Yes, under these conditions formatting can be confusing. And -- I hate computer magic. What may be intuitive to one person, is incomprehensible to the next. For me, this problem could only be solved by a guess. I guessed wrongly. Looking up error code 502, for example, only made sense to me after reading your explanation. I understand that the program may not have enough information to be exact about an error return, but some short subsidiary possible explanations for the error code would have been helpful. At least give a new user a hint. > > 2) I tried to make experimental changes in the formulae in the formula > > window of the formula tool bar. As it turns out, OO Calc didn't effect > > these changes after Entering. However, when I later wiped out all my > > formulae and retyped the whole formula anew for each experiment in a > > cell , the changes where read quickly. Same when I started over using > > the Formula Wizard. > Can't reproduce this without an example. You may be fooled by formatting > again. > You are right, it was the formatting. As long as that was wrong, any re-calculation continued to show the same error code. I would like to try out three suggestions: 1) Include an explanation like the ones your have given me here and your previous message in Help, perhaps linked in the error code and the function Help page. 2) Set the 'What is this' Help cursor to look up error codes in Help when an error code appears in a cell. Perhaps links to longer explanations and/or examples in the Help error code chart could be added. 3) Have a caution and a link to your type of Help explanation appear in the Function Wizard when the appropriate function definitions appear at the top. If the above suggestions seem like overkill, it's because I spent a lot of frustrating time trying to solve this format problem. Only with your help did I finally get somewhere. Thanks again. -- Regards Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
