Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 24185
Calc munges text data that could be a date when pasted into a cell
Last modified: 2013-08-07 15:15:02 UTC
I often create a table in Writer, then paste that table into a Calc spreadsheet, so that I can use it as a data source in other Writer documents. If any one of the cells I paste in has data like this, "12-17" (without the quotes), Calc tries to interpret it as a date, and I wind up with "12/17/03", or whatever the default date format is. Selecting the relevant field and explicitly setting the formatting to plain text (right click->format cells) does not help. In fact, if I go through and adjust the formatting for every cell that has gotten munged, then paste the number range in again, it will get reformatted as a data again, despite the fact that I am pasting the exact same data into the field as it already there. In my particular case things like "10-17" are page or verse ranges, used when citing a reference. As soon as I get outside of possible date ranges (e.g., "107-145"), Calc stops munging things.
Hi Falko, please have a look at this feature in addition with 22345
FT: I understand the pain this might cause. But this is no issue for OO.o 2.0. But this issue cannot be solved by creating another now exception from the rule. If a user inputs data as text Calc will always try to interpret it. If the user wants to change this he has to format these cells beforehand explicitly to "Text".
I must not have made this clear in the original posting: EXPLICITLY SETTING THE CELL FORMAT BEFOREHAND DOES NOT CORRECT THE PROBLEM. OOo will *still* munge the fields, since they look like they *could* *be* dates. I think it would be much better of OOo ignored all possible formatting on fields that have been set to "Text".
Case closed.
Why have you marked this as closed? It is certainly not resolved... the issue remains, pasting into multiple fields, even when they are explicitly marked as text fields, not date fields, causes data munging. Something like 10-12 becomes the date October 12th {Current Year}. Changing the formatting of a field, and munging data even when the user has explicitly set the type to text (presumably in order to prevent munging) when data is pasted does NOT seem like acceptable behavior to me. Can someone explain why it would be considered acceptable?