Google Sheets currently does something rather obnoxious if you type a number such as 15.5 into a cell - it converts the number into 15/05/2020
I have a sheet file with lots of prices filled in, but every now and then I see these dates pop up... I can't do arithmetics with those dates, and using the "format" command to turn them into money numbers yields crazy stuff, 43.966,00 for example (from the number above)
Is there a workaround for this?
tl;dr - I need the floating point numbers which resemble dates to not become dates when inserted into a cell.
edit:
I didn't include all the information at first, so here we go:
The issue is not only typing in values, I'm actually reading a .csv file and inserting it into sheets via python's pydrive.
The workaround must not be something manual, I'd like my numbers to "show up" correctly in sheets without further manipulating the file.
In Brasil sheets (because of Portuguese i assume) the comma is used as the decimal, not the period. So instead of writing 15.5 you need to write your numbers like 15,5
You can change that by changing the locale of the sheet to somewhere that uses traditional decimal points.
Related
Libre office - Version: 6.4.7.2
My Libre office Calc is set to recognize numbers that are this format:
“10,12”
My problem is that my data is like this:
“10.12”
Libre thinks that it is a text when I enter.
How I can convert it into the number?
Sorry if this is supposed to be in the comment instead of answer, but I don't have enough reputation to do so...
Assuming you normally use comma as your decimal separator, then the solution you need is here (The article is written for Excel, but it works in Calc too.
):
Convert European Number to US (or vice versa)
The short answer is to use the formula:
=NUMBERVALUE(A2,".",",")
This assumes your data is in A2. Modify accordingly.
IF, however, you ALWAYS want to use period for your decimal separator, then you need to check your settings.
Tools --> Options
Language Settings -> Languages
Decimal separator key: check Same as locale setting (assuming your locale is using . as decimal separator).
In an ionic 3 app I am currently trying to get a floating point number as user input. Since the application is exclusively targeting a german audience I am expecting input with a comma as the decimal separator, e.g. 750,5.
In addition I would like to open the numerical keyboard.
I tried including an input field with type="text". I parsed the resulting input string using a custom parsing method, which respects the different decimal separator.
Since the input field has a two way binding and the application might change the number itself I convert the number to a string using the Angular decimal pipe like so:
numberString = new DecimalPipe('de').transform(value.count, '1.0-2');
That worked well, however the app always opens the full alphanumerical keyboard.
To show the numerical keyboard I used the input field with type="number".
<ion-input type="number" step="any"></ion-input>
Using this, the numerical shows as expected. However the input field now includes thousand separators. For example if I type 7500, the input field displays 7,500 using the English decimal separator.
Now I am not sure where this problem is caused but the app itself seems to be running under an English locale although the device is set to German. I expect the problem to be solved by setting the web view locale to German. How could I achieve this?
I have huge amounts of raw data that are separated by columns. All is well when i import these to Matlab except for the fact that I just saw that the excel files contains different formats for the dates.
One series (i.e 3 days, 1 row or each hour gets 3x24 rows) have its' dates in the format "mm/dd/yyyy" which neither excel or matlab recognizes as proper dates.
I've tried solving this problem in different ways. First i tried to just highlight the cells and use the function format cells, but this didn't work since excel doesn't see them as 'cells' but rather as 'text'.
Then i tried the Text to columns function which didn't work either (delimited or fixed width).
Im really stuck and would appreciate some help with this.
In Excel:
If cell A1 has a string like mm/dd/yyyy then try this:
=DATE(RIGHT(A1,4), LEFT(A1,2), MID(A1,4,2))
In Matlab:
=datenum(yourDateString, 'mm/dd/yyyy')
Select the desired range to fix and use this script:
Sub bulk_Date_fix()
on error resume next
Set d_ranged = Selection
For Each a In d_ranged
a.Value = Split(a.Value, "/")(0) & "/" & Split(a.Value, "/")(1) & "/" & Split(a.Value, "/")(2)
Next
on error goto 0
End Sub
How it works: The above script loops through all the cells in the selected area and splits out the various attributes of a date based on the "/" symbol.
I examined your file and you will need to go back to the source data to straighten this out. Instead of "opening" the file in Excel, you will need to IMPORT the file. When you do that, the text import wizard will open, and you can then designate the date column as being of the format DMY (or whatever format is being generated by the source).
The problem is that there is a mismatch between the format of the file, and your Windows Regional Short date format. If you look at Row 229, you will see that real dates are present, but out of sequence with the rest.
Excel parses dates being input according to the Windows Regional Short Date settings. If the date doesn't make sense, according to that parsing (e.g. month > 12) , Excel will interpret the date as a string; if the date does make sense, it will be interpreted as a date in accordance with that windows regional date component order, and this will be different from what is intended.
So the first few hundred dates are strings, but at line 229, the date, which is probably meant to be 12 OCT 2014, gets changed to 10 DEC 2014. This will happen in other areas where that value in the 2nd position is 12 or less.
EDIT: I am not certain of the variabilities inherent in using XL on the MAC. In the Windows version of XL, the "text import" feature is on the Data Ribbon / Get External Data Tab:
When you click on that and open a text file, you will see the Text Import Wizard, and when you get to Step 3, you will be able to specify the text format of the data to be imported:
A web form collects data on students in a band organization at school. The form data is fed into a google sheet that then populates a merge template and the merged forms are emailed to the recipient. A parent needs to print, sign and turn in the forms. There are hundreds of kids in this band and at registration time when the forms are turned in it is easier to sort all the papers in the stack if you have a short sort number in the corner... Volunteer kids don't apply alphabetization well. I'm trying to create a formula that will give me that sorting number to merge onto the header of each page of the PDF they receive after submitting the form. I want it based on last name and then first name and be able to create that number (in the google sheet) on the fly because the merging happens almost instantly when the user submits the form. Hence, an excel type formula is desired that will result in a number representing the kids name. I'd like for each number to be unique but some names are the same for the first few letters, also some names are only 2 characters long. I tried making A=10, B=11, z=35 etc. (so all are 2 digits) So, using only the first 3 characters, Bob Jones would = 192423112411 - hardly easy to sort the paper at a glance and it doesn't really differentiate between Bob Janes either. 4 digits is preferable. I also looked at =code() formula and it came out with long numbers too. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Side note: What method do spreadsheets use to sort text? Do they weight the characters or what? Before I got the automerge thing to work I assigned each kid in the list a number higher than the one below and lower than above (on the sheet), then did the merge.
One option is to:
sort the name list alphabetically
add a sort number column, and put a =TEXT(row(),"0000") formula to generate a unique ID
on the merge spreadsheet, use a VLOOKUP function to retrieve the unique ID for that specific name.
First off, that wall of text was kind of hard to read through. Please try and do a little formatting so the people trying to help you can easily follow what you're trying to convey.
Personally I would suggest a hyphenated system. First initial of last name converted to a number, followed by a hyphen, followed by the first two letters of their first name converted to numbers.
Bob Jones becomes 11-1956 assuming you differentiate between upper and lower case, or 11-1924 if you convert everything to upper case, which I guess makes more sense.
You could use this VBA function to convert names to a system like that:
Function ConvertToIndex(strInput As String) As String
Dim strLast As String
Dim arrName() As String
Dim strFirst1 As String
Dim strFirst2 As String
arrName = Split(strInput, " ")
strLast = Mid(arrName(1), 1, 1)
strFirst1 = Mid(arrName(0), 1, 1)
strFirst2 = Mid(arrName(0), 2, 1)
ConvertToIndex = Asc(UCase(strLast)) - 55 & "-" & Asc(UCase(strFirst1)) - 55 & Asc(UCase(strFirst2)) - 55
'MsgBox ConvertToIndex
End Function
Thank you Tim, Nutsch and Mad Tech for your responses. I appreciate your input. Sorry the paragraph was so long, I get wordy. Because the members get their merged PDF sheet immediately after submitting I need the number to be based on the name as soon as it's entered, not after the fact; so I was looking for a formula that would reside in the sheet. Interesting VBA function too though. I'll settle for numbering them afterwards, maybe when the sheets are turned in. By then I'll know all who are in the band and can assign numbers like before. Thanks again!
I'm trying to do a simple mail merge in Word 2010 but when I insert an excel field that's supposed to represent a zip code from Connecticut (ie. 06880) I am having 2 problems:
the leading zero gets suppressed such as 06880 becoming 6880 instead. I know that I can at least toggle field code to make it so it works as {MERGEFIELD ZipCode # 00000} and that at least works.
but here's the real problem I can't seem to figure out:
A zip+4 field such as 06470-5530 gets treated like an arithmetic expression. 6470 - 5530 = 940 so by using above formula instead it becomes 00940 which is wrong.
Perhaps is there something in my excel spreadsheet or an option in Word that I need to set to make this properly work? Please advise, thanks.
See macropod's post in this conversation
As long as the ZIP codes are reaching Word (with or without "-" signs in the 5+4 format ZIPs, his field code should sort things out. However, if you are mixing text and numeric formats in your Excel column, there is a danger that the OLE DB provider or ODBC driver - if that is what you are using to get the data - will treat the column as numeric and return all the text values as 0.
Yes, Word sometimes treats text strings as numeric expressions as you have noticed. It will do that when you try to apply a numeric format, or when you try to do a calculation in an { = } field, when you sum table cell contents in an { = } field, or when Word decides to do a numeric comparison in (say) an { IF } field - in the latter case you can get Word to treat the expression as a string by surrounding the comparands by double-quotes.
in Excel, to force the string data type when entering data that looks like a number, a date, a fraction etc. but is not numeric (zip, phone number, etc.) simply type an apostrophe before the data.
=06470 will be interpreted as a the number 6470 but ='06470 will be the string "06470"
The simplest fix I've found is to save the Excel file as CSV. Word takes it all at face value then.