Bug 147520

While using the AutoFilter on Calc I came across an issue where the filter was not being applied as expected. For example, choosing a specific entry by marking it in the AutoFilter would show other similar (but not exact) entries. At first I thought this was a bug, which led me to create the report bug 147475.

After some discussion in the bug report, I found out that the option "Search criteria = and <> must apply to whole cells" was disabled and enabling it solved my problem.

However, I had no idea that the option "Search criteria = and <> must apply to whole cells" would change the way the filter works in AutoFilter. I always thought this option only applied to database functions, as stated in the help page [1], where it says that the option "Specifies that the search criteria you set for the Calc database functions must match the whole cell exactly."

There's no information about this option being applied to the AutoFilter. The same goes for help pages [2] and [3] that should mention the effect that this option may have.

So I'm opening this bug report to suggest updating these Help pages.

[1] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.3/en-US/text/shared/optionen/01060500.html?System=UNIX&DbPAR=CALC

[2] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.3/en-US/text/scalc/guide/autofilter.html?DbPAR=CALC#bm_id3156423

[3] https://help.libreoffice.org/7.3/en-US/text/scalc/01/12040100.html?&DbPAR=CALC&System=UNIX