Last March 2014, I started using LibreOffice Suite ( particularly calc ) version 4.1.5. After the usual learning curve, I transferred from Excel and everything worked. My dates are largely in "dd-mmm-yyyy" format for most of these spreadsheets. Like Excel, I could simply enter the info by typing on the fly: 19Sep14 The date would automatically parce itself as: 19-Sep-2014 This was convenient and something I just took for granted these 20+ years. This weekend I downloaded version 4.4.5.2 and I was expecting the usual little sniggles and fits, including having to redo most of my borders, which was fine. But when I went to add new information to a sheet, the auto-parcing feature for the dates didn't work. I played around with the thing for a couple hours, but nothing doing. For the date entry to 'take' now, I must enter my dates much more precisely: 19-Sep-14 ( nearly the full monty ) Something dropped out in the more recent version, I guess. This is minor, but could probably be a quick reset for the sleeper versions, since it worked before. Thank you. I really like LibreOffice, even though it's going to be awhile before I get the hang of writing macros in calc; it's quite different than Excel to be sure.
Hi buddymakesdo, Please take a look at Tools > Options > language settings > Languages .. "Date acceptance patterns" I think that gives you the options you need. Also pls consider going here http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/community-support/ for additional help. thanks, Cor
Thank you for the explanation and the reference. I can now understand what went 'off' and why the programming changed in this manner, so that internationally, it would be more flexible to local standards. I played around with it and also read more online, but I was still unable to effect a change back to its [former] behaviour. So, instead of just typing in "Sep15" to yield "Sep-2015" or "13Sep15" to yield "13-Sep-2015" I have to separate the elements with a dash or a space. It's an adjustment in my behaviour, but okay. Thanks for looking at it for me. Buddy
Thanks for your feed back. I would have expected that your 13sep15 would also have been covered by the options. But no. Glad you can adapt your habits here. And from me, dd-mm Enter converts to the date with current year in the format that is set for the cell too. Best - Cor
Oh, one PS: when filing an issue normal use of capital (see your summary) is encouraged ;)
(In reply to Cor Nouws from comment #4) > Oh, one PS: when filing an issue normal use of capital (see your summary) is > encouraged ;) OK Cor, lol Used to forums and reporting systems where use all caps One other thing: as with any changes, there's going to be things 'dropped out' and things 'added' too. I was a little bummed out by the dates thing, but it's a minor adjustment, but I was delighted to discover yesterday that a feature I liked with Excel was now present in this version of Calc, the [Ctrl]+Ditto button for copying / pasting data from the cell immediately above. When I first started Calc, it was not an available feature, but in this version, it works. This is going to save a LOT of time. I'm really liking the open source alternatives to MS products...now I just have to somehow 'reprogram' myself to do Basic macro codes, since few of my excel macros transferred over OK and the lingo seems foreign. Thanks for listening, Buddy
thanks for your friendly and encouraging words :)