Michael,
On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:23:43 -0700
Came this utterance formulated by Lew Merrick to my mailbox:
All,
Engineering data standards for metric values insist on (A) a leading
zero for all numbers with an absolute value less than 1, and (B) no
trailing zeros. It would be very "nice" if OpenOffice would support
such a formatting intrinsically. ???
The tradition for English/Imperial numeric values is that the number
of decimal places defines the nominal tolerance assigned to it. Thus,
a value expressed as X.XXX has a different meaning than one expressed
as X.XX or X.X. Further, American standard practice (and, I believe
-- but am not positive, British Standard practice) calls for no
leading zeros. Adherence to these standards helps avoid confusion in
a bi-dimensional world. The American standard defining this is
ASME/ANSI Y14.5.
All these are possible by manipulating the number format, as are less
common options like thousands seperators. The documentation is here:
http://documentation.openoffice.org/
I'd reply with more precise instructions but you have not said if you
are try to apply these to Calc or Writer. For instance in Calc look to
Format - Cells in the menu. There is no such menu item in Writer.
The primary "issue" for me is with Writer. Spreadsheets are rarely
submitted where such distinctions matter. There is a Table, Number
format option in Writer, but it only allows you to specify: leading
zeros or not, decimal places presented, thousands separator, and
negative numbers in red. The format options in Calc have the same
limitations.
The "it would be funny if not if..." thing here is that the two primary
high-end CAD packages (Catia and ProEngineer) are also deficient in this
manner. Catia was originally written by the French and IT does not
comply with the standards. As I said in my other reply, it is sometimes
entertaining to watch when submissions are "bounced" for not complying
with the standards. It would be more than somewhat humorous if
OpenOffice became the first program set to comply with the standards.
.
Lew
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