[mdlug] Why is a blank cell != zero value in OpenOffice-Calc 3.5

[R KANNAN]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:56 PM, R KANNAN <rk111810 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:44 PM, R KANNAN <rk111810 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > OpenOffice Users,
> >> >
> >> > I opened an exiting (from OO 2.2)  spreadsheet in Oo-Calc 3.5 aand
> found
> >> a
> >> > lot of #VALUE in cells where I had a formula prodcing perfectly
> >> acceptable
> >> > numbers. Then I found that some of the cells where I had blanks were
> >> > considered by Oo-3.5 to be strings and that is why all these formulas
> are
> >> > failing.
> >> >
> >> > Why is a blank cell considered to have a zero numerical value. Is
> there a
> >> > global setting which does this?
> >> >
> >> > Thanks for any input.
> >>
> >> Check the cell formatting? Perhaps that may be having an impact.
> >>
> >
> > No. I tried that but did not help. I had to go to each of the blank cells
> > referred in the formulas and 'delete contents'. I probably have hundreds
> of
> > these cells in non-contiguous columns and rows.
> >
> > This sheet was perfectly fine in OO2.2 :-(
> >
> > BTW I am using Libre Office 3.5 in Ubuntu 12.04 if it makes any
> difference.
>
> If a cell is an empty string, it probably has ['] as its content.
>

Nope. All the cells where I successfully managed to fix by 'delete
contents' did not have anything.

>
> You might be able to do a search-and-replace for empty string and
> replace it with, well, not sure. Maybe some kind of scripted "for all
> cells within this range, call "delete contents" if cell is empty"
>

I have not written any macros but maybe this is an opportunity for me to
learn :-)

>
> --
> :wq
> _______________________________________________
> mdlug mailing list
> mdlug at mdlug.org
> http://mdlug.org/mailman/listinfo/mdlug
>