At 23:08 10/10/2007 -0700, Al Hodges wrote:
Percentage Error
This is not an error, in fact.
This should be fixed, as it is identical to the error in Microsoft's Excel.
I'm pleased to hear that Excel gets it right as well!
The error is simple:
In both Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice Calc, there is a fault in
handling percentage.
Enter 5, then enter % from tool bar; result is 5%
Enter 0.5, then enter % from tool bar; result is 50%,
but I wanted to have 1/2 of 1% as the number in the location.
This is not true. If you enter 5 and then use the % button in the
Formatting toolbar, you get 500%, which is at least consistent.
You are misunderstanding the function of the % button. It applies
percentage *formatting* to the cell in question, but does not change
the value in the cell. So 1 will display as 100%, 5 will display as
500%, 0.5 will display as 50%, and so on. These are all correct. If
you want to enter 0.5% in this way, you need to enter the value
(correctly) as 0.005, and then apply the Percent formatting using the % button.
But if you want to enter percentages, you should be doing it a
different way. Type "5%" into a cell and you get what you type: the
value stored is 0.05, but the display is "5%" in Percent format. To
get your half of one percent, type "0.5%": the value stored will be
0.005 and the display will be "0.5%" in Percent format.
In short, using the % button does not change the cell value but
merely applies Percent display format. Typing "%" as part of the
value has two effects: the value is interpreted as a percentage (in
other words, at one hundredth of the value) and the cell format is
set to Percent.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
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