unfortunately formatting as text prevents me from using functions to do any calculations. It is not a real solution to the problem and does not help at all with the automatic alteration of entered text
________________________________ From: Andrew Douglas Pitonyak <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: kieth lovell <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, 6 January 2013, 23:36 Subject: Re: (old) New feature/option to prevent autodata alterations in calc Remember, that anything that begins as a number, Calc tries to interpret as a number rather than text. For most users, this is exactly what you want most of the time. For a few unlucky people (like you), their average use case is different than others, and you do not want that. It is odd that you can turn this stuff off in a text table, but I am unsure how to do so in a Calc document unless........ Read this, it will give you some ideas. http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=57276 Sounds like setting the default style to be text will solve your problems; maybe. On 01/06/2013 11:56 PM, kieth lovell wrote: > My name is kiet lovell, > I am an serial small scale entrepeneur, and I like to do my business plans > (as well as everything else) in spreadsheets. > > For years I have suffered as > 1. numbers are turned to dates > > 2. phone numbers are altered > > 3. lower case data is changed to identical higher case data (eg: data to > DATA(when DATA is a separate piece of data that i typed than the lower case)) > > 4. If I type Scone then i can not write s, sc, sco, or scon in the same > field without my data being altered to the full word scone. > > > There is no solution to this in the options for calc. > Please do not reference selecting every cell as text or another type of data > as it only stops certain types of alterations. > > What needs to be done is that there needs to be an option to turn off all > autodata transformations. > > It should be in tools>options>openoffice.org calc>general>input settings > > Thank you in advance > Kiet Lovell > > The important part of the message is the piece above, the following are just > my views/or justifications. > > I am sending this to the development mailing group as this issue has been > complained about by at least hundreds of users for several years without > solution. > > > If you do not think it is a big problem then please google any of the > following phrases: > > Office keeps changing numbers to dates > Turn off autodata in calc > Prevent openoffice changing my data > etc. > > I have spent weeks of my life trying to fix this problem to no avail. > The only way i can use calc is to change the data such as putting letters > with phone numbers and when unable to input the correct data, by inputting > slightly wrong data so that it isn't changed to a different value. > > Almost all users of calc use it for home finance or education or business > purposes, and all of these can be badly affected by unsanctioned changes to > data. > > Microsoft office in it's latest reincarnation is unusable for a professional > and libre office has the same problem as openoffice. > > If you the developers of open office cannot fix this then i will either: > * continue to suffer in relative silence > or less likely > * spend 6 months learning to program and produce my own software that i > will charge for. > or probably > > * downgrade to an efficient OS like windows 3.1 when computers were made > for saving time and money, not costing you it -- Andrew Pitonyak My Macro Document: http://www.pitonyak.org/AndrewMacro.odt Info: http://www.pitonyak.org/oo.php
