https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=173053
ady <[email protected]> changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|REOPENED |UNCONFIRMED Ever confirmed|1 |0 --- Comment #5 from ady <[email protected]> --- (In reply to simon from comment #3) > The answer from nutka misses the subtly of the issue. Also, I didn't claim > it was a bug, it was an enhancement request. > > When manually entering large volumes of data, going through the many mouse > clicks for each number to get it to display correctly is both time consuming > and brings a risk of error. In the context of this ticket, I disagree with the above paragraph. For instance, if you have a consistent number of significant decimals for each column of data that you import, you could set the (display) format for each column; you do not need to select each cell. The steps required to perform such action are not cumbersome, and the amount of decimals (to display) can be typed-in, so the "risk of error" is minimal for such hypothetical situation. Moreover, you could set a specific Cell Style (or even several) and then use that Style in order to modify the display format of specific group of cells (e.g. columns of data) accordingly. > > When importing values that have been automatically generated then the number > of decimal places are not obvious unless the original data is read in > another format. That paragraph is not clear (although I assume it is clear to you, but we cannot read minds). Whatever generates the data, you are supposed to know the number of decimal places that are significant / meaningful (i.e. the significant precision the data is supposed to have). Since we are talking about the number of decimal places to be displayed (and not about the calculations), you can set the Cell Format as you need (e.g. immediately after importing the data), independently of the way the data was generated. > > This has been an issue with spread sheets long before Libreoffice was > created. > I have always wondered why this switch wasn't available, someone has > actively chosen to set ut up to actively remove decimal zeros. I assumed at > some point it would just occur as a format option. It _is_ a display format option. The problem is that the action of importing data is separated from the action to set the display format of that data. For the purpose of importing data and immediately display it "as-is", the so called "Text" Cell format is indeed used (as mentioned before), with the caveat that "AutoCorrect" and "Spelling" tools should rather also be disabled. The various "number" (display) formats indeed set their own ways for the stored value to be displayed, immediately after the value is inserted / parsed. The so-called "Text" format instructs Calc to parse the input value "as-is" when typing-in (or when importing). There are functions that can then take that "Text" imported value and convert it to some form of numeric value to be displayed and/or calculated in a variety of formats; the VALUE() function is probably one of the oldest. The imported values should rather remain in their own columns (formatted as "Text"), and the resulting numeric values used for further calculations should be presented in separate columns. After all additional operations, the user (with the engineering context of this ticket) can also use additional formulas in order to check / test whether the results make sense in terms of relevant precision. This is also a method to check whether the software (Calc in this case) is not compromising the integrity of the data and the conclusions that can be arrived from it. In other words, the "setting" is already there; it just happens to be named "Text" (cell format); in the context of science that name is not immediately intuitive regarding the goal of importing numeric data "as-is", but it is intuitive for the generic user. BTW, the case of genome names being modified (aka "parsed incorrectly") by Excel is (in)famous. To sum up, you can import as "Text", then use the VALUE() function if needed, and format those cells with the relevant "display" decimal places. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are the assignee for the bug.
