Bug 131653 - Add 'Calc A1 | Excel A1' to Formula Syntax options and make it the default setting
Summary: Add 'Calc A1 | Excel A1' to Formula Syntax options and make it the default se...
Status: RESOLVED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.0.7.3 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2020-03-28 21:48 UTC by Richard
Modified: 2020-03-29 18:37 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Calc document demonstrating the issue (8.32 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet)
2020-03-28 22:36 UTC, Richard
Details

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Description Richard 2020-03-28 21:48:01 UTC
Libreoffice uses a dot ('.') to reference cells on other sheets, e.g. 

'Sheet 1'.A1

Excel does not support this syntax, but instead uses an exclamation mark ('!') like so:

'Sheet 1'!A1

This means documents produced in either system which reference other cells are incompatible. This enhancement request is for LibreOffice Calc to support both syntaxes to improve portability of documents.
Comment 1 V Stuart Foote 2020-03-28 22:06:42 UTC
Excel syntax is provided as a Formula Option

Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice Calc -> Formula -> Formula Options -> Formula Syntax and choose 'Excel A1' for reference you prefer.


=-ref-=

https://help.libreoffice.org/7.0/en-US/text/shared/optionen/01060900.html?&DbPAR=WRITER&System=WIN
Comment 2 Richard 2020-03-28 22:15:38 UTC
Hmmm, I think the reason I thought this didn't work was because it doesn't seem to work for references in an INDIRECT statement.

With the setting 'Excel A1' enabled, 

='Sheet 1'!A1

works, but

=INDIRECT("'Sheet 1'!A1")

does not, but 

=INDIRECT("'Sheet 1'.A1")

does actually still work
Comment 3 Richard 2020-03-28 22:36:04 UTC
Created attachment 159107 [details]
Calc document demonstrating the issue
Comment 4 m_a_riosv 2020-03-29 17:42:15 UTC
Have you set up properly,
Menu/Tools/Options/LibreOffice calc/Formula - Detailed calculation settings - Reference syntax for string references.
Comment 5 Richard 2020-03-29 18:16:01 UTC
No, indeed I haven't, in my defence, this is a pretty obscure setting!

With this setting, it works, I note that this setting has an option 

'Calc A1 | Excel A1'

which worked for me and made all versions work in the example I attached earlier. It would be nice if this was the defualt, if there's no major technical reason not to. It would also be nice there was such an option in the other option (Tools -> Options -> LibreOffice Calc -> Formula -> Formula Options -> Formula Syntax) and that this option was the default setting. My final change to this report will be to switch it back to an enhancement request, for this.
Comment 6 Richard 2020-03-29 18:19:40 UTC
p.s. thanks everyone for your patience.