Bug 159047 - Calc: make possible Font spacing of formula results
Summary: Calc: make possible Font spacing of formula results
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.8.0.0 alpha0+
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsDevAdvice
Depends on:
Blocks: Calc-Cells
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Reported: 2024-01-06 16:03 UTC by Timur
Modified: 2024-12-14 18:14 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description Timur 2024-01-06 16:03:58 UTC
In Writer, we can set character spacing in Character and that seems OK.
In Calc, we can also set character spacing in Character, but that works only for fixed text and numbers - not for formula results (we can space formula itself, but that is pointless if we show results).

There should be a way to set spacing also for formula results.
Could font spacing be added in Format Cells - Font Effects?
Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2024-01-06 23:09:58 UTC
+1
Comment 2 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-09 13:13:58 UTC
You mean A1 "=1234/567" should display "2 , 1 7 6 3"? What use case do you cover with character spacing on numbers? Another question is whether ODF supports such formatting.
Comment 3 Timur 2024-01-09 14:42:47 UTC
I need to fill form where digits are separated, from date on: 0 9 / 0 1 / 2 3. 
There may be an option to extract 1st, 2nd... digit.. but that is complicated, here it would be enough just to expand the result. 
This is asked as an option, of course.
Comment 4 ady 2024-01-09 16:24:42 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #2)
> You mean A1 "=1234/567" should display "2 , 1 7 6 3"? What use case do you
> cover with character spacing on numbers? Another question is whether ODF
> supports such formatting.

FWIW, formulas are usually about numbers, but not always.

Regarding the presentation of cells' content, if there is a use case and valid reason to show a different character spacing for a non-formula cell, why wouldn't be a similar use case and valid reason for the results of a formula?

The ability to change the character spacing of non-formula cells might be just a side effect, since that possibility is not a feature on the cell but on the input box of the formula bar.

So maybe the request should rather be to have the character spacing setting available (also) in the Format Cells dialogue(?). Several possible places come to mind (although, I am saying this as a common user, so from a technical POV the following might not be acceptable):

* Format Cells > Font (tab) > Features (button) 
* Format Cells > Font Effects (tab) 
* Format Cells > Alignment (tab) (which already influences related presentation attributes.

There would be still a remaining problem: how such characteristic of the_cell_ would interact with the character spacing of the input box characters, considering that the latter already influences the presentation on non-formula cells.

Additionally, there are text functions, so, it should be possible to add space (characters) in between each character of the content of another cell. It is not the same thing as the request in this report, but it is available already, and using a font that would normally have more spacing could help too.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-10 09:39:35 UTC
https://excel-dashboards.com/blogs/blog/how-to-change-character-spacing-in-excel talks about an advanced tab in the font dialog, which I don't have in MSO365, and https://excelribbon.tips.net/T012474_Changing_Character_Spacing.html says it's not possible with Excel. He suggests to use Writer, or other methods to highlight text.

From the UI POV the implementation is simply an addition to Font Effects or Alignment and wont have any negative effect on usability. But I doubt it is defined in ODF as competitors don't support this formatting (anymore). Using a font with large spacing, or even Monospace, could be a workaround.
Comment 6 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-10 09:40:40 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 7 Timur 2024-01-10 09:44:10 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #6)
> (In reply to Timur from comment #0)
> > In Calc, we can also set character spacing in Character, but that works only
> > for fixed text and numbers...
> Don't get this. Please share a STR how you set "character spacing in
> Character".

Double click in cell
Select text or content of a cell
Format-Character-Position-Spacing

That works for text and numbers, but not for numbers that are formula result.
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2024-01-10 10:15:29 UTC
(In reply to Timur from comment #7)
> Double click in cell
Confirming; the roundtrip to Excel fails.

I would support the request in this case.